Afghanistan Strategy: Look to Iraq, circa 1979
July 28th, 2009 at 23:18

A subtle shift has been going on in the war with Afghanistan, apparently. The politicians in America and Britain are talking less about the need to turn the country into a vibrant multi-party democracy, like they’ve been trying to do with Iraq, and have been talking about “stability” instead. Obviously this is because they’ve realised that turning Afghanistan democratic is going to be really difficult, so have instead redefined the challenge. After all – a draw is a bit like a win, but with less people getting a bit upset.

How to achieve this then is the question now. Sir Mickey White over at The Guardian made an interesting suggestion to this end today:

Kabul needs a tough, tightfisted central ruler who can manage the warlords and promote such basics as trade, clean water, and – we’ve moved on since 1485 – education for girls

He’s arguing that Afghanistan needs a Henry VII. And whilst this is a good idea, is a bit impractical, what with Henry having been dead for about 500 years. Though this did make me think of another leader who could do this job, who has a proven track record, and will provide an authoritarian, yet stable government:

Saddam Hussein.

Unfortunately he too has been dead for a few years now, but just think what wonders he could have done for the original war on terror, if they’d had the foresight to keep him alive and given him a new country to play with. He’d have made the perfect President of Afghanistan.

When Saddam was in charge of Iraq he ruled with an iron fist, but managed to hold together a country made up of a patchwork of tribes, ethnicities and interests that’d been cookie-cuttered out of the map by a pencil drawing artificial borders. Sound familiar?

What’s more is that Saddam would have been the perfect consensus candidate. The west need someone they can work with, and they’ve a long history of working with Saddam throughout the 1980s, and Saddam would’ve never dreamed of working with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, having been mutual enemies whilst he was leader of Iraq. It’s not even as though he’d be a puppet of the west in the eyes of the Afghan people, as he’s got a well-known history of standing up to and opposing the Americans, and it’s fairly unlikely that he’d introduce western concepts like “democracy”.

When Saddam became Iraqi Prime Minister, under President Bakr, before he became President and sort of ballsed up a few diplomatic matters, he did some relative good for thte Iraqi people too, nationalising the oil industry, creating a buoyant middle class. Maybe he could do the same for Afghanistan’s economy and boost trade just like Michael White says it needs – after all, he has some industry contacts: specifically the French arms industry and the Russian nuclear industry.

As Iraqi President, Saddam ruled Iraq as a secular government, perhaps because he was in the Sunni minority – not that this would be a problem in Afghanistan as it’s 85% Sunni. He also ran Iraq as a highly centralised state – another item on Michael White’s list, and another key component of holding the country together.

The best bit of this would have been that there’d be no chance of Saddam going a bit mental and starting wars like he did before – Afghanistan’s armed forces are – as is my understanding – a couple of guys with AK47s and some paper planes. So he’d pose no threat to international security, as was alleged during his first go at running a country.

I think the Pentagon missed a trick here.

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