Getting out of a war that refuses to end

Only the Americans, with the help of Russia, China and, most of all their fair-weather ally Pakistan, can save Afghanistan and put in place a regional mechanism for enduring peace, post-2014

The most hotly debated and contentious security and foreign policy issue of the century is Afghanistan or AfPak, if you like. Starting as a war of choice for the US following 9/11, it has become a war Washington and its allies want to abandon and forget. The turnaround for President Barack Obama in consigning Afghanistan to a ‘good enough’ policy from one that focused on ‘nation-building’, indicates the declining power and influence of the US. Failure to bring around Pakistan’s Generals despite $20 billion in aid and dropping pre-conditions for its use reveals America’s stark incapacity to shape events in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

China and Russia are questioning why the US is leaving without completing its mission under UNSCR 1378 of November 21, 2001, on stabilising Afghanistan. At the very least, they want the West to exit ‘responsibly’, preserving the gains of the last decade. This time around, the Americans and their allies are unlikely to cut and run. At least, that is the hope.

Still, scary post-2014 scenarios abound: Return of the Taliban; muddling through; civil war; de facto division of Afghanistan. The Transition phase will end in 2014 with the withdrawal of US-led Nato-ISAF forces terminating their combat role, and marking the start of Transformation 2015 to 2024. During this phase, US Special Forces, trainers and drones on selected bases will remain. The Status of Forces Agreement is being worked out between Afghanistan and the US.

The success of Transition is based on three key pillars: Security, political and economic. The forecast and assessment on all three vary from ‘ominously uncertain’ to ‘good and promising’. No marks for guessing that only the Americans and the British make the ‘good’ forecast. Americans are premising their optimism on success of the military surge in which the Taliban has been ‘disrupted’ and space provided for training Afghan National Security Forces which will be maintained at the level of 3,52,000 troops. In the next fighting season of Spring 2013, an ANSF of doubtful operational capacity will confront the Taliban.

This rosy picture is based on two assumptions: A renewed effort at reconciliation with the Taliban and calibrated cooperation with Pakistan. After abandoning dialogue with the Talibs for the nth time, it is one more try. Similarly, a new round of talks with Pakistani Generals has been initiated and American interlocutors have detected a change in their threat perception — the realisation that the real challenge is from within. Good luck to the Americans, but this is old hat for Indians.

The presidential election is fixed for April 5, 2014, under the charge of the ANSF. All kinds of predictions are being made about a ‘fair’, ‘fraud free’ and ‘inclusive’ election to which the Taliban will be invited to participate. A reasonably clean election is pivotal to the legitimacy of Transition. Commitments made at Lisbon, Chicago and Tokyo on funding the ANSF, and the Afghan election, and revving up the economy through investments, have to be made good. For example, there is a shortfall of four billion dollars in ANSF finances, which can be filled either by reducing the size of the force or through contributions from regional players. Depending on whose prism you are looking through at Afghanistan, the picture varies from ‘hazy and hopeless’ to ‘not so bad’.

After having kept India at an arm’s length, the Americans now want the former, whom they regard as a force of stability, to help: Do more. Short of putting boots on the ground, New Delhi will, according to the India Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement of October 2011, “assist as mutually determined in training, equipping and capacity-building programmes for ANSF”. Besides training nearly 100 officer cadets at our military academies annually, new areas of defence cooperation include training of police and Afghan Air Force. A good deal more is possible but the ANSF has already too many cooks stirring the broth. Given a choice, the Afghans would want to model the ANSF on the Indian Army, but it is probably too late for that.

One area which has not been adequately explored but recently advocated by the Americans is transition from an international to a regional political and security framework for Afghanistan. This idea is not new; it has few supporters with an infinitely greater number of detractors who think a regional solution is a pipe dream. How this might play out in the next two or three years is being investigated on the think-tank circuit and in Track Two workshops. The neighbourhood route is being actively charted for embedding Afghanistan in a regional security architecture.

The framework looks like this: A number of existing accords, agreements and processes contain commitments for regional cooperation including respect for Afghanistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which translates into non-interference and non-intervention in its internal affairs. Bonn I and II, the Declaration of Good Neighbourliness 2002, Istanbul Process 2011 and Kabul Ministerial Meeting 2012 acknowledged and reiterated these pledges. But missing are managing non-state actors and implementation by states of their commitments. Wider regional consultations are required on implementation in three steps:

Appointing a regional council under the UN aegis, as China, Russia and India are not prepared for a leadership role;

Defining a code of conduct between Afghanistan and its neighbours, on what to do and what not to do

Establishing a monitoring mission with UN/Regional Observers backed by peacekeeping forces from the region/UN

Afghanistan can ask, as it has on Track II, the UN Secretary General for the implementation of past agreements.

Economic and connectivity CBMs are also in place through the Silk Route Initiative and the Kabul Ministerial and the Delhi Investment meetings. These measures are designed to facilitate a regional political framework. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the South Asia Association of Regional Cooperation ,of which it is a member/observer, are two regional organisations, but they do not fit Afghanistan. What may meet Kabul’s needs is the Istanbul Process which has Track I institutions and structures with all the neighbourhood countries in it. A regional peacekeeping force as envisaged by US Senator Richard Lugar and endorsed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is feasible.

The Istanbul Process could produce an Afghanistan-specific political and security framework. With the help of the UN and the international community, this appears do-able, provided Pakistan does not play spoilsport. Only the Americans with the help of Russia, China — and most of all their fair weather ally, Pakistan — can save Afghanistan and put in place a regional mechanism.

(The accompanying visual is of an Afghan National Army officer along with troops during a deployment ceremony in Kabul on November 22, 2009. US Navy photo by F Julian Carroll)

America did have a brief opportunity, right after we overthrew the Taliban, to change the course of Afghanistan to that of a more modern nation. We did not.

As we later learned in Iraq, the systems of both nations were utterly worthless, and needed to be scrapped, then replaced with modern systems. In Iraq, every system we tried to salvage, “out of cultural respect”, was an unmitigated disaster. Those we upgraded from scratch at least had a chance.

But we made little or no efforts at nation building in Afghanistan. But there was much we could have done.

To start with, erect a fortified national boarding school for all orphans near Kabul, with secular teachers teaching a western style education. These children would be raised to be the future government, military leadership, bureaucracy and business leaders of Afghanistan. Their education would be based in nationalism and patriotism.

Next, because Afghanistan has a rock bottom wage, every unemployed male would be hired to work in giant national infrastructure projects. Thus any adult unemployed male walking around would be immediately suspect.

Their money would be given to their family. The women would be in charge of local government, with microbanks to set up small businesses.

The country itself would be given a MacArthur (PBUH) constitution to western standards. It could not be changed for 30 years after its introduction. All citizens would be issued ID cards for rations, voting, banking, etc. The card would have their picture on the front and encrypted data on the back.

No alternative, really. First of all, the terrorists are not headquartered or produced in Afghanistan, but Pakistan.

At the start, the US faced about 20-30,000 Taliban, and yet, with significant attrition each year, we have ended up still fighting 20-30,000 Taliban. They have perpetual reinforcements of cannon fodder from the Wahhabi madrassas schools in Pakistan. We cannot win a war of attrition with them.

Almost half of Afghanistan’s border is shared with Pakistan, and the Afghan government insists it remain porous, because the Pushtun tribes overlap both countries.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/afghanistan_ethnoling_97.jpg

Afghanistan is an artificial construct of two nations, with the Pushtun south “and everybody else” in the north.

Second, Pakistan itself is not really a country, but a collection of overlapping enclaves. The governing faction is just the largest of small, violent minorities. It can barely maintain order inside its cities, much less in the rest of Pakistan. We spent years trying to strengthen the military under Musharraf, to make his faction so strong it would rule the country, but though he had some successes, he couldn’t pull it off.

Their ISI, secret police and intelligence service, is rife with Taliban supporters and sympathizers. Oddly enough, their courts and judiciary are actually *common law*, like our own, except their lawyers and judges are a competing faction that will not allow any serious reforms over the rule of the country. Likewise many of them are Taliban sympathizers as well.

Bottom line, as soon as the US leaves Afghanistan, it will again sponsor the worst of the al-Qaeda and Taliban, but who will not get additional support from other US enemies, like Saudi Arabia, on condition they continue to attack us and Europe.

The madrassas of Pakistan, for its part, are where most of the clergy for Sunni Islam are trained, by Wahhabis and Salafists, who encourage them to be far more radical than the mosques they are eventually hired to around the world.

Their money would be given to their family. The women would be in charge of local government, with microbanks to set up small businesses.
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Someone has already tried it before there. It hasn’t worked too.

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