The new good news from Afghanistan

I’m not talking about the old good news, which focuses on progress in Afghan society:  declining infant mortality and maternal mortality, rising life expectancy, more girls in school, lots of cell phones, expanded electricity production and availability, economic growth. It has been apparent for some time that Afghanistan isn’t what it was under the Taliban and there will be serious resistance, especially in major cities and the north, to returning to that unhappy Islamist rule.  Women and their rights are especially at risk.

A State Department official told me years ago that the best thing going for us in Afghanistan is that the population hates the Taliban more.  Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless.

Today I’m talking about a more recent spate of good news:   near agreement on the rules governing the status of US forces after 2014, relative hardiness of the Afghan security forces, decent preparations for next April’s elections, and even a poll showing two reasonable presidential candidates in the lead.

It’s all relative of course.  There is still the important issue of jurisdiction over US troops to be resolved, apparently in the loya jirga Karzai is convening (next month?) to discuss the status of forces agreement.  The Afghan security forces haven’t made any real progress against the Taliban–they just haven’t lost a great deal.  Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani are certainly better than many of the other candidates, but there is still a long time before April.  President Karzai’s brother Qayum polls in third place.  Election preparations are one thing.  We’ll need to wait to see how things really work.

Of course the Taliban are planning to have their say about all these things.  They oppose the status of forces agreement, the loya jirga at which it is to be discussed, and the elections.  As Mullah Omar puts it:

…the invaders and their allies should understand that the strategic agreement will accompany grave consequences for them. Though they may get these documents rubberstamped by a fake Loya Jirga but it will not be acceptable to the Afghans. Throughout the history, the real representatives and Loya Jirgas of the country have never signed documents of slavery. So those who would sign this (document), could not be called a representative Loya Jirga of the country. Their decisions are not acceptable. The invaders should know that their limited bases will never be accepted. The current armed Jihad will continue against them with more momentum…

The votes of the people have no value in the elections nor will participation benefit. Therefore, the Islamic Emirate rejects these elections and urge the people to avoid participation in them because this is only a drama being played by the invaders to attain their goals.

So a lot now depends on the military balance.  The Americans are continuing to reduce their presence, now down to 52,000 and slated to go to 34,000 by next February.  The Afghan security forces are going to have a hard time stepping into the breach.

News of the negotiations with the Taliban has been scarce.  Given the dismal record, I’d say news coverage correlates with failure, not success.  I really don’t know whether no news coverage indicates that something good is happening.  Certainly Mullah Omar doesn’t seem to think so.  The enthusiasm he evinced in August for negotiations seems to have faded with progress on the status of forces agreement.

As cold weather sets in, the fighting season will be ending in Afghanistan.  We can expect terrorist activity in major cities, with the goal of disrupting election preparations. This will weight in favor of the agreement with the US, which will be vital to training and equipping Afghan forces as well as continuing strikes against terrorist groups.  President Karzi isn’t convening a loya jirga to reject the agreement but rather to spread the responsibility for approving it.

As the snow melts, the real crunch will come.  Will security be sufficient to allow Afghans from all parts of the country to vote?  Will there be an agreement that somehow brings at least part of the Taliban into the political process and weakens its military efforts?  Will today’s frontrunners fade as candidates with more warlord backing and clearer ethnic appeals rise in popularity, as has happened in previous Afghan elections?  Will financial resources stay in the country and seek investments, or will they leave Afghanistan with the foreign troops?

I don’t know whether to believe the new good news from Afghanistan.  We’ll just have to wait and see.