Comparing Surges: Iraq v. AfPak

TW: Engel who has spent as much time as any journalist in Iraq and AfPak over the past 8 years compares and contrasts the Iraq surge with a potential AfPak surge. Somewhat similiar but mainly different.

From Richard Engel at NBC:
"...The situation in Afghanistan, however, is completely different[than Iraq]. There is no unified group asking for protection. There is no Afghan Awakening Movement. McChrystal, Petraeus’ man on the ground in Kabul, wants Afghans to take up arms with him against the Taliban and other militants, but many Afghans see no reason why they should. Afghans aren’t asking for American protection.

The Taliban and other militant groups are unpopular in Afghanistan, with opinion polls suggesting that the Taliban has support only among six percent of Afghans. But most people here don’t feel threatened by the Taliban in their daily lives. There are no bodies in the streets of Kabul. The Taliban mostly attacks international and Afghan security forces. They rarely carry out attacks in markets. If they kill civilians, they deny it. They are actively trying to win hearts and minds.

It makes a difference on the ground. In Baghdad and Iraqi villages I constantly saw Iraqis walk up – or even run up – to American soldiers and plead with them for help.

“I received a death threat under my door.”
“My cousin was kidnapped.”
“My brother was just killed.”
“I want a visa to so I can work with my uncle in New Jersey.”
“Help us!”

U.S. soldiers were mobbed with these kinds of requests.

This hardly ever happens in Afghanistan. Most American patrols are met with blank stares and silence. Most Afghans don’t have cousins in New Jersey. They don’t want to be like Americans.

Afghans want to be left alone. Iraqis love Lionel Richie and Oprah Winfrey. Most Afghans have no idea who they are. Afghans have a traditional society isolated for centuries by xenophobia, strict religion and the high peaks of the Hindu Kush.

The different dynamic raises the question: How do you protect Afghan people – the core of the U.S. counter-insurgency strategy – if they don’t seem to want it as much as we want to give it to them?

...So why have a surge?The U.S. military in Afghanistan says it needs to both change the long term approach to fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan and to stop the Taliban’s momentum. Momentum, like luck, is intangible – but matters. The Taliban has momentum now.

The surge may help stop the Taliban’s expansion, but it seems unlikely to create a ground swell movement that could, as it did in Iraq, quickly turn the tide of the war. The surge might help bloody the Taliban’s nose, but don’t expect it to be an Iraq-style quick fix."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33208943/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/