Mattis vows not to repeat past mistakes in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has vowed that the Trump administration will not repeat the “mistakes of the past” in Afghanistan, after the president signalled a desire to give the Pentagon wide latitude in setting warfighting policy.

But given Afghanistan’s violent history and the fate of successive presidents’ efforts to score some sort of victory there, analysts are not confident of Mattis’s chances of longterm success.

Unlike his predecessor Barack Obama, who kept battlefield commanders on a tight leash and scrutinised each deployment, President Donald Trump has deferred to top brass – the men he likes to call “my generals.”

Though Trump has said little about Afghanistan, this week he gave Mattis authority to set troop numbers there at whatever level he sees fit, a decision finalised as the Pentagon chief told lawmakers America is still “not winning” against the Taliban.

The Pentagon is reportedly considering deploying an extra 3,000 to 5,000 troops – some of whom would come from Nato allies – in Afghanistan to help train and advise local forces fighting the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

“This administration will not repeat the mistakes of the past,” Mattis declared Wednesday.

“We cannot allow Afghanistan to once again become a launching point for attacks on our homeland or on our allies,” he said, alluding to the former Taliban government’s granting haven to Al-Qaeda before the Sept 11, 2011 terror attacks in the US.

Nearly 16 years after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan, and after successive administrations have tried different troop levels and engagement strategies, observers are skeptical.

“If all we are doing is tinkering around at the margin of a strategy that amounts to ‘Muddle through and hope for a miracle,’ then 3,000 to 5,000 troops are not going to make a difference,” Stephen Biddle, a professor at George Washington University and an Afghanistan expert, told AFP.

Currently about 8,400 US troops are in Afghanistan along with about 5,000 Nato forces. Additional troops would allow the Western advisors to work with more Afghan combat units, though the locals would still be doing the actual fighting.

Mattis stressed that his new approach on Afghanistan, to be presented to Trump by the middle of July, will have a broader “regional” emphasis and not be beholden to any timelines.

After sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2009, Obama drew heavy criticism for subsequently announcing when they would withdraw.

“That was a huge strategic mistake,” Bill Roggio, an Afghanistan expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, told AFP.

Obama had been elected on a pledge to end US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and faced pressure to promise that new troop deployments would be temporary.

“The international community is going to have to hold with it, and when we reduce, we reduce based on conditions on the ground, not on an arbitrary timeline,” Mattis told lawmakers. — AFP