Tag: Afghanistan
Next week’s “peace picks”
Good stuff, especially early in the week. Heavy on Johns Hopkins events, but what do you expect?
1. Strengthening the Armenianj-Azerbaijani Track II Dialogue, Carnegie Endowment, October 17, 10-11:45 am
With Philip Gamaghelyan, Tabib Huseynov, and Thomas de Waal
With the main diplomatic track negotiating the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh apparently deadlocked, more attention is being focused on how tension can be reduced and bridges built through Track II initiatives and dialogue between ordinary Armenians and Azerbaijanis.
Mohamed Salah Tekaya, Tunisian ambassador to the United States; Tamara Wittes, deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and deputy special coordinator for Middle East Transitions at the U.S. Department of State; Mohamed Ali Malouche, president of the Tunisian American Young Professionals; and Kurt Volker (moderator), managing director of CTR, will discuss this topic. For more information and to RSVP, visit http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2279443878/mcivte
4. Mexico and the War on Drugs: Time to Legalize, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, held at Mount Vernon Place, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute, to be held at the Undercroft Auditorium, 900 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. October 18, noon
Mexico is paying a high price for fighting a war on drugs that are consumed in the United States. More than 40,000 people have died in drug-related violence since the end of 2006 when Mexico began an aggressive campaign against narco-trafficking. The drug war has led to a rise in corruption and gruesome criminality that is weakening democratic institutions, the press, law enforcement, and other elements of a free society. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox will explain that prohibition is not working and that the legalization of the sale, use, and production of drugs in Mexico and beyond offers a superior way of dealing with the problem of drug abuse.
To register for this event, email events@cato.org, fax (202) 371-0841, or call (202) 789-5229 by noon, Monday, October 17, 2011.
Monday, October 17, 2011
7:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
1957 E Street, NW
5. Revolutionary vs. Reformist Islam: The Iran-Turkey Rivalry in the Middle East, Lindner Family Commons, room 602, 1957 E St NW, October 18, 7:30-9 pm
Ömer Tapinar, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Hadi Semati, Iranian Political Scientist
Mohammad Tabaar, Adjunct Lecturer, GW
The Arab Spring has brought Iran and Turkey into a regional rivalry to sell their different brands of Islam. While Tehran is hoping to inspire an “Islamic awakening”, Ankara is calling for a “secular state that respects all religions.” The panelists will discuss this trend and its influences on domestic politics in Iran and Turkey.
The Middle East Policy Forum is presented with the generous support of ExxonMobil.
This program will be off the record out of respect for its presenters.
RSVP at: http://tinyurl.com/3ntfx9o
Sponsored by the Institute for Middle Eastern Stuides
PS: I really should not have missed this Middle East Institute event:
Troubled Triangle: The US, Turkey, and Israel in the New Middle East, Stimson Center, 1111 19th St NW, 11th floor, October 18, 4:30-6 pm
The trilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel and the United States has deteriorated in recent years as Israel’s and Turkey’s foreign policy goals in the Middle East continue to diverge. Despite repeated attempts, the United States has failed to reconcile these two important regional allies since the divisive Mavi Marmara incident in May 2010. Please join us for a discussion of this critical yet troubled trilateral relationship in a time of unprecedented change in the Middle East. The discussion will feature Prof. William B. Quandt, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Professor of Politics at University of Virginia, Lara Friedman, Director of Policy and Government Relations and Gönül Tol, Executive Director of MEI Center for Turkish Studies, and will be held on October 18 at the Henry L. Stimson Center.
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Karzai may have it right, but it will cost him
It isn’t common or popular in Washington to say nice things about Hamid Karzai, but I confess I find his statement yesterday that he intends to refocus peace talks on Pakistan rather than trying to negotiate with the Taliban refreshing. Afghans have long believed that they are really at war with Pakistan, which uses the Taliban as a proxy. I first heard this perspective from a national security advisor to Karzai the better part of a decade ago. Is it realistic to negotiate with Pakistan, reaching an agreement that would then require Kabul and Islamabad to impose the consequences on the Taliban who remain in their respective countries?
Of course we won’t really know until it is tried, but the proposition is reasonable. Administration sources are now claiming that outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs Mike Mullen exaggerated the degree of Pakistani control over the Haqqani network. But there is no doubt but that the Haqqani network harbors in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. The Pakistani Army has certainly not done all it could do to pressure them there or to chase them out into Afghanistan, where it could be hoped the Americans and Afghans would deal with them.
Can Karzai do anything to convince Pakistan to undertake an operation to oust the Haqqani network from North Waziristan? I think he can, but it will require that he do something no Afghan leader for the past 100 odd years has been willing to do: recognize the Durand line that is the ostensible border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, established in 1893 between British India and an Afghan Amir.
Talking to another national security advisor in Kabul some years ago, I asked why Afghanistan would not do this. The answer was chilling: Afghanistan did not want to close off options for future generations. In other words, someone in Afghanistan harbors irredentist ambitions in the Pashtun-populated parts of Pakistan. I’ve told this story before, but somehow the Durand line never gets any attention in DC, so I’m telling it again.
Giving up the vanishingly small hope of reuniting the Pashtun population within a greater Afghanistan would appear to cost Kabul little at this point. It should be much more worried about whether the Pashtuns might be reunited in a greater Pakistan, or even in an independent Pashtunistan. Pakistan claims to have accepted the Durand line. Afghan acceptance of it, and a bilateral agreement to demarcate it, would go a long way to removing one serious irritant and give the Pakistanis good reason to try to tidy up their side of the border.
PS: Those who doubt the importance of the Durand line might want to read what the “tribal elder from Paktika has to say to the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).
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The friends we need in Islamabad
If all roads lead to Islamabad, which one do we take to get out?
Max Boot says we have to begin treating our “frenemies” in Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate the way we do Iran’s Quds force in Iraq:
Apply economic sanctions against its vast range of business interests. Limit the travel and freeze the assets of its leaders, starting with its current head, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha. A designation of the ISI as a formal state sponsor of terrorism might also be in order. No doubt the Pakistani military would react angrily to such steps, but many civilians in Pakistan—including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani—who chafe under heavy-handed military dominance might quietly welcome them.
Vali Nasr understands the temptation, but urges that we make nice anyway, in order to keep to our 2014 date for drawdown from Afghanistan:
Confrontation with Pakistan presents Washington with a dilemma that will make leaving Afghanistan harder. If the United States truly wishes to change Pakistani behavior for the greater good of the region, then Washington has to be prepared to do what it takes to get that job done. That includes potentially keeping large numbers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan indefinitely to protect that country against the fallout from our policy and to convince Islamabad that it is futile for Pakistan to pursue its own goals in Afghanistan.
But if our goal is to leave Afghanistan in short order, then the prudent course of action is a return to stability in U.S.-Pakistan relations. That would have to start with ending the recent public acrimony but also confronting head-on what Pakistan is after in Afghanistan.
This is as sharp a policy choice as diplomats ever face. Which option is the right one?
Neither Max nor Vali discusses the issue I would regard as paramount: Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Nothing about Afghanistan–even our withdrawal–is more important than making sure they do not threaten the United States. This could happen if the Pakistani government were to fall under extremist control or if Pakistan were to transfer nuclear technology or materials to people who would use them against the United States. For those who think that unlikely, it is important to remember that Pakistan’s A. Q. Khan already transferred sensitive technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea in the 1990s.
It seems to me that what we need to ensure our interests are protected is a two-pronged approach. We should isolate and target (I would say even with military means) those who insist on supporting the Haqqani network and other Taliban forces, as Max suggests. At the same time, we need to make nice, as Vali suggests, to both civilians and military in the Pakistani government who understand the responsibilities of a nuclear power and are prepared both to cut off support to extremists and ensure that Pakistan’s weapons and technology remain under tight control. We will also have to provide Pakistan with assurances on limiting the role of India in Afghanistan and with a role in any peace negotiation there.
It is no easy matter to make these distinctions. What if we don’t find reliable civilians and military in the Pakistani government willing to opt unequivocally against extremism? Then, as Vali suggests, full withdrawal from Afghanistan becomes impossible and we’ll need to hunker down for a long confrontation across the Durand line that marks the border with Pakistan. That is an unattractive proposition that should make us try all the harder to find the friends we need in Islamabad.
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All roads lead to Islamabad
The commentariat is rarely as unanimous as it has been on the assassination of Barhanuddin Rabbani: Dexter Filkins, Marvin Weinbaum, Anand Gopal, Alissa Rubin and others (including Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network) all agree that it will set back hopes for a negotiated agreement with the Taliban.
This despite the fact that the Taliban have not rushed to take credit for the assassination. Jihad Watch terms them “oddly quiet.” While no one seems to know why, the guessing focuses on differences of opinion within the Taliban, some of whom may want to pursue negotiations.
That suggests to me that the gloom about negotiations may be overdone. In a study published before the assassination, James Shinn and James Dobbins come an interesting conclusion in their primer on Afghan Peace Talks:
Close examination reveals that the priorities of all the potential parties to an Afghan peace process overlap to a considerable degree. For instance, each desires a withdrawal of Western armed forces—a situation especially desired by the publics in all of the Western countries. All Afghans want foreigners to stop interfering in their affairs. All foreign governments want assurances that Afghan territory will not be used to their disadvantage, whether by third parties or the Afghans themselves, and thus want to ensure that terrorists hostile to their countries cannot use Afghanistan as a sanctuary.
The problem of course is that it is not clear what the Taliban are prepared to do about terrorists, with whom at least some of them are allied. The killing of Rabbani is likely to come from sectors of the Taliban most tightly linked to international terrorists, who will want to do everything they can to prevent a negotiated settlement.
I would certainly expect a moment of hesitation in pursuing peace talks. Who is going to be brave enough to replace Rabbani, or meet the next time with a delegation that supposedly comes from the Taliban? Who among the Taliban would want to take the risk? Violence of this sort has consequences.
But they need not be permanent. The Americans clearly need a negotiated settlement as they begin to head for the exits. President Karzai wants one too, especially after the spectacular attacks on his allies and half brother in recent weeks. The remnants of Al Qaeda will want to continue fighting, as will some of the Taliban. But the prospects of civil war, so obvious to the American commentators, should be obvious to the Taliban too. Are they willing to test their mettle again in a war with the Tajiks, Uzbeks and others who once constituted the Northern Alliance, this time heavily armed and supported from the air by the Americans?
Taliban decisions on this question will depend heavily on whether they can continue to rely on their Pakistan safe haven. As Admiral Mullen at long last made clear in testimony yesterday, Islamabad is very much part of the problem. We are clearly going to have to figure out how to diminish Pakistani support for Haqqani network operations inside Afghanistan if a negotiation with the Taliban is going to succeed.
PS: For a well-informed view of splits in the Taliban, see Michael Semple’s piece on the Haqqanis in Foreign Affairs.
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Rashomon beyond borders
I finished jury duty yesterday, acquitting a guy who was observed by an undercover policeman conducting a drug transaction. The twelve jurors reached agreement in less than an hour.
I went home the night before convinced after hearing the prosecution’s case that we would convict the guy. The policeman said he had seen the accused transfer $25 worth of cocaine and PCP to another person in broad daylight on a Washington, DC street corner.
Yesterday, the defense put the accused on the stand, where he said he was an addict trying to buy, not sell, when he realized the transaction was being observed. He therefore aborted the transaction, asked for and received his money back without receiving the drugs, which were found in a search of the other guy.
None of the jurors was sure this defense account of events was true, and for all I know it is a standard ploy to claim to have been buying when you are accused of “distribution,” which the judge explained requires transfer to another person (not necessarily for payment). But there was no compelling evidence the story was false. Had the policeman seen the tiny packets (“zips”) of drugs transferred? Not really, but he claimed that he saw the second man pick something unidentified out of the accused’s cupped hand.
So here you have two different versions of the same events, with the rules heavily weighted in favor of the defense: the government was obligated to prove the distribution of illegal drugs “beyond a reasonable doubt.” None of us on the jury thought that standard had been met.
It struck me as we proceeded through the careful choreography of a DC courtroom how really very difficult it is to administer justice this way. Jurors randomized, judge impeccable in explaining the law and protecting the integrity of the process but not commenting in any way on the truth or falsity of the allegation, machine to make consultations at the bench inaudible, jurors disciplined about not discussing the case outside the jury room, prosecutor and defense attorney clearly well-educated and experienced.
It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a privilege to have your crimes judged in this fashion, though the drug-addict accused is unlikely to have been grateful. His court-appointed attorney told me after the trial he did not think the guy would take advantage of the big break the jury had given him.
All this for a $25 offense? I still don’t know why the government bothered to prosecute this case, but I imagine they were convinced he was a much bigger fish than he appeared in court.
Which raises the much more important question of how and why Troy Davis was convicted in Georgia when there was no physical evidence and most of the witnesses changed their stories after the conviction, several claiming the police had pressured them to testify as they did. I can’t say Troy Davis was innocent, but was he guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”?
The world was watching the Troy Davis case. Were I still a U.S. diplomat, I would find it hard to explain the execution of someone about whom there was even a sliver of reasonable doubt. The issue for me is not so much the moral one, which should be more important to those who believe government is an inefficient and ineffective mechanism to do just about anything and therefore inherently untrustworthy. The issue for me is doing something irreversible (and, by the way, frighteningly expensive, as capital cases chew up a lot of resources) when there is no physical evidence. Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable.
The United States makes a lot of effort these days to promote “rule of law” abroad–it has been a major part of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ours is such an expensive and difficult system to administer that it gives me pause to ask poorer and less well educated countries to imitate it. But the execution of Troy Davis gives me even greater pause, even if both Iraq and Afghanistan are devotees of capital punishment. Can they really be expected to do any better than we do in eliminating the possibility of executing someone who is innocent? What is the example we are setting?
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Only time will tell
I’ve been busy lately reading articles about how dumb various (but mostly American) negotiators are. If only the diplomats would do some pretty simple things, serious conflicts would be readily resolved.
A former Iranian nuclear negotiator suggests the Americans and Iranians just have to put aside the threats and pressure, then talk nicer about issues of common interest and things will improve. Ahmed Rashid wants us to listen more carefully to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who says he does not intend to monopolize power in Afghanistan. And we could achieve peace in Israel and Palestine if the Palestinians would just recognize Israel, and Israel would provide a few factories to the Palestinians.
This last one is the easiest to debunk. There hasn’t been a problem with Palestinian recognition of Israel since Arafat did it almost twenty years ago. The problem is that Israel is now demanding recognition as a Jewish state, something that the UN General Assembly already did in its partition resolution. And of course Israel has not recognized Palestine, or allowed it to establish clear borders. The notion that economic development will satisfy the Palestinians in the absence of a political solution is nonsense.
Listening carefully to Mullah Omar is a good idea, but I confess his Eid message did not fill me with hope. Here is what he actually says about negotiation:
The Islamic Emirate considers the presence of the foreign invading troops in the country; their blind-bombardment, night raids, their brutalities; tortures and tyranny as the main cause of the current imbroglio in the country. The issue would come to an end when the said brutalities are meted out. Similarly, IE [Islamic Emirate] considers [the] establishment of an independent Islamic regime as a conducive mechanism for sustainability of religious and worldly interests of the country and the countrymen. For this purpose, every legitimate option can be considered in order to reach this goal. The contacts which have been made with some parties for the release of prisoners can’t be called as a comprehensive negotiation for the solution of the current imbroglio of the country. However, the Islamic Emirate, as an efficient political and military entity, has a specific and independent agenda in this regard which has been elucidated time and again.
Yes, he leaves the door open to future talks, but he also goes on to make it clear that the Taliban will only stop fighting when the occupation has ended. We can be certain Mullah Omar’s message was carefully parsed inside the State Department and the U.S. intelligence community, where its ambiguous character will not have excited too much enthusiasm.
As for Iran, it makes sense to reduce the trash talking and to focus on issues where there may be some common interest, but the hard kernel of disagreement is over nuclear weapons. Making nice and solving some other issues isn’t going to make that one go away, and the time delay could even make it more difficult to solve.
So yes, we do need to make sure we understand our adversaries, deal in a pragmatic way with them and leave no stone unturned in the search for peaceful resolutions of these issues. But it is a whole lot easier to kibbitz from the sidelines than to play the game for real. When the guys calling for more stridency are also the people deciding your budget, there is an inclination to go strident. When the Taliban are as ambiguous as Mullah Omar in his Eid message, listening really does get hard. And when your critics are misunderstanding the problem, it is easy to write them off.
There is one sign of hope in all these cases: the Americans are maintaining radio silence. Iran guru Dennis Ross, Afghanistan lead Marc Grossman and whoever is acting in George Mitchell’s place (Hoff? Feltman?) on Israel/Palestine are suspiciously quiet. Maybe that’s because there is nothing to say. Or maybe it’s because negotiations are quietly producing fruit. Only time will tell.
PS: I’m not the only one less impressed with Mullah Omar’s message than Ahmed Rashid.
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