Friday News Analysis — October 19, 2018: Attacks in Afghanistan & Questions about Strategy; What Iranian Terror Plots Tell Us; and Stories You May Have Missed
This week, with much of the attention on the midterms and the campaign trail, we dive into two overseas stories warranting attention. First, we look at not only the attack in Kandahar that narrowly missed the U.S. commander in Afghanistan and killed a key Afghan police general, but also what questions we must consider about our strategy and goals in Afghanistan. We also look at why Iranian intelligence targeted a rally in Paris and the danger of miscalculation with various Iranian factions in play. Finally, we wrap with some stories that you may have missed.
A Brazen Attack in Afghanistan and More Questions than Answers
Dan Mahaffee
On Thursday, a gunman killed three provincial officials in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. One of those killed by the gunman, who was part of the Afghan security detail, was Abdul Raziq, a general of the Afghan National Police who was considered one of the most powerful leaders in southern Afghanistan. The attack also narrowly missed U.S. Army General Scott Miller, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. There are conflicting reports from Afghanistan on whether or not General Miller was a target of the attack, as well as whether the gunman missed him or General Miller’s body armor protected him.
General Raziq was considered one of the most fearsome enemies of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, as well as key connection between factions in the south and the Kabul government. Though the general had a mixed record on human rights — with concerns about police abuses in and around Kandahar — he was a vital Afghan leader in the fight against the Taliban. This attack is a vivid reminder of how the Afghanistan War continues to fester, with no end in sight.
The attack has also prompted a one-week delay for that province’s polls in the upcoming parliamentary elections. These upcoming elections, the fifth since foreign intervention in 2001, raise more uncertainty about the health of a political system that seems to govern less-and-less of its country with each passing day. Combined with the ongoing conflict, now in its seventeenth year, it is time for hard questions about U.S. strategy in that conflict and the future of Afghanistan.
As doubts about the political stability of Afghanistan persist, it is legitimate to wonder if the initial political goal was beyond the military and diplomatic capability the United States and international partners were willing to bring to Afghanistan. The original 2001 Bonn Conference created a central government and parliament for a nation that had a history of tribal warlordism and weak central governance. Even if American attention had not turned to Iraq in 2003, it is hard to say whether there would be the security and development commitment necessary to build that political system. The United States had no appetite for the institutional effort and bureaucratic rebalancing that would be required to win a decade long battle to unite a fractured state. One former U.S. commander in Afghanistan described the conflict to me as “not one fifteen-year war, but fifteen one-year wars.” Absent the willingness to post troops in a neo-colonial, years-long posting, each rotation of forces was leaving just as it had developed a “feel” for the politics, people, and terrain.
Now, there is even less of an appetite for continued intervention in Afghanistan. The longest war in our nation’s history, at seventeen years, the War in Afghanistan may soon be joined by U.S. servicemembers younger than the war itself. The public has increasingly soured on the conflict, and a voluminous number of leaks has demonstrated President Trump’s exasperation with the conflict.
The United States does have an obligation to those who have worked with us in Afghanistan, yet we also must ask ourselves whether our continued involvement is in our national interest. To deny Afghanistan as a sanctuary for al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadist groups is one level of reasonable commitment; to shepherd a flawed, and likely impossible, political construct is something entirely beyond that. A limited involvement can ensure our security. The ultimate future of Afghanistan, however, will be determined at the negotiating table, not on the battlefield.
New Details on Iranian Bomb Plot in Paris
Michael Stetcher
Last Friday, the Washington Post reported new details of a bomb plot in Paris foiled by European police and intelligence authorities. The plot involved a pair of of Belgian residents of Iranian descent who were given explosives by an Iranian intelligence official and instructed to detonate a bomb at a rally in support the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK) in Paris in July. The Iranian official who is accused of serving as the couple’s intelligence handler — including meeting with them in Luxembourg, assigning them their target, and delivering the explosives — had been a high-ranking official in the Iranian embassy in Vienna and is suspected of being the station chief for the Iranian intelligence service there. He was arrested at a gas station in Germany and extradited to Belgium to face possible prosecution. The Belgian authorities allege that his diplomatic immunity in Austria does not protect him from criminal prosecution because he committed crimes and was arrested outside of Austria. For their part, the Austrian government has also revoked his diplomatic status.
The MeK sit at a fascinating nexus of Middle Eastern politics. Despite a leftist-Islamist political ideology, a history of terrorist activity, and support for Saddam Hussein, they are very popular among members of the Trump administration for their virulent opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Despite some terrifying allegations of human rights abuses and cult-like behavior, the group has won influential friends in the West, especially among advocates for regime change in Iran. Since 2003, the MeK has worked diligently to rebrand itself as a pro-democracy organization that is dedicated to replacing the repressive regime in Tehran with one committed to human rights and free elections
John Bolton, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, and Rudy Giuliani, his outside counsel, have long been boosters for the group. Giuliani, in fact, was a keynote speaker at the rally that was targeted in the bomb plot. The Guardian reports that many of the people who attended the rally had no authentic connection to the group and were bused in from Eastern Europe and given a free weekend in Paris by the MeK’s financial backers.
As the Washington Post points out, terrorist activity directly managed by the Iranian intelligence service (as opposed to regional proxies like Hezbollah) ebb and flow for reasons that are not always immediately obvious. In 2011, an Iranian-American was arrested for trying to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States at a restaurant in Georgetown. Last year, German authorities arrested a Pakistani man working on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who was scouting Jewish and Israeli targets for possible attacks. In August, the FBI arrested two Iranian nationals who had surveilled a Jewish organization and two MeK-sponsored rallies.
Several sources reported to the Post that there has been an uptick in the operational tempo of Iranian activities in recent months. It might be tempting, then, to imagine that this is a response to the increased pressure from the United States and its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. If that is the case, though, it does not make much sense that Iran would pick a target in France. If Iran wanted to drive a wedge between the United States and the European countries who still support the nuclear deal, planning a bombing in the capital of one of those countries seems like a bad strategic decision.
The Iranian political system is complex and opaque. President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif speak in public in support of the nuclear deal and pursue what could be construed as a normal foreign policy. But they are not the only power structure in the country. The intelligence services and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are believed to be substantially more hawkish and risk-acceptant. They also have their own direct links to the clerical leadership around Supreme Leader Khamanei. Those organizations might want to pursue a more confrontational path, possibly in response to intra-regime power struggles that are largely invisible to outside observers. If this is the case, however, it demonstrates one of the ways that Iran remains a major threat to the United States: if regime elements succeeded in their attack that targeted a senior presidential advisor, it would spark a major international crisis that could result in armed conflict. If those elements undertook that action for domestic political reasons (and possibly without the buy-in of the entire government), it could mean that the conflict that arose was viewed by both sides as undesirable, but difficult to manage or defuse.
One final interesting note about this particular incident: the Trump administration has been oddly quiet about it. The State Department issued a statement and the National Security Council tweeted support to the French government, but, despite the presence of many Iran hawks in the administration, there have been no presidential pronouncements or major public remarks about the incident. There may be diplomacy going on behind the scenes between the United States, France, Germany, and others about how to proceed and shape a new Iran strategy in the aftermath of American withdrawal from the nuclear deal.
Stories You May Have Missed
Honduran migrant caravan continues despite Trump’s threat to cut foreign aid
Katherine Atherton
A Honduran caravan consisting of more than 2,000 migrants is headed towards Mexico and the US southern border. They are continuing their journey through Guatemala after President Trump threatened to cut funding to the region which has experienced continued violence from civil wars in the 1980s. The United States has given El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, also known as the Northern Triangle, billions of dollars in aid over the past decade. The Mexican President-elect, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said that Mexico will offer jobs to Central Americans fleeing the lack of opportunity and rampant violence to discourage them from continuing their migration to the US. These threats from the Trump Administration come as no surprise as this same rhetoric was used last spring when another caravan reached the border which led to the family separation policy.
Russian Orthodox Church Officially Breaks from Constantinople
This week, in an actual news story from 2018, the Russian Orthodox Church declared an end to their unity with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, considered first-among-equals of the leaders of the Eastern Orthodox churches. The cause of this split was the Ecumenical Patriarch’s decision to recognize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as independent from Moscow. The Ukrainian Church has sought this recognition for decades, but the invasion and illegal occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 added urgency to the request. The role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate descends directly from the establishment of Constantinople by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 330 CE and its role survived the capture of the city by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. This legacy of Byzantine power has caused friction as many Russian leaders throughout the centuries have chafed at this lower religious position. The view that Orthodox Russia were the heirs to Constantinople and thus the “Third Rome” best summarized in a letter from a Russian monk to the Grand Duke of Muscovy in 1510: “Two Romes have fallen. A third yet stands. A fourth will never rise.”
