The present controversy over the elections in Afghanistan recalls the dilemmas Washington faced in Vietnam when Ngo Dinh Diem, whom the Americans had helped establish as president, no longer appeared as a reliable and effective partner. They then decided to get rid of Diem, but this merely led to a period of greater instability and eventual defeat.
The ghost of Vietnam keeps appearing in the debate over NATO’s role in Afghanistan. It also haunts the background of Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, for Holbrooke began his career in the State Department as an aid-worker in South Vietnam in 1963.
As a young, ambitious official, Holbrooke helped develop the ”hearts and minds” strategy in Vietnam, writes his former boss, Rufus Phillips, in his recently published book Why Vietnam Matters. Development in the villages rather than raw military power was to win the people’s confidence in the battle against the Communists. Holbrooke was in the Mekong delta when the US ambassador, Henry Cabot Lodge, decided it was time to remove the South Vietnamese president, Ngo Dinh Diem.
Diem had become uncooperative and authoritarian, he led a corrupt but weak state and had started to talk about negotiating with the enemy. He also had a corrupt and obstinate brother who exerted considerable influence on him. In October 1963 Cabot Lodge informed the Vietnamese general Duong Van Minh that Diem was no longer desired as president. This led to a military coup in which Diem was shot and thrown into the back of an army vehicle. Later Lodge said the intention was not to kill Diem. He was only to be deposed because the country needed a new president.
Rigid fronts
It is hardly necessary to remind Holbrooke of the parallels with present strife around Hamid Karzai. Also the Afghan president is accused of corruption and of being uncooperative, and he presided over the rigged elections in September. Karzai has a problem brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is said to be deeply involved in the narcotics trade. Like Diem, Karzai originally had the decisive support of the Americans, who helped install him after 2001 in the expectation that he would be a nationally unifying figure.
Relations cool
At that time the UN special representative Lakhdar Brahimi and the Americans cooperated in making Karzai the leader of the transitional government, which formally was elected by the traditional Afghan assembly (loya jirga) in 2002. The US special representative, the Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad, made it clear that neither the king, Zahir Shah, nor any member of his fraction were acceptable candidates. With support from Brahimi, Khalilzad announced that the king had withdrawn his candidacy, even before the king himself had the opportunity to do so.
Karzai was clearly the Americans’ candidate in the 2004 presidential election. Washington allocated an extra billion dollars ahead of the election to show that Karzai could open the aid faucet in the service of reconstruction and peace-building. In the months prior to the election school buildings shot up like toadstools, roads were tarmacked and wells drilled. Much of it was done too fast. School roofs collapsed and those that were left standing often lacked both teachers and textbooks.
This was the beginning of the end of the cooperation between Karzai and Washington. Like Diem, Karzai started to criticise his powerful benefactors. He disagreed with Washington’s military strategy (too many civilian casualties) and state-building strategy (too much interference). Not surprisingly, he began to build another power base founded on local alliances and tribal politics. This created even greater distance in the relationship, and when Obama became president, things went from bad to worse.
Opposing strategies
What lessons does Holbrooke draw from the US experiences with Diem now that he has a stubborn President Karzai to deal with? The time for military coups and assassinating unpopular clients has probably passed. Instead accusations of election rigging are used to eliminate or at any rate marginalise Karzai. Holbrooke is said to prefer a new round of elections. His colleague, Peter Galbraith, who has worked closely with Holbrooke and was placed by him in the UN Kabul office under Kai Eide, has argued e that all election fraud should be exposed even if, as expected, this would mean that Karzai’s days in the presidential palace are numbered.
In the State Department, on the other hand, there is more doubt and more support for Kai Eide’s line that more and direct intervention can create bigger problems. The consequence of removing Diem in 1963 was indeed less stability. Military coup followed military coup to produce sustained chaos. The idea that direct intervention is difficult, often has unintended consequences and frequently delegitimises the new regime, is now gaining ground in established political circles in Washington.
Abortive efforts
The”minimalists” in Washington, as they are called, note that the military escalation and foreign-supported statebuilding in Afghanistan so far have not attained the desired results. On the contrary, the deepening foreign presence has created a bigger and tougher insurgency, has cost billions of dollars and many American lives (as well as the lives of others). It has led to a proliferation of unclear aims, contributed to widespread corruption and a president the Americans can no longer control.
The time has therefore come to use “smart power”, the critics say. The Americans can use rockets and special forces against a smaller group of international terrorists now on the Pakistani side of the border. The Taliban insurgency, state-building and “winning hearts and minds” are matters the Afghans themselves must deal with. International aid can make a contribution but not govern this process. That is simply too complicated.
Well-known figures among the minimalists are politicians and intellectuals whose views were shaped by the Vietnam War. Senator John Kerry – who is rapidly moving in the minimalist direction – fought there as a young soldier, afterwards becoming a strong critic of the war. Leslie Gelb, a well known commentator, advisor, journalist and for a long time head of the influential Council on Foreign Relations, worked in the Pentagon under Robert McNamara’s management of the war in Vietnam and developed a certain scepticism towards intervention as an instrument of power. An increasing number of Democratic senators are looking towards the congressional elections next year and realize that the shadow of Vietnam grows ever longer over the debate on the war in Afghanistan. Vice-President Joe Biden as made clear he favours a minimalist role. On the right he has the support from relatively moderate conservatives such as the columnist George F. Will.
Bad experiences
On the other side are General McChrystal, among others, who argue for a greater and wider engagement with more foreign troops, a broad “hearts and minds” strategy and more international support to ensure a stronger Afghan state and better governance.
Holbrooke himself is not saying much right now. He is known to be an activist and a directive leader. On the other hand, he has lived through the experiences of failed attempts to do just that in Vietnam. When Obama put him in charge of Afghanistan-Pakistan, he e-mailed his old boss from the Vietnam period: ”Afghanistan is tougher than Vietnam”.
This article originally appeared as ‘Eide og Holbrooke i skyggen fra Vietnam’ in Bergens Tidende, 27 09 09.
Translated from Norwegian by John Meyrick.
