AFGHANISTAN

A Curse, Not A Cure

US strategy for long-term bases in Afghanistan will bring more rewards for Pakistan

Brahma Chellaney 

Afghanistan’s presidential election, now likely to enter the runoff stage, will mark the first peaceful transition of power in Afghan history. Afghanistan has been ravaged by endless war since 1979. Despite 35 years of bloodletting, peace can come only if Afghanistan frees itself from the external albatross that has turned it into a cursed nation. 
    To be sure, President Hamid Karzai’s successor has his work cut out for him, including promoting national reconciliation by building bridges with the country’s disparate ethnic and political groups, strengthening the still-fledgling, multiethnic Afghan Army, and ensuring free and fair parliamentary elections next year. The role of external players, however, overshadows internal dynamics. 
    Afghanistan’s political and security transition hinges considerably on two factors: the level of interference by Pakistan, which still harbours militant sanctuaries and the command-and-control structure for Afghan insurgency; and the likely post-2014 role of US-led Nato forces. 
    Pakistan is a big part of Afghanistan’s problem. Pakistani non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs can occur only if Washington finally makes that a condition for continuing its generous aid to cash-strapped Pakistan – a remote prospect. 
    Indeed, US President Barack Obama’s U-turn on Nato military presence in Afghanistan – he now wants long-term bases there – is welcome news for Pakistani generals. It not only will keep Afghan insurgency alive and thus Pakistan-nurtured militant groups in business, but also safeguard the US multibillion-aid flow to Islamabad by sustaining US need for Pakistani military cooperation. 
    Obama had declared in Cairo in 2009, “We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there.” But in a change of heart, Obama now seeks bases there for a virtually unlimited period to house fairly sizable US-led Nato forces armed with authority to “conduct combat operations”. What was supposed to be an endgame for Afghanistan has turned into 
a new game over a long-term basing strategy. 
    However, having failed to persuade Karzai to sign a bilateral security agreement providing the legal basis for keeping US bases indefinitely, Obama must win over the next president. Although Kabul and Washington have finalised the agreement’s terms, Karzai withstood intense US pressure to sign the document, leaving that critical decision to his successor. Karzai clearly didn’t want to go down in Afghan history as the main facilitator of a long-term foreign military presence. 
    The US, once it militarily intervenes in a country, has a penchant for not leaving. The fact that Iraq proved an exception to this pattern has made the appeal particularly strong in Washington to maintain bases in Afghanistan, where America is seeking to terminate the longest war in its history. 
    Obama has proffered no explanation as to how a residual US-led force could make a difference when a much larger force is staring at defeat in an intervention that began almost 13 years ago. Yet there is bipartisan support in the US to keep military bases in Afghanistan, largely to project hard power. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has linked Russia’s Ukraine actions with why US forces should stay put in Afghanistan, while former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has slammed Obama for failing to secure the accord with Karzai, saying even a “trained ape” could do better. 
    The main reason why US’s war in Afghanistan has foundered is its failure to reconcile military and political objectives. From the time it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, America pursued a military surge in Afghanistan but an aid surge to the country harbouring terrorist havens and the “Quetta Shura”. The war was made unwinnable by US’s refusal to target Pakistan for actively abetting elements killing or maiming American troops. 
    Terrorism and insurgency have never been defeated in any country without choking transboundary sustenance and support. Afghans have borne the brunt from two fronts – US military intervention and Pakistan’s use of surrogate militias. 
    Obama’s basing strategy could presage a shift from a fullfledged war to a low-intensity war but without fixing the incongruous duality in America’s Af-Pak policy. A smaller US force in Afghanistan indeed would only increase Washington’s imperative to mollycoddle Pakistani generals and cut a deal with the Quetta Shura in order to secure American bases. 
    It plans to gift Pakistan its surplus military hardware in Afghanistan, including several hundred mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles. It has also agreed to taper off drone strikes in Pakistan, with no attacks occurring since last December. In any event, US drones have hit targets in Waziristan, not in Baluchistan – the home of the Quetta Shura. 
    A continued approach based on reward for Pakistan and punishing airstrikes in Afghanistan, even if less frequent, would make the latter’s future more uncertain than ever. Indeed, the US plan to start cutting aid to Kabul from next year threatens to undermine the key requirement to keep Afghan Taliban at bay – strengthening Afghanistan’s security forces – while increasing pressure for foreign forces to stay. 
    Perpetuation of US’s dichotomous Af-Pak policy will bring Afghan, Indian and regional security under strain. In this setting, US’s geopolitical advantage from keeping bases is likely to dissipate as its residual forces, in response to attacks, get sucked into bloody counterterrorism missions on the wrong side of the disputed Durand Line. History then will come full circle for the US.

Triumph for the Afghan public

Afghanistan’s presidential election, held on April 5 with over 350,000 security personnel on duty, marks the country’s first potential democratic transfer of power. The Independent Election Commission put the turnout at about 60 per cent of a 12-million electorate. Three million more people voted than did in 2009, which shows public confidence in the electoral process itself; the previous election was deeply flawed.
Afghans of all ethnic groups turned out, and women made a strong showing; the figure was estimated at 35 per cent of the turnout.  Every polling station is required to post its results for the public to read or photograph.

The overall result is to be announced in a fortnight’s time, but uncertainties remain. The Taliban, who will lose most by the consolidation of democracy, have not succeeded in derailing the election, but their ranks number as many as 30,000 and they may be waiting for other chances to wreck the political process.
A second issue has to do with the candidates’ own attitudes; none of them is likely to obtain the 50 per cent plus one vote needed for outright victory, and of the eight who contested, only three stand a realistic chance of going into the May 28 runoff.

Afghan parties agree on a comprehensive audit

The audit of Afghanistan’s disputed presidential poll will take three weeks, the head of the country’s election commission said on Sunday after the two rival candidates agreed to the vote-checking.

“In order for this audit to be conducted on time, the Independent Election Commission is planning to form 100 teams that will review 1,000 ballot boxes every day. The audit will end in three weeks,” commission chairman Yusuf Nuristani told a press conference in Kabul. The estimate comes after presidential rivals Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani agreed to an audit of all eight million votes cast in the disputed run-off election, following two days of intense shuttle diplomacy by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mr. Nuristani said the audit results “should be accepted by both presidential candidates as agreed” and that the check would be conducted in the presence of representatives from both sides and national and international observers.

Shortly after the second round run-off on June 14, Mr. Abdullah claimed massive fraud had robbed him of victory and boycotted the process by withdrawing his team’s observers.

The head of the U.N. mission to Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, welcomed the agreement and the return of Mr. Abdullah’s team.

The process will be carried out in Kabul, where ballot boxes from across the country are heading under tight security provided by NATO forces.

The audit agreement was signed on Saturday after two days of intense negotiations between Afghan officials and the two candidates conducted by Mr. Kerry. Washington, having learnt its lesson from previous votes in Iraq, feared violence if the two candidates did not reach an agreement.

The bitter impasse over the run-off vote to succeed President Hamid Karzai had plunged Afghanistan into crisis and raised fears of a return to the ethnic violence of the 1990s. Mr. Ghani is supported by the Pashtun tribes of the south and east while Mr. Abdullah, despite his Pashtun father, draws his support from Tajiks and other northern Afghan groups. — AFP

Afghan deal: internationally supervised audit of all ballots

Afghanistan’s two rival candidates reached a breakthrough agreement on Saturday to a complete audit of their contested presidential election and, whoever the victor, a national unity government.

The deal, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, offers a path out of what threatened to be a debilitating political crisis for Afghanistan, with both candidates claiming victory and talking of setting up competing governments. Such a scenario could have dangerously split the fragile country’s government and security forces at a time the U.S. is pulling out most of its troops and the Taliban continues to wage a fierce insurgency.

Instead, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah agreed to abide by a 100 per cent, internationally supervised audit of all 8 million ballots in the presidential election. They vowed to form a national unity government once the results are announced, presumably one that includes members of each side.

Mr. Kerry, who conducted shuttle diplomacy between the two candidates late into the night Friday and Saturday, warned that much work still remained. “This will be still a difficult road because there are important obligations required and difficult decisions to be made,” Mr. Kerry told reporters after briefing Afghanistan’s current President, Hamid Karzai, shortly after midnight.

The audit, which comes after widespread fraud allegations, is expected to take several weeks, beginning with the ballot boxes in the capital of Kabul. Boxes from the provinces will be flown to the capital by helicopter by U.S. and international forces and examined on a rolling basis.

Both candidates agreed to respect the result, and the winner would immediately form a national unity government. The inauguration, which had been scheduled for August 2, would be postponed, with Mr. Karzai staying on a little longer as President. — AP