Red lines drawn

The audience for the President’s speech last night on the Strategic Partnership agreement with Afghanistan was the American electorate, but the agreement itself is more interesting for the messages it sends to President Karzai, the Taliban and the Afghan people.  In part it sets out American red lines, that is limits beyond which the Washington is not prepared to go.  There are also some Afghan red lines, drawn to hem in the Americans.  What are they?

Here’s a sample extracted from the text:

Afghanistan reaffirms its strong commitment to inclusive and pluralistic democratic governance, including free, fair and transparent elections in which all of the people of Afghanistan participate freely and without internal or external interference….Afghanistan reaffirms its commitment to protecting human and political rights…Afghanistan reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that any kind of discrimination and distinction between citizens of Afghanistan shall be forbidden…Afghanistan shall ensure and advance the essential role of women in society, so that they may fully enjoy their economic, social, political, civil and cultural rights.

These clauses are clearly intended to limit what can be agreed in the talks with the Taliban, as well as to fence in Karzai.  No selling out women and minorities.

Contrary to what some have claimed, the agreement does not cover the status of U.S. forces, which continues under existing agreements until a new one is negotiated, with a goal of doing so within a year. The existing agreements are to remain in force until the new one is negotiated, which is good since the one-year goal may not hold.

The agreement also sets out some Afghan red lines. The United States

…reaffirms that it does not seek permanent military facilities in Afghanistan, or a presence that is a threat to Afghanistan’s neighbors. The United States further pledges not to use Afghan territory or facilities as a launching point for attacks against other countries.

The “permanent military facilities” is a bit of a sop, since the U.S. claims none of its overseas bases are permanent. They just tend to stay around for a long time. Afghanistan will have sought the pledge about launching attacks to reassure Pakistan and Iran, but “pledges” are less than complete commitments, and of course Afghanistan can always agree (overtly or covertly) to such operations.

The U.S. says it will try to get money for the Afghan security forces year by year.  No amount is specified, but it is likely to be a few billion.  The U.S. also says

…it shall regard with grave concern any external aggression against Afghanistan.

If someone attacks, the Afghans get consultations to decide on an appropriate response. This is pretty thin gruel, far short of a mutual defense pact.

There is some handwaving about regional cooperation, but the language is aspirational and the proof can only come with the pudding. Ditto the stuff on economic cooperation, including the fight against corruption, drugs, money laundering and organized crime.

The U.S. pledges to put 50% of its aid through the government and to align 80% with Afghan priorities. Those would have been decent goals years ago:  a lot of our aid goes directly to U.S. contractors and grantees and never enters the government’s field of vision.  Try running a country without knowing what your biggest donors are up to.

The agreement sets up a bilateral commission, which is standard operating procedure.

If this is all it takes to get us out of the longest war in our history, we’re lucky.  It will likely be enough to get us through the NATO Summit in Chicago next month, which was one of the purposes of getting it signed now.  Beyond that, there are a lot of uncertainties, but at least we’ve got some red lines drawn, on both sides.