Time for an Afghan Surge

The runoff elections may be the last best chance to come up with a plan for Afghanistan. Trouble is, the Obama administration is looking for answers in all the wrong places.

BY FABRICE POTHIER | OCTOBER 22, 2009

After arm-twisting in the eleventh hour, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accepted a runoff election with his rival, Abdullah Abdullah. This is a face-saving move for both Karzai and the international community, but a runoff is unlikely to address the reality that many Afghans see Kabul as part of the problem. What happens the day after the election will be more important. It will be the last opportunity for the United States and the new Afghan government to define a political strategy to win the trust of the people and to buy precious time in the face of growing Western discontent.

The Taliban will soon start their winter campaign of political consolidation and intimidation. It is urgent that the United States and its NATO allies match that with a political surge of their own. Progress can be made on two fronts: by launching a massive Afghan civilian surge through the regional capitals and municipalities, and by announcing a two-year security transition plan whereby indigenous security forces will take over security tasks by 2012, starting with symbolic and stable areas like Kabul and the West and moving to more complex ones.

The August elections marked the ugly but necessary death of the 2001 Bonn process; when international and Afghan leaders first met after the ousting of the Taliban to draw Afghanistan's new political contours. The spirit of Bonn was based on short-term political expediency, mistakenly included warlords and closed the door to elements of the Taliban, and never summoned enough investment from the international community. Unsurprisingly, the fragmentation and privatization of state power has only accelerated since 2001, thanks to a mix of greed, opium money, and a lack of meaningful international oversight.

The power brokers in Kabul have sold governorships and police and judicial appointments, sometimes for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and used them to further their own private interests in the provinces. According to a group of independent Afghan electoral observers, the Aug. 20 fraud was orchestrated by the very local clients who owed favor or positions to the main candidates, especially those who have been in government. The result of years of neglect and impunity has been a governance vacuum in which Afghans across the country have been left stranded between local power brokers and warlords, the Taliban, and the international community. What little most Afghans see of local government -- mostly through their experiences of province and district governors and police chiefs -- convinces them that it is a presence to be feared, avoided, or bribed. The massive electoral fraud has only reinforced popular disillusionment with Kabul and the West.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

 

Fabrice Pothier is director of Carnegie Europe, the Brussels-based foreign-policy forum of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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EE72

11:46 PM ET

October 22, 2009

ANA responsibility

ISAFs TLSR programme already does this with Kabul having been transitioned to an Afghan security lead.

 

LH

8:01 AM ET

October 23, 2009

Good point

But I wouldn't really hold Kabul up as a shining beacon of security. The transfer of authority to the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) has only resulted in a focus on quality of attacks over quantity (Serena hotel, multiple ministry simultaneous attacks, ISAF HQ the day before the elections, etc). The inability of both ISAF and the ANSF to secure Kabul is one of the reasons Afghans in more remote areas choose to align with insurgents.

 

LH

7:56 AM ET

October 23, 2009

Ignorance or deliberate deception?

I am trying to ascertain if this article is either A) based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the history of the region or B) a deliberate attempt to mislead and influence readers.

The epic failure of the Afghan government was predicted, even if largely ignored, by a number of individuals before, during and after the Bonn process, and it does not take a PhD to figure out why. The only system that has ever brought any type of relative peace to Afghanistan is one in which local and regional concerns are addressed above those of the central government. The ideas of a "strong executive" and "strong national institutions" are antithetical to the way society has organized in the region for centuries. Assuming 10 years of foreign intervention could have any affect on these long established traditions demonstrates the hubris that has come to infect US and European foreign policy.

A surge of Afghan government officials this late in the game (and the unavoidable corruption, extortion, bribery and patronage that comes along with such a surge) will only serve to reinforce the lack of trust most of the nation has for its "government." The concept of the new government of Afghanistan has proven to be a faulty one, and the evidence of the new government's failures can be seen all throughout the country. The only hope at this point is to start from beginning.

One can only hope the runoff election turns out to be a bigger farce than the first, forcing another constitutional crisis resulting in another Loya Jirga, with representatives from all across the "country" (I use that word loosely, as Afghanistan has never had any real national identity) coming together to determine the way forward. We wrote the last constitution, which has proven to be a failure of epic proportions, why not let the Afghans write their own this time, or better yet, why not let them decide if they even want a constitution before we go forcing it on them? Self-determination is the first step toward national unanimity, so how can Afghans (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Baluchis and everyone else) establish any kind of national identity when they are largely both excluded from and coddled through the self-determination process?

Afghans deserve the right to choose for themselves, and the current monstrosity that is the Afghan government does not afford them the opportunity to do so. A surge of Afghan government officials throughout the country will only serve to remind the people of this unfortunate situation and foment discord amongst the populace.