Can Obama end the crisis in confidence?

Obama’s announcement on new Afghanistan military commitments scheduled for after the Thanksgiving holiday has been heralded by his Administration as offering what it takes to “get the job done”. Obama wants to signal an end to the crisis of confidence about U.S. commitment in Afghanistan. But equally he will need to confront lack of confidence around the world that his foreign policy for Muslim countries in conflict will be different from U.S. Presidents who have gone before him.
To be convincing, Obama will have to prove there is a change in mindset and a willingness to treat countries of the region as genuine equal partners, and not as consumers of U.S. decisions and strategies. In terms of mindset, we all need to accept that the future security of Afghanistan will be determined more by what the people of Afghanistan and neighboring countries want, rather than by the United States or its NATO allies. This is the clear message of President Karzai’s inauguration speech of November 19 2009.
Thus, the accepted wisdom of the need for “Afghanization” must be accompanied by an invigorated policy of “regionalization”. While The United States and its allies must not surrender in the fight against violent extremism in Afghanistan or elsewhere, the United States must quietly but firmly surrender its ambitions to political leadership in the bid for pacification of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. It must pass the torch, and it can afford to do so.
In no violent conflict since 1945 have so many powerful state and non-state stakeholders been involved as directly on the same side. Therefore the United States finds itself managing unusual geopolitical terrain (an oversupply of political support) at a time when its own government departments and armed forces are facing difficult transitions and serious challenges (an undersupply of domestic capacity). It is the first military campaign led by the United States since 1945 that is sympathetically supported all P-5 members of the UN Security Council.
A new security strategy for the region around Afghanistan would have to include Iran and the Gulf states like the UAE and Saudi Arabia. It would need to deliver an innovative formal grouping of the major external actors and the regional countries. The new strategy would need to enumerate and address all of the security dilemmas and development needs of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. It is probably inevitable that the potential offered by fostering the rapid maturing of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and/or the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) will be a dominant feature of this strategy.
The United States and their political allies need to create a standing Council (heads of State and international organizations) that will represent a more genuine partnership between the United States, Europe and Muslim leaders. It might comprise the UN Secretary General (as chair), Afghanistan, Pakistan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, the OIC Secretary General, the Aga Khan, the United States, the European Union, Russia, China and India.
For now, Iran would have to be half-in, half-out. However impractical that sounds, it could be managed.
This would not be a war council for Afghanistan, but rather a political stabilization council for the South and West Asia regions. It would need to be far more political than the Alliance of Civilizations approach. It would need to be much more than a Contact Group.
The Council would devise, fund and execute a clear set of complementary action plans for these regions in their entirety. Specific measures may need to be packaged separately to overcome the complex of bilateral sensitivities in the regions. These measures could include a Muslim Peace Corps building on various youth initiatives of the Organization of Islamic Conference.
If we are to have confidence that Obama has turned a new leaf toward the Muslim world, then we need to see Obama’s acceptance that the Afghanistan campaign in the regional war against violent extremists– a campaign mandated by the UN Security Council – need not be an American-led war. This “jihad for peace” cannot be led by a non-Muslim.