Keane Sees Success in Afghanistan

In a recent interview on Fox News, retired General Jack Keane highlighted the U.S. military's successes in the fight against the Taliban.

Retired General Jack Keane was one of the architects of the surge in Iraq. He spoke with Fox News’ Bret Bair last night.

And while Keane didn’t explicitly declare victory (no doubt because there’s still a lot of fighting to be done in Afghanistan, and U.S. troops will be needed there for many years to come), he did say that there has been a dramatic turnaround; and that our military gains in Afghanistan are now “not reversible”'

Keane: We have turned the momentum to our favor very significantly in the south. In Helmand Province, where we began operations about a year ago, and also in Kandahar Province, where we began operations this summer with the addition of the surge forces…. And the results are these:

• One …we own the territory that the Taliban used to own in those two provinces. That’s very significant.
• Secondly, we’ve taken out their logistical infrastructure. By that I mean: they had scores of IED factories and hundreds of caches of ammunition, supplies, and weapons. The people helped us find those.
• And the third thing is just that: [This] is very significant because the people are now aligned with us.

They’re gonna try to come back (the Taliban [I mean]) -- in March, and in the spring, to be sure. But we’re in the very places that they used to be. And they’ll have to fight us to get back in.

They’re not going to make it. And they don’t have the infrastructure to support them.

Baier: …You seem more confident this time than I’ve heard in a long time.

Keane: I definitely am. I looked at it very closely. And I did these assessments for Gen. Petraeus in Iraq in 2007 and 2008. I had my eyeballs on that one very close[ly]. And I’m convinced that this momentum has changed to our favor. It’s not reversible.

I mean, the commanders aren’t going to say it’s not reversible until the Taliban try to come back and [are] defeated…

Baier: Briefly: You’re optimistic?

Keane: I am now.

One reason Keane’s optimistic is that “the Afghan National Security Forces, and particularly the Army, are [proving to be] an effective fighting force.” (The police, he concedes, “still have a ways to go.”)

Moreover, says Keane, as American and Afghan troops secure regions within Helmand and Kandahar Provinces, better quality political leaders are stepping forward.

“We have considerably better local leaders… -- district governors and provincial governors -- than we’ve had in the past,” he says. That's "not too surprising. You get the area secure, better leaders are going to come forward."

Keane also is impressed with the Afghan Local Police Initiative (ALP), through which U.S. Special Forces are building a grassroots auxiliary police force. Critics complain that the ALP will spur Warlord-led militias and tribalism. Keane, however, thinks this criticism is misplaced.

This is “a creative, imaginative new program designed around protecting villagers,” he explains. These are “part-time police trained by our Special Forces [for] three weeks. But here’s the key: [they’re] selected by the tribal leaders and the elders who validate them…

“This is a program that has great promise for us. [But it’s] only gonna be used after we [have] secured the area.”

Keane is less sanguine about Obama administration efforts to engage senior Taliban leaders. “I think that [effort] is overblown,” he says. “Down the road, after we’ve made some more success, I think there is some potential for that” effort.

In the meantime, U.S. commanders are successfully engaging lower-level Taliban. Indeed, Taliban foot soldiers and lower-level leaders are crossing over to join the Afghan National Army and reintegrate into Afghan society, Keane says.

One reason for the dramatic turnaround in Afghanistan has been the drone attacks on terrorist hideouts along the Pakistan-Afghan border and within the Waziristan region of Pakistan.

These drone attacks are “disrupting [the Taliban’s] activities quite a bit,” Keane says. And “it’s given them lots of anxieties… They have to limit their activities based on those strikes. So they’re a factor.

“I mean, you can’t defeat them with those strikes, but they clearly are a factor.”

John Guardiano blogs at www.ResoluteCon.Com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @JohnRGuardiano.

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