Salvaging Afghanistan

Salvaging Afghanistan by  TCF Senior Fellow Morton Abramowitz

The charge of hand-wringing is again heard in the land, mostly from our friends on the Right. Have any doubt about our war in Afghanistan after close to nine years and you are hand-wringing. Eighteen months into the new administration, two strategic reviews, and fifty thousand more troops later—and still, expressing doubt qualifies you for a top hand-wringing citation.

The sad fact is that there has not been enough hand-wringing over Afghanistan, except by General McCrystal, a sore winner who at least up till now pretty well got what he asked for. The upcoming administration review, supposedly due out in December, offers Obama—with two years to go till the election—the last chance of cutting through the fog of Afghan discourse to decide conclusively whether he gets out or gets in deeper.

You can find the Blog Post in Taking Note here

Negotiating with the Taliban: Issues and Prospects

By Antonio Giustozzi, The Century Foundation, 6/21/2010

Download the report here.

The resilience of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan over the past half-dozen years has dispelled illusions of a military “victory” excluding them, and an end to the thirty years’ war in Afghanistan seems certain to involve their reintegration in some form into Afghan politics. In considering possible negotiations with the Taliban, one particular concern is how united, or disunited, the Taliban really are: Is the control exercised by the leadership of the Taliban sufficiently strong to deliver on any negotiated settlement? Or is the control weak enough to allow for easily co-opting or buying off individual commanders, avoiding the pursuit of a settlement with the political leadership? This report by Antonio Giustozzi, written as part of The Century Foundation Project on Afghanistan in Its Regional and Multilateral Dimensions, lays out how the Taliban are structured and organized, with an eye to assessing the impact of their organization and modus operandi on their willingness to negotiate and honor a political settlement. Download the report here.

Rifts within the Taliban

Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times reports some striking news in the development of the Taliban insurgency, which could point to increasing internal rifts. He cites anonymous Taliban sources who claim that Taliban chief Mullah Omar has fired Baitullah Mehsud, the alleged mastermind of the Bhutto assassination who had been in charge of stepping up attacks against the Pakistani state.

Now, apparently, Omar is trying to return the focus of the insurgency back to Afghanistan, to fight NATO forces and the nascent Afghan state. The divide apparently came over a difference in opinion about who to focus attacks on. “Mehsud was expected to provide valuable support to the Taliban in Afghanistan, but instead he directed all his fighters against Pakistani security forces,” writes Shahzad.

This shift in Taliban strategy was evident, Shahzad says, with the recent attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan province that destroyed oil tankers headed to NATO’s Kandahar airfield.

Holbrooke on Bush's "ineffective" counter-narcotics plan

Former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke tackles the thorny issue of the Bush administration’s counter-narcotics policy in Afghanistan -– calling the billion-dollar-per-year plan the “single most ineffective program in the history of American foreign policy.” According to him, in addition to wasting money, the policy only strengthens the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As most of the poppy crops destroyed are in the insecure south, it pushes penniless farmers with no other options into the arms and influences of the Taliban. Meanwhile, little effort is made to tackle the drug lords and corrupt government officials who enable the trafficking trade.

Holbrooke recommends first boosting security, providing free agricultural support to farmers and building access roads to markets to ensure successful alternate livelihoods, before launching on a complete poppy eradication plan in insecure areas.

New Report on the ‘Forgotten War’

The European Council on Foreign Relations has a new report out calling for U.S. and European governments to “overhaul their strategies and strike a 'grand bargain' to stabilise the country.” Significantly, it urges enticing moderates into the fold of governance and legitimacy through money and other incentives.

There will be no stability in Afghanistan unless “moderate” insurgents embrace constitutionalism and enter democratic politics. Since the Bonn Agreement in the wake of the September 11th attacks, the coalition has supported the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, better known as the Northern Alliance, which brought together the main Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara groupings. For obvious reasons it had no significant links to the Pashtuns who make up 42% of Afghanistan’s population.22 After 2001, despite Karzai’s Pashtun background, Pashtun tribal leaders were largely excluded from government and have been ever since. Many have thus aligned themselves with the resurgent Taliban. The coalition and the Afghan government must work to convince them that they can pursue their interests democratically.

There have already been signs that this is at least possible. Though President Karzai’s overtures to reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were rebuffed, the Taliban, while insisting on a number of conditions, have been receptive to the idea of negotiations as proposed within Karzai's "Peace Jirga". The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently gave his backing to these negotiations, again with conditions attached, but the US administration remains sceptical.

Political agreements - like the failed Musa Qala deal in 2006 overseen by the then ISAF commander, General David Richards – should aim to isolate the “hard-core”, many of whom are foreigners, from more moderate, indigenous groups. Such political agreements would also help avoid the violent tactics that may have won NATO military victories last year but cost vital public support because of high civilian casualties.

An effective policy in the short term would be to identify insurgent leaders willing to cut a deal. The coalition could then operate a system of “divide and rule”, whereby intransigent insurgents would see their erstwhile comrades rewarded with a package of financial and other incentives which add up to a better deal than that offered by the Taliban. (emphasis added by editor).

The report urges European governments to send more troops to Afghanistan, eliminate or reduce the national caveats on their troops, and reverse their “underperformance” by increasing reconstruction aid. On the flip side, the report pushes the U.S. to shift its combat strategy to a more political one and abandon its counter-narcotics plans of aerial spraying or buying up opium crops. It recommends the U.S. shift the onus of the problem onto traffickers and concentrate on arresting and prosecuting drug lords and their governmental supporters.

Ashdown’s Challenges

The Asia Times has an insightful look at the challenges that Paddy Ashdown will face as he begins his new role as the UN envoy to Afghanistan. Pakistani bureau chief Syed Saleem Shahzad opines that Ashdown will have to talk with “the real players” – Mullah Omar and al-Qaida -- notwithstanding the recent expulsion of European diplomats for allegedly talking to the Taliban.

“Greatest military threat to Pakistan”?

Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader of the newly formed coalition Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, who has been accused by Pakistani intelligence of masterminding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, is getting some media interest.

Bagram holds more than twice as many as Guantanamo

The secretive American detention center at Bagram base now holds more than twice as many prisoners as Guantanamo Bay, according to a New York Times report. Despite American efforts to shut down the base prison and transfer detainees to Afghan facilities and oversight, the number of prisoners has continued to grow as Guantanamo stopped taking in detainees.

The Afghan facility can only hold half the people that it was initially designed for, and construction has been slowed down by security and legal issues. Meanwhile human rights groups say treatment of detainees at Bagram, which was formerly abysmal culminating with the beating deaths of two detainees, has improved overall, but overcrowding complaints persist.

Intrigue of expelled diplomats deepens

The intrigue surrounding the expulsion of EU acting representative in Afghanistan, Mervyn Patterson, and UN diplomat Michael Semple, is deepening. A London Times report over the weekend quoted Afghan government sources claiming that the two were trying to “turn” the brother of the late Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah.

New covert US push in Pakistan?

The US is considering sending the CIA on more aggressive, covert missions into the chaotic tribal regions of Pakistan. The New York Times article quotes anonymous senior administration sources saying that the possible missions would be very secretive but would involve CIA cooperation with Special Operations forces. These options are being discussed in response to intelligence reports that see new Taliban efforts to destabilize the Pakistani government. (Also see the earlier Afghanistan Watch post on this)

Blogger “Charlie” who writes for the respected “Abu Muqawama” counterinsurgency blog thinks that Pakistan lacks two conditions that could make these missions successful:

1) A welcoming and cooperative government, whose armed forces take the lead in ground operations.
2) Little in the way of media coverage or Pentagon/Foggy Bottom meddling.