Day: March 11, 2013
Listen to Karzai
The American press is so anxious to parse what Afghan President Karzai said Sunday, and to interpret it as anti-American, that it is hard to find an actual text. This is the closest I’ve found, not surprisingly from the Australians.
What is Karzai saying, and why? There are two basic assertions:
- Taliban attacks keep the US in Afghanistan;
- the US and the Taliban are concerting against the Afghan state.
The first is unquestionably true and often asserted by Americans. If the Taliban had stopped attacking, the US would have drawn down its forces in Afghanistan long ago. In the negotiations over the post-2014 security agreement, the Americans are arguing that a substantial residual presence is still needed after 2014. The reason for this is the inability of the Afghan forces to deal with the Taliban. As Karzai put it:
It is their slogan for 2014, scaring us that if the US is not here our people will be eliminated
The more the Taliban attacks, the more apparent it is that Afghan security forces cannot control the situation and that NATO (including US) forces are still needed.
The second is the more dubious proposition, but it is important to look at the situation from Karzai’s perspective. Karzai suspects the Americans are dealing with the Taliban outside Afghanistan, while the Taliban continue to refuse to deal with him. If his premise is true, it is not such a big leap for him to conclude that the Americans and Taliban are colluding against him.
So are the Americans and Taliban talking outside Afghanistan? Official Americans deny it. I’d be surprised if the denials are completely true. The CIA maintains a major role in the fighting in Afghanistan. All that kerfuffle over Afghan forces not under Kabul’s control has been denied by the US military. But I’d put good money on the existence of Afghan forces under CIA command.
Whatever its role inside Afghanistan, the CIA would be less than diligent if it were not also pursuing “reconciliation” with at least some Taliban. Inside Afghanistan this has likely become difficult. Karzai won’t allow it, because he is trying to get the Taliban to deal with him. So is it so unlikely that the CIA has contacts with the Taliban outside Afghanistan and is trying hard to win over at least some of them to giving up the fight? Of course this is not the same as colluding with the Taliban to undermine the Afghan state, but it might have that effect, or appear to have it from Karzai’s perspective.
In any event, listening to Karzai tells us something important about what is going on in Afghanistan: he and everyone else is adjusting to an Afghanistan where the Americans will be less important and the Taliban more important than for the last 12 years. He needs somehow either to weaken the Taliban (hence the accusation that they are conspiring with the Americans) or neutralize them (hence his own willingness to negotiate with them, even as he tries to block the Americans from doing so).
Of course we react badly to the assertion that we are conspiring with the Taliban against a government we have supported with more than 2000 lost lives (including at least a dozen CIA). But we also need to recognize what Karzai knows: we have fought this war in our own interest, mainly to counter al Qaeda rather than the Taliban. As we draw down, the temptation to make a separate peace with as many Taliban as possible will be great, but Karzai cannot be expected to share our pleasure in it if he is cut out of the deal.
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Peace Picks: March 11-15
A few fine events as spring begins to arrive in DC:
1. Understanding Who’s Who in Northern Mali: Terrorists, Secessionists, and Criminals
Date and Time: March 11, 4:30 to 6:00 pm
Location: Johns Hopkins SAIS – Rome Building
1619 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C.
Rome Auditorium
Speakers: Eamonn Gearon, Rida Lyammouri, Michael Shurkin, Larry Velte
Description: Events in northern Mali are complex and sometimes confusing. Attempts to oversimplify the situation have resulted in much imperfect analysis. A product of both the Arab Uprisings and security concerns unique to the Sahara and Sahelian Africa, the crisis in Mali has deep, local and regional roots.While al-Qaeda steals the headlines, it is vital that we develop a better understanding of all the groups in place, as well as the distinct nature of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Labelling all parties terrorists not only confuses the picture, but also prevents any chance to create a meaningful strategy for dealing with the multi-faceted issues, both now and in the long term. Terrorists, Secessionists and Criminals will present a guide to Who’s Who of the various groups and their leaders.
Register for this event here: http://dc.linktank.com/event/understanding_whos_who_in_northern_mali_terrorists_secessionist_and_criminals#.UT13BmBU05w
2. Rising Violence in Pakistan: A Complex Challenge
Date and Time: March 11, 5:00 to 8:30 pm
Location: East-West Center
1819 L St NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036
Speakers: Najia Ashar, Nisar Ali Khokar, Abdul Ghani Kakar
Description: The story of violence and extremism in Pakistan is extremely complex, with many varying actors and motivations at play. Solutions are equally complicated and will not just involve combating militants in the frontier regions and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Please join the East-West Center in Washington for on-the-ground perspectives from Karachi, interior Sindh, and Balochistan. Veteran members of Pakistan’s media will provide unique insight and nuanced perspectives on the reports of increasing violence coming out of Pakistan; demonstrating the complexity of the challenges facing the new government that will come into office in Pakistan’s historic upcoming elections in May 2013.
Each panelist is a participant in the East-West Center’s United States-Pakistan Journalist Exchange Program and will describe the trends they are seeing as the country prepares for this important democratic political transition.
Register for this event here: http://www.eastwestcenter.org/events/rising-violence-in-pakistan-complex-challenge
3. The Rise and Decline of the American “Empire”: Power and its Limits in Comparative Perspective
Date and Time: March 12, 3:30 to 5 pm
Location: Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004
Speaker: Geir Lundestad
Description: Geir Lundestad, director and professor of The Norwegian Nobel Institute will discuss his latest book, The Rise and Decline of the American ‘Empire’: Power and its Limits in Comparative Perspective.
The Rise and Decline of the American ‘Empire’ explores the rapidly growing literature on the rise and fall of the United States. Lundestad argues that after 1945 the US has definitely been the most dominant power the world has seen and that it has successfully met the challenges from, first, the Soviet Union and, then, Japan, and the European Union. Now, however, the United States is in decline: its vast military power is being challenged by asymmetrical wars, its economic growth is slow and its debt is rising rapidly, the political system is proving unable to meet these challenges in a satisfactory way. While the US is still likely to remain the world’s leading power for the foreseeable future, it is being challenged by China, particularly economically, and also by several other regional Great Powers.
Lundestad also explores the more theoretical question of what recent superpowers have been able to achieve and what they have not achieved. How could the United States be both the dominant power and at the same time suffer significant defeats? And how could the Soviet Union suddenly collapse?
No power has ever been omnipotent. It cannot control events all around the world. The Soviet Union suffered from imperial overstretch; the traditional colonial empires suffered from a growing lack of legitimacy at the international, national, and local levels. The United States has been able to maintain its alliance system, but only in a much reformed way. If a small power simply insists on pursuing its own very different policies, there is normally little the United States and other Great Powers will do. Military intervention is an option that can be used only rarely and most often with strikingly limited results.
Christian F. Ostermann, director of the Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program will chair the event.
Register for this event here: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-rise-and-decline-the-american-empire-power-and-its-limits-comparative-perspective
4. How America’s War on Terror became a Global War on Tribal Islam
Date and Time: March 14, 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Location: Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, D.C. 20036
Falk Auditorium
Speakers: Martin S. Indyk, Akbar Ahmed, Sally Quinn, Mowahid Shah
Description: Along with the ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s global war on terror has been characterized by the use of drones. In his new book, The Thistle and the Drone (Brookings, 2013), Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Akbar Ahmed-the Ibn Khaldun, chair of Islamic Studies at American University and former Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom, examines the tribal societies on the borders between nations who are the drones’ primary victims. He provides a fresh and unprecedented paradigm for understanding the war on terror, based in the broken relationship between these tribal societies and their central governments. Beginning with Waziristan in Pakistan and expanding to similar tribal societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, Ahmed demonstrates how America’s war on terror became a global war on tribal Islam. This is the third volume in his trilogy about relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world after 9/11 that includes Journey into Islam (Brookings, 2007) and Journey into America (Brookings, 2010).
On March 14, the Brookings Press will host the launch of The Thistle and the Drone featuring a discussion on the regional, societal and humanitarian effects of the war on terrorism. Following Ahmed’s presentation, Mowahid Shah, a former Pakistani minister, and Sally Quinn, editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith,’ will join the conversation. Khalid Aziz, a leading official from Pakistan, formerly in charge of Waziristan, will offer recorded remarks via video.
Register for this event here: http://www.brookings.edu/events/2013/03/14-thistle-drone?rssid=UpcomingEvents&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BrookingsRSS%2Ftopfeeds%2FUpcomingEvents+%28Brookings+Upcoming+Events%29
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