Tag: Afghanistan
A Political Solution to the Afghan War
My piece, as published this morning at theatlantic.com:
The U.S. wants a negotiated peace with the Taliban. Here are the issues we’ll face, and how they might be resolved
The timeline for U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is now clear: 10,000 troops out by the end of this year and 23,000 more out by the end of next summer. That will leave 67,000 troops, who, if all goes according to plan, will be withdrawn before the end of 2014, with a possible residual assistance force of unspecified size thereafter. That solves the military equation. But what about the political formula? How will Afghanistan be governed after we leave? Will it remain under its current constitution? What role will there be for the Taliban? How will power be shared between Kabul and the provinces? How about the most troublesome neighbor, Pakistan? What will its role be? And what can the United States do to make the answers these questions come out in a direction that does as little harm to our interests as possible?
President Obama in his withdrawal announcement last month was remarkably silent on these issues. While clear as usual that our primary interest in Afghanistan is to defeat Al Qaeda, on governance in Afghanistan he said only that it won’t be “perfect.” That is not much guidance for our diplomats and aid workers, who are looking ahead to an end-of-year international conference in Bonn expected to set the course for our coalition partners as well as the Afghans for the three years then remaining before completion of the withdrawal process.
The governments of Europe and of other coalition partners want to see political reconciliation, which has become a popular notion in the U.S. as well. Retiring Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested that the end of this year is a reasonable timeframe for negotiations with the Taliban to begin yielding results. What can we hope for by way of a political settlement? What are the options? President Obama, in his June announcement on Afghanistan, reiterated his goals for reconciliation negotiations with the Taliban: they must break with Al Qaeda, foreswear violence, and accept the Afghan constitution. The insurgent leaderships — most importantly the Haqqani network and Mullah Omar’s Taliban Quetta Shura — show little sign of feeling compelled to comply. A few days after the speech, and presumably in response, Taliban members attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, targeting Afghan politicians gathered to discuss the impending turnover of security responsibility for Kabul and several provinces to the Afghan National Security Forces. It’s clear that at least some of the Taliban will fight on for a long time, as insurgents in Iraq have done.
Some Taliban, however, may want a deal, and the German government has been hosting talks aimed at one. What might the Taliban hope to get in return for meeting something like the President’s redlines? So far, the focus seems to have been on confidence-building measures like freeing prisoners and removing Taliban from terrorist lists. Washington does not like to discuss it, but an overall political settlement will only be possible if the Taliban get something more substantial in return for whatever we get.
The options are few (and not mutually exclusive): a share of political power in Kabul, control over territory, economic benefits, and guarantees of U.S. withdrawal.
Sharing political power in Kabul is not an easy fix. The Taliban fought a ferocious civil war against Northern Alliance and other politicians who today govern in Kabul, having thrown the Taliban out of Kabul with U.S. assistance in 2001. The Islamist Taliban would want to reintroduce their version of strict religious practices, a move many in Kabul would resist. Northern Alliance, many women, secularists, and others would not want to see the Taliban back in power in Kabul. Former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah and former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh have become the leaders of this rejectionist front. It won’t be enough for the U.S. to approve Taliban political involvement — these Afghan groups would also need to go along.
Another option would be sharing power at the provincial level, especially in the more Pashtun provinces of the south and east. Afghanistan has only rarely been effectively ruled from Kabul. The Taliban could dominate politics in Helmand, Kandahar, and other provinces along the border with Pakistan, thus allowing the group its long-desired role in government without handing over all of Afghanistan. This could, however, lead to a virtual partition of the country, with the Taliban-dominated provinces becoming a de facto part of Pakistan. Some might even say this is good: it would give Pakistan the strategic depth it seeks in Afghanistan — reducing its incentives to continue meddling and promoting militancy — and prevent New Delhi from exploiting its relationship with Kabul to the detriment of Islamabad, at least in the border provinces.
There are only three economic assets of real value in Afghanistan: control over drug production and trade, control over mineral resources, and control of border crossings and transport. The Taliban already exercise a good deal of control over all three in parts of the countryside where they are dominant. We are not likely to gain enough control over drugs to interest the Taliban, who know we would not want to return any control we do gain to them. Mineral resources, to be effectively exploited, require a national mining and export framework and guarantees to foreign investors that only the government in Kabul can provide. If Afghanistan is to prosper, border crossings and transport will also need to be mainly under national control.
Finally, the Taliban have sought withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. This is a problem. President Karzai has made it clear that he would like one or more American bases to remain in Afghanistan after 2014, and talks have begun on a strategic framework that would enable American forces to stay, provided the Afghan government asks them to do so. Washington wants such bases so that it will have the capability to strike against Al Qaeda, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Taliban will fear that the Americans will use any residual presence to strike them as well as to shore up Karzai’s government.
Bottom line: the Taliban may well feel that they can get more by fighting on than by negotiating, but if they get serious about negotiations they will likely seek a share of power in the south and east, along with some representation in Kabul. Political power is likely to bring some economic benefits as well, in particular control over border crossings and transport. The Taliban would also continue to control at least some drug production and trade where they are politically dominant.
This is an unattractive proposition, especially to Afghan women and the Northern Alliance. It would most likely resemble Hizbollah’s role in Lebanon, which has been a source of regional instability in the Middle East for many years. Is there anything that could be done that would amount to more than putting lipstick on this pig?
The answer is “yes,” but it requires the United States to worry about something it has studiously ignored for many years: the Durand line, which is the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan that Afghanistan accepts but Pakistan has not.
I don’t know of any two countries without an agreed and demarcated border that live happily side by side. When I called on a national security advisor in Kabul years ago and asked why Afghanistan had not recognized the Durand line, he responded: “I wouldn’t want to foreclose options for future generations.” Pakistan is a country that lives with what it considers an “existential” threat from India to the south and east. It surely does not need another threat, however remote, on its western border. Ethnic Pashtun irredentism — the Pashtuns live on both sides of the Durand line — greatly complicates Islamabad’s challenges.
Afghan recognition of the Durand line as part of a broader deal with the Taliban would provide Pakistan with an important benefit, without depriving it of “strategic depth” inside Afghanistan. This would have to be done in a way that allows a good deal of free movement across the border, since otherwise the Taliban and other locals, who have enjoyed relatively free movement for decades, would object. But agreeing to and demarcating the Durand line would markedly improve relations between Kabul and Islamabad, enabling them to collaborate on what really counts for the United States: ensuring that their border area does not become a haven for international terrorists.
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An Arabic student and Middle East scholar
The Middle East Institute, where I studied Arabic through several levels to little avail, has kindly taken me on as one its scholars and this week published an interview covering my career and views on several ongoing conflicts. Here is what they published:
Q: Tell me a bit about your early career. What led you to government service? How did you become involved with peace-building initiatives and mediation?
A: It was all the girl’s fault. I first worked in international affairs at the United Nations, hired by the father of someone I dated in college. I had a scientific background through a Master’s degree in physical chemistry. He needed someone to deal with environmental issues — this was 1970 and we were really just beginning to think about such things. After I finished my doctorate at Princeton, the State Department hired me as a science and technology specialist, dealing mainly with nuclear and missile proliferation issues in Rome and Brasilia. I later worked energy issues and became Economic Minister, Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge’ d’affaires at the US Embassy in Rome.
I did not really get involved in peace-building and mediation until the Bosnian war, when I landed in Sarajevo in November 1994 in a plane hit by small arms fire during the landing. It’s been peace-building all the time since then.
Q: You are currently teaching at George Washington University, Georgetown University, and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. After careers devoted to both government service and peace-building and conflict resolution initiatives, why did you turn to teaching?
A: It was always my intention to teach, and over the years I have enjoyed lecturing in many different settings. It was about time that I taught my own courses. I just got my student evaluations from last term — both gratifying and humbling. The classroom is an intellectual feast and challenge.
Q: On your blog (www.peacfare.net), you have written that the US must remember that “Afghanistan matters” and the country’s fate and success lies in what the US leaves behind. What is your vision of the Afghanistan that the United States needs to leave behind and how might the US reach this goal?
A: I said in the Washington Post last July that the [US] President [Barack Obama] should specify an end state and suggested: “an Afghanistan that provides no safe haven to terrorists, ensures equal rights to all its citizens and maintains its sovereignty with international help but without foreign troops on its territory.” He seems inclined, however, to stick with only the “no safe havens” part. I think that is hard to achieve without the other pieces.
Q: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that Afghans are starting to view NATO as an occupying force, warning that NATO air strikes could lead to a national uprising in Afghanistan. In your opinion, is there potential for a large movement within the country? If so, what might this look like and what implications would this have for US-Pakistani relations?
A: I guess even Karzai is inspired by the Arab Spring, but he should remember that the protests are against local leaders, not against the US.
That said, he is an elected president who clearly is at the limit of what he can tolerate, even if you discount some of what he says as political cover. Of course, there already is a movement against the US presence — we call it the Taliban. Fortunately, most Afghans don’t like it any better than they like our presence. The way to square this circle is with more capable Afghan forces doing most of the heavy lifting.
US-Pakistani relations raise their own complex set of issues, on which I confess I am a neophyte and hesitate to comment. I would just note that whatever we think we’ve been doing does not seem to be improving the situation.
Q: With regard to the situation in Iraq, you wrote on your blog that “the US, UN and Iraqis need to get their heads together sooner rather than later on how to handle Arab-Kurdish disputes, especially as resistance to a continuing US troop presence after the end of this year seems to be strengthening.” What are the core concerns in this debate?
A: Kurds want to extend the territory of Kurdistan to include areas that they claim are historically Kurdish (especially Kirkuk Governorate), guarantee themselves a substantial percentage of Iraq’s national oil revenue, and govern themselves with minimal reference to Baghdad, especially in exploration for and production of new oil discoveries. Arabs want to ensure that Iraq is not divided, either de facto or de jure, and that oil exploration
and production is planned and operated in accordance with a national framework. The Americans don’t want Arabs and Kurds to come to blows, something that seems less likely as they are making a lot more money by cooperating than they would otherwise. I think the UN can help them find a way of untying these knots.
Q: In a March Washington Post article, you discussed the possibility of the United States earning returns on the “enormous investment” in Iraq if it becomes a “reliable, high-volume supplier of oil to world markets” and “can defend itself with only a modicum of U.S. support,” while also holding “relatively free and fair elections that put in power people who reflect the wide diversity of the population and feel real pressure to deliver services efficiently.” What can the US and Iraq do to ensure that Iraq moves toward this ideal state of affairs?
A: I’ve just finished a short brief on this subject. Here are its conclusions:
The following US assistance would reduce a number of risks to Iraqi democracy and help to create the kind of pluralistic society that will generate its own stronger opposition and state institutions:
- support to the Parliament, constitutional court, elections commission, and related civil society organizations, especially for women;
- continued military education and training;
- UN assistance in resolution of Arab/Kurdish issues;
- encouragement to export oil and gas to the north and west;
- assistance for protection of religious and other minorities;
- cooperation in designing a plan to distribute some oil revenue to citizens.
Q: In spite of reports of a tentative agreement between northern and southern Sudan, many people are skeptical about the efficacy of negotiations and the implementation of the established terms, especially with the recent seizure of Abyei. Do you believe that peaceful solutions are possible in this situation, or do you think we will see continued violence in the area, especially as we approach the proposed July 9 date for southern independence?
A: At this point I think the South is so concerned with maintaining peace and stability in advance of independence that it will do its best to avoid further problems up to and even past July 9. Diplomatic recognition will be much easier if independence does not lead to war. Of course the North may not cooperate fully, but I do expect restraint from the South. That said, the seizure of Abyei is likely to cause serious problems in the future,
if there is no negotiated solution.
Q: Given your use of blogs, Twitter, and other social media outlets, what are your thoughts on the significance of Internet activism in the “Arab Spring”? Do you believe that social media sites can and/or will play a part in state-building projects and the “end game” in these national movements, or are they simply useful for the initial stages?
A: Social media seem a lot better suited to organizing a demonstration than establishing a supreme court. That said, I don’t think we’ve reached the limit of human ingenuity, and social media may well prove useful in overcoming the obvious democracy gap in many post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction operations. But we should also note that media only enable you to do things you want to do — the movements generating change
use the media, not, I hope, the other way around.
Q: On your blog, you indicated that with regard to the current situations in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, it should be US policy “to listen to the locals, and follow their lead if we can figure out what it is” and support their efforts. How can the US support these protestors in their effort to promote democratic ideals, and not make the mistake of settling for a government for government’s sake and the perhaps false promise of stability?
A: It’s difficult. Embassies are not places that interface easily with 18-year-old protestors. And when they do, they may get in hot water with the host government. Many years ago in Italy, I wanted to invite a bright young activist to a meeting on alternative energy technologies. A name check turned up indications that he was a member of what the Italian government regarded as an extreme-left, vaguely anarchist political group. I somehow managed to convince the Embassy that it would be okay. He went on to study and work in the US and is today the distinguished head of an important industry association in Italy. Those are the risks you need to take if you really believe in democratic ideals.
I like the model we’ve developed: NGOs out hunting for talent and providing training, visits to the US, projects run by local people, without too much “Chief of Mission” control. You may not, however, find a lot of State Department officials who agree with me.
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Has Obama done right on Afghanistan?
Michael Cohen and I had a go-round on Bloggingheads about Afghanistan:
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Have your cake and eat it too
The President went for the bigger, faster drawdown option in his speech this evening. I commented on The World.
He has tried hard to limit the mission, but it is still an open question whether the Afghans will be ready to take over security responsibility for the country by 2014. He showed no sign that he believes their governance will improve, and he made only passing reference to the economy. Nation-building, he said, is what we should do in the United States. That pretty much sinks the civilian side of the Afghanistan effort, except for “the political settlement.” That I suppose is whatever comes out of the reconciliation efforts with the Taliban.
The President was keen in Iraq on the idea that a timeline would get the Iraqis to stand up to their responsibilities, a strategy that I think worked. So was Leon Panetta during the Iraq Study Group. It looks to me as if they are trying to reproduce that (relative) success, just as they tried to reproduce the (relative) success of the surge. The difference is on the Afghan side of the equation–Kabul seems a lot less ready to take over, and less able to get ready to take over, than Baghdad ever did.
Of course the withdrawal announced tonight is only of the “surge” troops and would leave about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, twice the number there at the beginning of the Administration. So the President is getting his cake and eating it too. He is offering the Congress (and the American people) a bigger and faster drawdown than anticipated while keeping a substantial number of troops in Afghanistan, albeit fewer than Petraeus, Mullen and Gates seem to have wanted. But they get to decide who comes home first–you bet it won’t be anyone they think particularly useful.
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It’s the mission, smarty
Foreign policy eyes and ears will be on the President’s Afghanistan speech tonight. But I fear the President will focus where the press points: on the size of the troop drawdown. Important though it may be, that is not the fundamental issue. The key thing is defining the mission end-state, as I and others have already pointed out.
Why is this so important? Because it is the mission that determines the number of troops (and civilians). If you only want to kill Al Qaeda, you don’t need many civilians and the troops you need are not regular infantry but rather special forces. If you want to stabilize Afghanistan and build up the state there so that it can continue to keep Al Qaeda out, that is an entirely different mission requiring lots of civilians and substantial numbers of regular army and marines to “clear, hold and build.” And many years.
The President has been consistently ambiguous on the counter-insurgency mission. His emphasis is always on counter-terrorism (killing Al Qaeda), with the occasional coda mentioning stability but without clarity about the end-state. This is not a small issue. It is the heart of the matter, as it determines how much personpower, years, blood and treasure we will have to invest. And that in turn determines the “opportunity costs,” that is what we’ll have to give up in order to achieve our goals in Afghanistan.
President Obama is no dummy. He understands perfectly well that the mission defines the requirements. If I had to bet, he would keep the focus tonight mainly on counter-terrorism, mentioning counter-insurgency in the context of ensuring regional stability. After all, the main problem with leaving Afghanistan before it can defend itself is that militants will begin to use it to attack Pakistan, a big and important country with a substantial nuclear arsenal.
He’ll say yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, but our job is not done. We need to ensure that Al Qaeda cannot return to Afghanistan and that the region is stable, so that never again will extremists harbored there attack the United States. Enabling Afghanistan to defend itself is in the U.S. interest, he’ll argue.
My colleagues in the Twittersphere will snigger and say that it is our very presence in Afghanistan that attracts extremists and enables their recruiting. That is not an argument that can win in a world still governed by Bacevich’s Washington Rules.
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Afghanistan decision time, again
Douglas Ollivant at foreignpolicy.com is asking the right questions:
What are our national interests in Afghanistan? Which of those are vital?
How much are we willing to pay for them (money, blood, institutional focus)?
What other costs does our policy in Afghanistan incur (e.g., reduced leverage in Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan due to reliance on supply lines through their territory)?
What are the opportunity costs? How might our goals be accomplished in other ways?
Is our policy sustainable to some sort of completion?
And what — if anything — do we owe to the people of Afghanistan who have sided with the NATO effort?
None of these questions is about numbers of troops or about the timeline for withdrawal, which is what the press focuses most attention on. But the troop decision depends on the answers to these prior questions: what do you want them to do, how much will it cost (important to include the opportunity costs, as Ollivant does), and how long will it take?
The New York Times offers at least some insight into possible answers to the first question. If, as President Obama has said many times, our primary objective in Afghanistan is to rid it of al Qaeda, then the mission we need to continue is a counter-terrorism one (find them and kill them) that likely requires relatively few troops. Vice President Biden and a goodly number of members of Congress will line up on that side.
The problem is “gone today, back tomorrow.” If we leave Afghanistan a weak state unable to control its territory, there is every reason to think that al Qaeda will come back. That’s why there has long been a state-building, counter-insurgency component to the mission, though the President has never made it clear what end-state he is seeking to achieve when it comes to governance in Afghanistan. That’s not surprising considering the challenges, currently epitomized by failure of the country’s largest bank. But we could just as easily make reference to the country’s thriving drug trade and endemic corruption. If we stay, and if building the Afghan state is part of the mission, we are going to need to get more precise about what we are trying to accomplish.
Why should we care how Afghanistan is governed? The one-word answer is “Pakistan.” If al Qaeda or other extremists re-establish themselves in Afghanistan, there is every reason to expect them to attack Pakistan, an already fragile state with a large and growing nuclear arsenal. As Trudy Rubin explains in the Philadelphia Inquirer, this is a major reason for continuing the counter-insurgency and statebuilding effort in Afghanistan and presumably explains why outgoing Secretary of Defense Gates seems confident that the President will resist domestic political pressure to reduce troops rapidly.
None of this makes staying in Afghanistan look attractive. As the American ambassador has made clear, President Karzai’s harsh criticism of the American and NATO efforts in his country is taking a toll, as are the mounting costs of the war. I find it hard to fault people who would prefer to get out quickly (my wife has been on that side of the argument for a couple of years now), even if my brain tells me having to return to Afghanistan would be worse than staying.
The one thing I would ask is this: if we are going to stay to stabilize Afghanistan and build its state to the point that it can fight al Qaeda and other militants on its own, we need to be honest about how long it is going to take and how much it is going to cost. The projected date for turning over security in the whole country to the Afghans, 2014, is looking far too soon, even if Washington remains willing to pay Kabul’s security bills. I’ve seen something of “stabilization” in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, and I’ve studied it elsewhere. My guess is that we’ll be there at least 10 more years in significant numbers if we want to get a half-decent job done. That’s another trillion dollars, more or less. Even among friends, that’s a lot of money, and a lot of other opportunities foregone.
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