Afghan Success and GWB

The Bernoulli Effect comments on an article in the Wall Street Journal about the amazing, quiet successes in transforming Afghanistan from a warlord-riven basket case of chaos into something with a glimmer of hope for a brighter future.

One key point from the article is:

Today [Ismail Khan], the man once dubbed "the Lion of Herat" sits behind a near-empty desk in Kabul fingering amber worry beads and signing documents. He is the country's minister of power, but the only warmth in his shabby suite comes from a glowing space heater. His days as a mujaheddin commander are over, he says.

Mr. Khan has made the journey from feared warlord to bland bureaucrat thanks to the Bush administration's gradual, flexible strategy for reconstructing Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban government in 2001. Rather than trying to force radical change overnight, the U.S. has been patient. It has avoided confrontations with tribal elders and warlords -- letting them until recently keep their private militias and weapons and even paying the salaries of their fighters -- while building a credible central government in Kabul.

Well, how about that?

Today the former commander spends his days signing purchase orders for new generators and puzzling over how to increase electricity production in a country where only an estimated 6% of the population has regular power. He has given up pursuing armed jihad, he says, for a different type of struggle.

"Jihad is not only war; it is not only fighting. Jihad means making life better for the country. There is no need to fight right now in Afghanistan," he says.

With such a transformation, Bernoulli Effect poses the rhetorical question,

Whatever happened to the blizzard of stories about the brutal torture of British soldiers, and the numbing quagmire that mired the Soviets?

Yeah, remember how hysterical the media was back then? With the calls for a cease-fire in Ramadan, and Nervous Nellies yelling "quagmire!" in week 3, and TV "experts" opining that the military would have to first invade and take over an area the size of Rhode Island, in 6 months to a year, before any real action could start?

Well to answer the question, I might hazard a proposition, that Mr. Khan, a warrior from birth, is acting like someone who was made an offer he simply couldn't refuse. In other words -- and here is the crucial point! -- with the re-election of GWB, the proposition that one could either get paid to "go with the flow", or else the B-52s would show up and pulverize his militia, while an AC-130 would personally terminate him in a hail of high-speed cannon fire of various calibers.

Even if they'd ultimately turn out to be wrong, one can't help but think things would be going less smoothly as the warlords would inevitably have attempted to test the boundaries of the Kerry administration's tolerance.

And one can't help but think there would be at least a non-zero chance they'd find that going along with the Schadenfreude of failure and defeatism would play well in some domestic political circles.