The United States, Afghan, Qatari, and Pakistani governments have all voiced their support for the opening of a Taliban office in Doha in order to promote peace negotiations.  Some consider transforming the Taliban from an armed insurgency into a legitimate political group to be the critical first step in the Afghan peace process. However, to date, reconciliation efforts have stalled and focus more on rhetoric rather than substance.

There is no concrete evidence that Taliban leadership is either worn down or desperate to reach a peace agreement.  Attempting to secure his legacy as a peacemaker, Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants to reach an agreement before the end of his term in April 2014. Because the Taliban have also cooperated somewhat with this principle of reconciliation, it is not immediately clear why the current approach has achieved nothing. 

The answer is that the Doha peace process has been riddled with unrealistic expectations, and remains hopelessly inconsistent.  Such reconciliation efforts without strategy and clear objectives reflect a hook without bait - while encouraging, these talks are doomed to fail without significant reform.  Only with realistic expectations, a coherent strategy, national solidarity, and lots of patience, will reconciliation stand a chance of materializing.

Where We've Been Thus Far

The reconciliation offer requires three specific things from the Taliban: ending violence, breaking ties with al-Qaeda, and accepting the Afghan Constitution. The fourth, less advertised condition is the acceptance of a residual ISAF element in Afghanistan post-2014. At a recent summit in London, British, Afghan and Pakistani leaders set a six-month timeline to reach a peace settlement.

But substantive results are unlikely to emerge until after the 2014 Afghan Presidential elections. This is the single most important date in the reconciliation process and will set the tone for future debate.  A six-month deadline to reach an agreement is not only unrealistic, but also damaging to the credibility of the process.

A more realistic approach to the peace process would be both accepting that this dialogue will take a long time and recognizing the importance of Afghan national consensus on the issue.  Key stake-holders should focus efforts on reaching internal consensus between now and mid-2014, when the elections will take place.  With reconciliation playing a significant role in Afghan political dialogue leading to the elections, the next president should enter office with a clear mandate on how to tackle engagement with the Taliban. Any further wavering will increase the likelihood of infighting amongst regional powerbrokers and warlords.

Negotiations are also unlikely succeed until the majority of Coalition Forces leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014.  Why would the Taliban want to reconcile with the Afghan Government on the eve of ISAF's withdrawal?  Still in control of significant swaths of land across the country, the Taliban will be hesitant to strike a deal until it becomes clear that Afghan security forces can maintain control without ISAF support.

Lessons Learned and Relearned

The most opportune moment for reconciliation has likely already passed.  The Bonn negotiations, which took place immediately following the Taliban's swift defeat in late 2001, failed to peacefully incorporate Taliban loyalists into the new government.  At that point, the Taliban were the defeated foe and their long-time enemies, now at the forefront of Afghan politics, circumvented any reconciliation efforts. 

When the Taliban re-emerged as a significant threat between 2006 and 2009, Coalition COIN strategy focused more on marginalizing the Taliban through the "clear-hold-build-transfer" model, and did not pay enough credence to reconciliation efforts.

Additionally, the Afghan-led reconciliation process is fractured. While Afghan security forces are more focused on reintegrating individual insurgents willing to give up the fight, President Karzai's reconciliation program is focused on reaching a deal with the Taliban core leadership.  This is not a "grand bargain" with the Taliban, but rather a presidential appeal to Afghan nationalism in an attempt to erode Pakistani influence on the Afghan Taliban's senior leadership. The result of the two incongruous approaches has been failure.

A Change in Direction is Required

For the peace process to work, it must change course.  First, there must be national solidarity and consensus on the peace platform.  The current plan, though basic, does not have widespread support among loyal Afghan opposition parties, such as Afghan Mellat, Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan, or Jamiat-e-Islami. In fact, the process appears monopolized by a small group of Presidential Palace senior aides, rather than made transparent in order to seek buy-in from a wider sector of Afghans.  

Second, we must understand the influence of external regional and international players on the Taliban as well as the Afghan government. Finally, the lead negotiators will need time to develop the proper relationships between opposing parties; this role is probably best handled by a group of mediators, supported by the key western stakeholders and accepted by all sides.  All indicators point toward limited progress between now and the April 2014 Afghan elections.

The current Afghan government faces opposition from all the major ethnic groups in the country. Most ‘loyal opposition' parties and leaders - some of which are presidential contenders - are missing from the negotiating tables; these are the political parties featuring moderate Afghan party leaders who have worked with NATO over the past twelve years. By ignoring the "loyal opposition" parties, reconciliation officials are also excluding from the negotiation table the largest segment of the Afghan population - the youth. Afghan political leaders are increasingly paying attention to the youth-movement in an effort to "get the vote" from the most dynamic - and potentially volatile - segment of the population. 

Part of the reconciliation process must start inside urban centers, where the majority of the population and the biggest opposition to the Taliban live. Only with a national consensus on reconciliation will the peace process move to a stage in which the Qatar office can start delivering results. This will take time and considerable trust-building measures. 

While Pakistani support to the Taliban is an undeniable issue, the fact remains that poor governance from the Afghan government and deficiencies in the Afghan security apparatus make areas of the country vulnerable to insurgent (as well as criminal elements) influence. If the Qatar peace process is to work, all involved must understand that the peace terms can only be Afghan-generated.  External entities can facilitate the peace process but cannot set the terms. _­One of the challenges for the reconciliation process is that few possess the patience to approach it as a long term process. Many hours of deliberation and countless cups of tea will be required to build the trust and goodwill necessary to start the reconciliation process and a vital - to the ultimate peace - drop in violence.

In order for the international community to support the peace process and help it move forward, the Taliban must be better understood.  Although the Taliban are most often associated with their strict adherence to Shari'a Law and violent insurgent tactics rather than their Foreign Ministry's diplomatic efforts, they have pursued basic diplomatic solutions in the past and may still be open to such activities.  Twelve years of conflict since the end of the Taliban's regime have made it difficult, but not impossible, to leverage Taliban diplomacy in future negotiations.  

Ultimately however, no reconciliation can start unless there is pause in the carnage supported by the Taliban senior leadership. Similarly, there must be a willingness on the part of the Afghan government to adhere to some form of cease-fire. The negotiating parties must be willing to compromise, as concessions are essential for both sides to achieve realistic goals.

A Way Forward

The most important thing the United States can accomplish on reconciliation this year is to give up on the idea that reconciliation will be accomplished this year. Only by realizing how far the reconciliation process is from the end goal can the U.S. avoid doomed-to-fail quick fixes that reinforce hopelessness. The U.S. must see reconciliation in the context of the political transition that will come after the mid-2014 Afghan Presidential elections. A good first step toward national reconciliation will be the commitment of each candidate to making the peace process a key element of their platform and laying out their plan to achieve lasting peace during their term.

With this more modest understanding of 2013 as the year to begin a real dialogue rather than expect results on reconciliation, there are three key components that set the table for future breakthroughs.

First, international engagement must be persistent and consistent rather than episodic and occasionally even working at cross-purposes. More specifically, this means committing to the Doha process, which is the closest credible option for most Afghan factions, and having permanent international staff working with the parties, rather than visiting delegations. Similarly, clarity of purpose from these engagements would be useful, as the Coalition and the Afghan Government send conflicting signals on whether insurgent groups are considered the "enemy" or, albeit "upset," brothers.

Second, the United States and its allies must recognize that real reconciliation in Afghanistan requires the involvement of all parties, not just the false binary of the Karzai Government and the Taliban. Talks must include other armed resistance groups, as well as the loyal opposition (i.e. parties and individuals who choose political means of opposing government policies without violence) which has consistently acted as the Afghan government's conscience and challenged the carnage caused by the fighting between the government and insurgents. Given that this latter faction probably represents a substantial majority of Afghans and aligns most closely with priorities of the international community, reconciliation must not further marginalize them.

Third, much of the 2014-2019 Presidential term should set the conditions for reconciliation.  In effect, the new Afghan President should be sworn in with a national agenda and a mandate to push toward a potential breakthrough during their time in office.  But reconciliation should not be attempted at all costs.  In other words, unless there is real intent to stop the violent insurgency in earnest, the idea of negotiations is absurd.  For example one cannot expect positive results on reconciliation efforts when civilian casualties are going up significantly.  According to the U.N. data, 3,092 civilians were killed or wounded in the Afghan conflict between 1 January and 6 June this year, with children accounting for 21 per cent of all civilian casualties.

Ultimately, true reconciliation will take generations to materialize.  Abandoning the current failed ‘foolosophy' in favor of a more realistic - but much longer term - approach is a good first step in our collective "12-step process" to reconciliation recovery.

Ioannis Koskinas was a military officer for over twenty years and now focuses on economic development projects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dr. Kamal Alam specializes in 21^st century relations between Arab states, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

In a recent article for the AfPak Channel, Megan Reif and Nadia Naviwala argue that the violence attending last month's elections in Pakistan should be interpreted as "a sign that electoral administration is getting stronger and that democracy is maturing."  While they do not condone electoral violence, they argue that it is a normal part of the democratization process and signals the strengthening of institutions, reduced opportunities for fraud, and a crowding out of extremists from the electoral process.  To prove their points, they provide historical examples of electoral violence in France and the United States as a reminder that many of the world's consolidated democracies also experienced violence as part of an incremental, centuries-long move toward democracy.

Part of Reif's and Naviwala's motivation may be to defend the democratic process under adverse conditions and to encourage nascent democracies to trudge forward in their pursuit of democratic consolidation.  However, the authors fall short when they argue that more reform can lead to more violence and, hence, violence can be interpreted as a sign of democratic and institutional progress.  Such a conclusion is troublesome and misleading.  Their thesis, while provocative, conveys a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivations behind the use of violence, which in many cases is a deliberate strategy employed by political actors.  

The Pakistani Taliban did claim responsibility for much, but not all, of the electoral violence that occurred before the national election in Pakistan. According to their statements, the violence was meant to disrupt and delegitimize the democratic process. However, there were also many instances where violence seemed to be employed as an electoral strategy by both the Taliban and political party agents.  

Commentators noted that Taliban-friendly political parties and candidates had been largely spared from violent attacks and that these parties, in fact, benefited from the violence. Violence was used to deter certain candidates -- primarily those representing liberal parties -- from participating in the election. Pamphlets were distributed that warned of the dangers of electing women and "infidels" into office.  There were also reports of voter intimidation and disenfranchisement by political party agents on Election Day.

The use of violence by political parties is not new to Pakistan. Indeed, the European Union's Election Observation Mission report for the 2008 national and local elections notes that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement is known for using violence  Additionally, there is a precedent of Pakistani politicians using attacks by extremists as a cover for their own political gains; a new working paper by Paul Staniland of the University of Chicago details the collaboration between extremist groups and politicians. Thus, there is sufficient reason to believe that the electoral violence that occurred in Pakistan had many purposes besides preventing the election, one of which was to affect the outcome.  

The strategic use of violence may masquerade as an indicator that groups have no legitimate option by which to express their opposition to elections due to improvements in the electoral process.  But our research on Kenya shows that this use of violence suggests insufficient institutional reform, a critical failure of the state to protect the franchise of its citizens, and a high level of impunity for the past use of violence. The presence of electoral violence indicates weak institutional development, not democratic maturation. 

Much like the attacks in Pakistan, electoral violence in Kenya has historically taken many different forms and has been used for many different purposes.  It been used both to suppress and mobilize voters, deter aspirants from participating in elections, punish perceived political opponents, and to delegitimize the electoral process.  

Prior to elections in 1992, political elites allied with President Daniel arap Moi and the Kenya African National Union (KANU) party supported organized gangs, through which they orchestrated ‘ethnic clashes.' While the clashes mainly pitted Kalenjin communities against non-Kalenjin and perceived KANU opponents, it also encompassed many different ethnic groups . Approximately, 1,500 Kenyans died as a result of the violence -- first in a bid to demonstrate to Kenyans the dangers of transitioning from single party elections to multiparty elections, and later in an attempt to scare Kenyans into either voting for incumbent Moi or not voting at all. This pattern repeated itself in 1997 when approximately 100 people were killed in Coast Province (eastern Kenya) as part of Moi's electoral strategy.  The Kikuyu ethnic group, which comprises approximately 22 percent of the population, was the main target of the violence, although other groups considered as non-indigenous to Coast were also affected.

After the 2007 elections, a serious political crisis broke out in Kenya.  The Electoral Commission of Kenya declared incumbent Mwai Kibaki the victor of a close and highly contentious presidential election, amid myriad allegations of fraud and vote rigging.  Violence -- instigated by supporters of Raila Odinga, Kibaki's opponent -- began as a ‘punishment' for supporters of Kibaki, a Kikuyu. Over the course of the next month, inter-ethnic violence claimed the lives of more than 1,300 Kenyans. 

This post-election violence was a turning point in Kenya. Its resolution required international mediation and led to the adoption of several major political reforms.  Most notably, a new constitution was approved in a 2010 referendum, significant electoral reforms were enacted to prevent fraud and increase confidence in the election, and steps were taken to reform the police -- which were responsible for almost 40 percent of the fatalities. 

Elections in 2013 -- Kenya's first since 2007 and the major reforms that ensued --have been widely lauded for their relative peacefulness.  But here the world has focused only on the post-election period.  In fact, in the months leading up to the election, more than 300 people died as part of the campaign process.  Some of the violence, appearing as ethnic clashes, could be linked to aspirants vying for the new county-level positions, as documented by a Human Rights Watch report.  In other cases, the objective was to prevent the vote from taking place.  The Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), a separatist organization, attacked election officials and facilities to disrupt what they argued was an illegitimate election, much as the Taliban in Pakistan has denounced democracy as un-Islamic.  The MRC felt that by using violence and intimidation to lower voter turnout they would deprive the elections of their legitimacy and, ultimately, lend credence to the MRC's claim that Coast Province should be independent of Kenya. 

The pre-election violence of 2013, which took place after considerable reform, is not a signal of institutional progress in Kenya.  Rather, it is a reflection of insufficient reform. Devolution spawned new competition for elected office, while an atmosphere of impunity for past attacks facilitated violence in other areas.  More to the point, ineffective and partisan electoral management bodies and a weak, corrupt judiciary have facilitated the use of violence as a part of the electoral process.  

To date, although the violent tactics employed by Moi and his associates are widely known, no one has been charged with a crime.  Furthermore, despite repeated calls from civil society and demands from the international community, none of the perpetrators of the 2007 electoral violence have been brought to justice.  In Kenya, electoral violence has never signified the strengthening and deepening of democracy, but rather it has served as an indicator of democratic fragility.

In addition to spotlighting institutional inadequacies, in rare but extreme cases, electoral violence may also be the first shot fired in what then becomes a deadly civil conflict. In Congo-Brazzaville's 1994 legislative elections, the three leading candidates all had private militias, which clashed after the results indicated that Pascal Lissouba's party had won.  The resulting violence left 2,000 dead.  After fighting broke out again between Lissouba and Denis Sasso-Nguesso in 1997 over electoral rules, 15,000 died before Lissouba took over.  Another 20,000 died from related violence over the next two years. 

Instead of accepting violence as a sign of democratic progress, we should learn from countries that have successfully navigated democratization without a call to arms.  There are many counter-examples of peaceful processes in Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde, and Mauritius.With greater understanding of the motivations behind electoral violence, we can do more to prevent it. Strengthening political institutions, improving electoral management, and ensuring those who commit electoral crimes are brought to account are all ways in which violence can be and has been successfully counteracted. 

Most importantly, violence is not an indictment of electoral democracy.  Instead, it should be seen as a means to help reformers identify where the breakdown of democracy is occurring.  Violence in Kenya has highlighted problems with electoral management, corruption in security forces, and judicial incapacity -- all of which were targeted by significant reforms after 2007.  Kenya's 2013 election was much improved from previous contests in terms of the integrity of electoral management and the monitoring of violence, but violence was still a part of the electoral process and it suggests that more reforms are necessary to protect the gains Kenya has made thus far. The lessons learned in Kenya can easily be applied to the Pakistani case. In both countries, we can congratulate courageous voters who cast their ballots under duress while still decrying violence and identifying areas for future reform. 

Stephanie M. Burchard and Dorina A. Bekoe, the editor of Voting in Fear: Electoral Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa, are research staff members at the Institute for Defense Analyses.  The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and should not be viewed as representing the official position of the Institute for Defense Analyses or its sponsors. Links to web sites are for informational purposes only and not an endorsement.

When citizens of NATO allies look at the record of failure of military interventions in Afghanistan over the past century-and-a-half, they may be tempted to ask: "What chance of success does NATO have?" People should realize, however, that comparing the present-day stabilization mission to past military adventures is not appropriate.

Past foreign involvements in Afghanistan-including those of the British and Russian Empires in the 19th century, and, more recently, the Soviet Union in the late 20th century-were motivated by imperial and ideological competition. Those powers were not striving to build a stable, democratic and self-reliant society. And they certainly signed nothing like the Afghanistan Compact or the number of strategic partnership agreements that NATO member states have with the country.   

Today, more than 40 nations are working together to stabilize Afghanistan and consolidate its new democracy. This truly international endeavor enjoys the overwhelming support of Afghans, who constitute an important strategic asset in the fight to contain terrorism. Thus, it is clear that NATO is in Afghanistan for different reasons altogether, including the national security of its member states. One cannot deny the real security risk NATO allies will face if Afghanistan's stabilization efforts fail and the country once more becomes the domain of terrorists, criminals, and drug traffickers, as it was under the Taliban.

We know from 9/11 and other terrorist attacks that threats to global security are increasingly transnational in nature. Non-state actors are more dangerous today than state actors were during the Cold War when security threats primarily came from interstate hostilities centered on the ideological differences between the members of the Warsaw Pact and NATO.

Third World proxy conflicts characterized the Cold War between the two ideological blocs for more than four decades, and Afghanistan featured as one of the main Cold War theaters from 1979 to 1989. However, with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Communism at the end of the 80s, NATO's Cold War role ended.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks were a tragic reminder to NATO members that despite the demise of Communism, there were still many threats posed to the West by radical forces, threats that represented a dark side of the new world order shaped by globalization, and posed a direct challenge to NATO itself.

It is generally agreed that premature disengagement from countries like Afghanistan, and a failure to recognize the rising threat of terrorism, eventually contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Securing Afghanistan now and beyond 2014 is one of NATO's most important post-Cold War tasks-its raison d'être in a way-which must be strongly reaffirmed in the Brussels defense ministerial meeting this week. A firm commitment by the NATO allies to fighting and defeating the Taliban wherever they find safe sanctuaries and institutional support is the key to winning the war in Afghanistan.

In addition, NATO allies must commit to a robust program of training, equipping, and maintaining Afghanistan's national security forces (ANSF). The annual cost of afghanizing the security sector pales before NATO's yearly spending of more than $100 billion on their own military operations in Afghanistan. The staggering difference in cost-effectiveness between NATO and ANSF aside, it is Afghans' foremost duty to defend their country against any external aggression, including terrorism and organized crime. And they're already doing so, as they lead 80 percent of all military operations and provide protection for 90 percent of the Afghan population across the country.

In the meantime, NATO allies must firmly commit to the long-term implementation of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, which in many ways resembles the Marshall Plan in vision and scope. NATO allies understand that Europe could not have rebuilt on its own in the aftermath of the Second World War, under the increasing threat posed by the former Soviet Union, without external aid. Thanks in large measure to the Marshall Plan, war-ravaged Europe was able to rebuild rapidly, and today it is hard to believe that the previous century's two devastating world wars were fought primarily on European soil.

The success of the Marshall Plan in Europe in the 20th Century is an excellent reminder for the NATO allies in the 21st century that when nations come to each other's aid with firm and full commitment, no force-no matter how formidable-can prevent their victory if they stand together until the job is done.

Afghans have contributed significantly to the fight against terrorism and organized crime, two of the most dangerous threats to global security. Much remains to be done on their part to combat militancy, improve good governance and rule of law, and stimulate the economy, but a resolute NATO, armed with requisite security and development resources to deliver on its core mission, will be critical to securing Afghanistan. Afghans look forward to finding a strong and determined partner in the NATO alliance in the years ahead, a partner who can help finish the job started by the international community twelve years ago.

M. Ashraf Haidari is the deputy chief of mission of the Afghan Embassy in India. He formerly served as Afghanistan's deputy assistant national security adviser, as well as deputy chief of mission of the Afghan Embassy in the United States.

Pakistan's new government takes office this week, and optimism is in the air.

Pundits point to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) resounding election victory on May 11, and suggest it will use this mandate to implement critically necessary policy reforms. Presumptive prime minister Nawaz Sharif, observers insist, is more mellow and mature than he was during his previous terms as prime minister. They cite his post-election conciliatory moves-from a visit to the hospital bed of political rival Imran Khan to an invitation to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to attend Sharif's swearing-in ceremony.

Some of this optimism is warranted. But let's be realistic: despite Pakistan's political transition, the nation's troubling structural realities-from reform-resistant vested interests to state-sponsored support for militancy-remain entrenched. We should therefore keep our expectations in check, and hope for relatively modest achievements from Islamabad's new leadership. These include improving the economy, stabilizing civil-military ties, and maintaining adequate relations with India and the United States. Success, however, will hinge on four unpredictable factors.

Wildcard #1: Tax reform  

Sharif appears determined to address Pakistan's sinking economy and debt-driven energy crisis. The PML-N's election manifesto depicts "economic revival" as a chief concern, and in recent days PML-N officials have said they hope to phase out costly subsidies and institute energy pricing reforms.

The question, however, is if the party can truly engineer an economic recovery. The answer will depend on Pakistan's ability to secure new revenue sources-and expanding the national tax base is a much-needed step (according to one recent report, only 768,000 Pakistanis-0.57 percent of the population-paid income tax last year).

Given its dire economic straits, Pakistan is likely to request a fresh loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-and the IMF will probably condition future lending on tax reform. How much political capital is Sharif willing to expend to produce this long-elusive outcome?  How hard will Sharif, who has made a fortune in the sugar industry, push back against entrenched agricultural interests that resist tax reform?

Recent comments by Sartaj Aziz, a former finance minister and top PML-N official, raise additional questions. Aziz said the PML-N isn't yet ready to approach the IMF, and will instead focus on its own economic recovery efforts. Optimists may interpret this to mean the government will use the next few months to implement reforms before going to the Fund. Pessimists, however, may conclude that Islamabad simply wants to go it alone-a troubling prospect for a country with dwindling reserves that, if needed, could cover only five weeks of imports.

Wildcard #2: Pervez Musharraf

The man who overthrew Sharif in a 1999 military coup is now under house arrest outside Islamabad. What Sharif chooses to do with Musharraf will help shape the trajectory of the premier's volatile relationship with the institution that once ousted him.

In 1997, Sharif won an election by a wide margin-and promptly used this mandate to challenge the military's authority. Some may fear he'll use his latest large mandate to again undercut the military-not necessarily by challenging its authority directly, but by taking a sharply anti-military position on a key policy issue. One possibility could be pushing for more reconciliation with India than the military is willing to sanction.

However, early indications suggest the two sides are ready to bury the hatchet. Sharif is blaming Musharraf personally, not the military as a whole, for the events of 1999. One week after the election, Sharif held a three-hour meeting with General Ashfaq Kayani-and the army chief pledged full cooperation on all of the issues that Sharif wants to tackle. Soon thereafter, the Finance Ministry released budgetary projections for the next fiscal year. Strikingly, defense services funding allocations were 15 percent higher than those in this year's budget.

So does this all portend smooth sailing for civil-military relations? Not necessarily. The army wants Musharraf out of Pakistan, and Sharif has reportedly informed Kayani that he'd like Musharraf gone before taking office. However, the PML-N announced last week that it plans to try Musharraf for treason-a prospect that would anger the army, which is already displeased about its former leader's detention. It's still possible a deal will be brokered that sends Musharraf back into exile-and perhaps one is already in the works: This week, rumors abounded that he will visit his ailing mother in Dubai. Yet if a trial does take place, Sharif's relations with the military could again be plunged into crisis.

Wildcard #3: Extremism in Punjab

Militancy in Pakistan's most populous province threatens prospects for better ties with India-and the economic benefits that would arise from rapprochement.

Sharif desires improved relations with New Delhi-and trade normalization is a prime objective. Economists estimate that normalization would increase bilateral trade from less than $3 billion to $40 billion. It would also bring much-needed relief to Pakistan's free-falling, revenue-starved economy by placing at Pakistan's disposal, literally next door, one of the world's largest and fastest-growing markets.

Such a tantalizing vision, however, could be shattered by militancy in Punjab. This province, which borders India, is the PML-N's stronghold-and a bastion for anti-India militant groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Some, like Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), are based in southern Punjab. Others, like Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, have a strong presence in Rawalpindi, the city that hosts Pakistan's military headquarters. LeT leader Hafiz Saeed lives free in Lahore.

Neither Sharif nor his brother Shahbaz-the last chief minister of Punjab's provincial government, which the PML-N has run for years-has dealt with this problem. During the recent election season, the PML-N chose cooperation over confrontation.  Punjab's law minister campaigned with the leader of one sectarian extremist group, while rumors abounded of a PML-N electoral alliance with another.

Encouragingly, Sharif promises to be tough on anti-India militants-he has vowed to ban speeches that "incite jihad" against India, and specifically singled out Saeed's. Yet questions remain about his actual willingness to target these actors (some Indian analysts allege-without elaboration-family "links" to the LeT), much less his ability to do so (Pakistan's security establishment has long regarded these anti-India groups as strategic assets). Ultimately, Sharif's ability to boost ties with India will depend on the extent to which he confronts the militants who wish to destroy it.

Wildcard #4: The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP)

This province, which abuts the militancy-ravaged tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, will be governed by Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. The PTI stridently opposes U.S. drone strikes, and favors non-military solutions to extremism, including peace negotiations with the Pakistan Taliban (TTP). The PTI's ability to stabilize this volatile region, just across the border from where the United States is fighting a war, will bear heavily on Islamabad's relations with Washington.

Sharif's relations with the United States have been relatively friendly since the 1990s, when as premier he worked closely with Bill Clinton (photographs of the two leaders adorn the walls of Sharif's Lahore mansion). Though Sharif's campaign rhetoric featured sharp criticism of drones and the U.S. war on terror, his post-election comments about Washington have been cordial. Last week, during an appearance with James Dobbins, the new U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sharif said the two nations would work "in complete cooperation to curb terrorism."

KP's PTI-led government, however, could jeopardize this goodwill. If it engages the TTP, the latter could enjoy more freedom of movement in KP-affording it greater opportunities to target the NATO supply vehicles that pass through the province, and to intensify its cross-border attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.  Such a prospect would pose a conundrum for Sharif, who wants a workable relationship with Washington yet also shares the PTI's desire to talk to the Taliban. Would Sharif, to protect his relations with Washington, pressure the PTI to change course? Or would he honor the party's engage-the-TTP position, and throw his support behind the PTI?

Either way, the PTI will be tested immediately. Last week, after the TTP's top deputy was killed in a drone strike, the organization withdrew its offer of talks with Islamabad and threatened new attacks. The PTI's response to stepped-up violence will have major ramifications for American efforts in Afghanistan-and also for Pakistan, which receives billions of dollars of U.S. aid.

There's reason to believe Pakistan's new government can kickstart the economy, peacefully coexist with the military, improve relations with New Delhi, and cooperate with Washington. Yet it's important to acknowledge the spoilers that could sabotage each of these prospective success stories. Pakistan, after all, remains a troubled country where soaring hopes are often sorely dashed.

Ultimately, by keeping our expectations about Islamabad's new leadership in check, we set ourselves up for less disappointment-while also allowing for the possibility of being pleasantly surprised.  

Michael Kugelman is the senior program associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is available at michael.kugelman@wilsoncenter.org or on Twitter @michaelkugelman.

Perhaps confirming the deep pessimism amongst the Afghan people about the fairness and transparency of Afghanistan's 2014 presidential elections, there is a lot of political jockeying underway that appears aimed at pre-engineering its result.

The date for the presidential election has been set by Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) for April 5^th, 2014. The announcement of a specific Election Day was meant to provide a measure of clarity for Afghans on the future of their government, and raise the public's confidence in the upcoming election. But uncertainty still surrounds the potential presidential candidates as well how the election is to be held.

A group of prominent individuals has emerged, who call themselves the "national consensus" advocates and seek to select from amongst themselves the next electable candidate.  This group consists primarily of former and current government officials, as well as leaders of the opposition political parties. The list includes, among others: former interior ministers Ali Ahmad Jalali, Hanif Atmar and Mohammad Yunus Qanooni; current Minister of Commerce and Industry Dr. Anwar ul Haq Ahadi the former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan Zalmai Khalilzad; current Head of the Transition Process Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai; Head of Wahdat Party Mohammad Mohaqiq, President Karzai's governance advisor Ghulam Jilani Popal; governor of Balkh Province Atta Mohammad Noor; Minister of Finance Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal; and Senator Ehsan Bayat.

In a country where politics-of-patronage is dominant, the concept of reaching consensus on such a vital and sensitive matter as the next president is a mirage. Historically, Afghan political leaders -whether part of the regime or the opposition - have been fragmented and have rarely agreed on a common political platform on which to unite. The "national consensus" advocates are faced with a similar impasse. It is unlikely that strong candidates will comply and sacrifice their candidacy if they are not chosen by this group, although they have all claimed to be ready to give up their individual ambitions and appetite for the country's top job in order to come to a broad-based agreement on a single candidate.  "We are trying to reach a consensus on a candidate through this mechanism, but at the same time we are encouraging other politicians to unite behind our candidate," said an advocate to Waheed Omar, President Karzai's former Spokesman.

Nevertheless, some of these advocates for national consensus believe that through this process, they might surface as the candidate of choice, and may not have to face a strong opposition during the election campaign that is scheduled to kick off late this year. But most of the ‘national consensus' front-runners face a lack of trust from the public due to their political affiliations and past loyalties, as well as some allegations of criminal activity and corruption. For example: individuals like Mohammad Yunnus Qanooni, Mohammad Mohaqiq and Atta Mohammad Noor have been labelled warlords, while Mohammad Hanif Atmar is known for his affiliation with former communist groups. Potential candidates Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, Ali Ahmad Jalali and Zalmai Khalilzad have been criticized for being technocrats with dual citizenship and little mainstream support.

It is clear that President Karzai and some other members of his inside circle do possess significant political leverage at this point, but not to the extent that they will be able to discourage other candidates from declaring their candidacy. The fact that President Karzai is an outgoing president and may not have the degree of influence he had back in 2009 is interpreted by some potentially strong candidates as a signal that they should go ahead and declare their candidacy, form campaign teams, and publicize their political platforms. They have recognized that waiting for Karzai's approval might not pay off. But the reality is that no one expects the President to be completely hands-off with regard to elections, as his own survival could depend on who is going to be his successor. Historically, it has often been the case that rulers of Afghanistan meet a grisly end when they fall from power.

Some potential candidates are still waiting for President Karzai's green light in order to kick off their election campaign, in the belief that his support and resources will increase their chances. And while President Karzai is aware of his key role in the upcoming election, he is using the time he has left in office to further boost his authority and impose his candidate of choice, who will carry on his legacy and who is expected to maintain a degree of loyalty to him. Last month, President Karzai's younger brother Mahmoud Karzai told Reuters that their older brother Qayum Karzai is planning to make an "independent" run for president in 2014, though it remains unclear whether the current president will actively support him.

Although conspiracy theories abound that Karzai may wish to remain in power post 2014, many analysts agree that he wouldn't risk his political legacy by making such an irrational decision. "President Karzai will not jeopardize his legacy and the stability of Afghanistan by impeding elections or favor alternatives to election," said a close member of President Karzia's inner circle on condition of anonymity. Notwithstanding the outcome of the so-called ‘national consensus' effort promoted by some Afghan politicians, the free and fair nature of elections will determine the faith that Afghans have in the next President of Afghanistan. But it is widely anticipated that the decision - if any - of the national consensus advocates, due in September 2013, could be a pre-engineered selection of the future president, and the ‘election' merely an instrument for its legitimacy.

Hamid M. Saboory is a political analyst, former employee of the Afghan National Security Council, and a founding member of the Kabul- based think tank Afghanistan Analysis and Awareness(A3).

A review of Con Coughlin's Churchill's First War (London: MacMillan, 2013).

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war. -- Winston Churchill

This book, by the defence editor of the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph, has a double significance. It gives an insight into the early life and career of one of the twentieth century's most famous statesmen, Winston Churchill. It also assesses Western strategy in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan today in the light of Churchill's experiences there almost 120 years ago.

By 1897, the British - stung by two costly wars in Afghanistan - had long since abandoned the idea of controlling that country directly. They were practising instead the marvellously named policy of "masterly inactivity" - watching developments from afar, controlling events within Afghanistan through judiciously applied bribes, and holding their massive destructive power in reserve. Their iron fist, as they had found, could punch deep into Afghanistan and do immense damage there, but was hard to pull out again afterwards.

The British remained keen, however, to assert their dominance over the peoples on their side of the newly-drawn and much-resented southern border of Afghanistan, which divided that country from the British-controlled territory that is now Pakistan. Most of those peoples were Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as today's Taliban (and, for that matter, Afghan President Hamid Karzai.) And they, in turn, were afraid that their prized autonomy was under threat. A brutal conflict resulted: Pashtuns with bright banners, well-aimed rifles and superior numbers against British and Indian soldiers with machine-guns.

Both sides were ruthless. The British suffered twenty per cent casualties, while unnumbered thousands of Pashtuns were killed. "There is no doubt that we are a very cruel people," one of the British participants wrote. The same man added, "I have not soiled my hands with any dirty work," but since he had no compunction in destroying the homes of rebellious Pashtun villagers, the unnamed "dirty work" was apparently something darker.

The writer was Winston Churchill, at an early stage of his career. He covered the conflict - writing, like Coughlin, for the Telegraph. He also took part in it, as a cavalry officer. Strange as it may seem today, he was reporting on battles in which he himself had taken part. Using British soldiers as war reporters was patriotic; it was also cheap, as Coughlin wryly notes.

In examining history, Coughlin always has the present day in view, and draws frequent comparisons between past British experiences and those of NATO in Afghanistan now.

Despite a few minor inaccuracies (he is not quite right to say that the Popalzai are not an Afghan royal tribe, or that the Taliban vandalised the British cemetery in Kabul, or that the "ghazis" who fought the British in the nineteenth century were salafis; the Pakistani mullah Fazlullah is spelled here "Fazullah"), it makes for an engaging and thought-provoking read. Darting into Churchill's own life story, Coughlin drags up some fun facts to enliven his narrative. I had never known that the New York Times was once the proud owner of a couple of machine guns (bought to protect it against rioters); or that Churchill picked up his fondness for whisky in what is now Pakistan; or that his mother, an American heiress, had quite so many lovers.

In Britain at present there is a controversy over the fact that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, once belonged to an Oxford club whose members sometimes trashed restaurants. Churchill and his fellow cavalry-officers went some way further than this: they brought a pony into their living-room and made it jump sofas, once allegedly fixed a horse race, and equipped their dining room with furniture made ready to smash.

But the core of this book is a grimmer story. Churchill's articles for the Daily Telegraph were brutal and devoid of compassion: they make for unpleasant reading. He described the Pashtuns as "pernicious vermin," whose clearance from their valleys would be a boon to humanity. Their religion was "the most miserable fanaticism." Twenty-three years old, with no prior experience of war, he was seeing the Pashtuns only through the barrel of a gun. "The religion of blood and war," he wrote sententiously in one of his columns, after hearing of the warlike behaviour of certain Pashtun clerics, "is face to face with that of peace. Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed." One would think that the Pashtuns had invaded British territory, rather than the other way around.

In mitigation, the book points out that Churchill had seen his friends killed around him, and had come close to death himself. Also, despite his brutal rhetoric, Churchill privately drew sombre conclusions about the value of the fighting in which he was taking part. "Financially it is ruinous. Morally it is wicked. Militarily it is an open question, and politically it is a blunder." But then he concludes: "But we can't pull up now." Honour was now at stake, he felt. He always resented the political officers who wanted to talk to the enemy rather than fighting them.

Fighting is sometimes better than talking: proving that in the fight against Nazism would later be Churchill's greatest achievement. This earlier time, he was wrong. It proved entirely possible to "pull up." After the brief and bloody conflict in which Churchill fought - a "violent campaign to impose order on a part of the world that has never tolerated outside interference," as Coughlin terms it - the British adopted a similar arm's-length approach to the Pashtuns south of the Afghan border as they had done towards Afghanistan itself. This time, the result was decades of relative peace.

"Masterly inactivity" is not the same as negotiating with the enemy, though it may involve doing so. It is a careful and bloodless application of sustained diplomacy. Coughlin - no peacenik, and often a robust defender of Britain's military - seems to hint in this book that after years of war and drone strikes in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, masterly inactivity might once again be worth a try.

Gerard Russell was head of the British Embassy's political team in Afghanistan in 2007-8, and a political officer at the United Nations in Kabul in 2009.

The Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework (TMAF), agreed to at the July 2012 Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan, started out with high hopes.  International donors pledged to provide Afghanistan with $4 billion in civilian aid per year through 2015 and to continue significant support through 2017 and beyond, while the Afghan government committed to governance improvements and a democratic political transition as per the Afghan Constitution.  Less than a year into the implementation process, however, serious obstacles are being encountered. 

As noted in a recent paper, the old adage about work in Soviet-era centrally-planned economic systems -- "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us" -- appears to be increasingly applicable to TMAF implementation, which is being undermined by:

-        Doubts about the realism of some pledges made by both sides, specifically the degree of genuine commitment by the Afghan government to improving governance and fighting corruption, and the level of international funding that will actually materialize in the face of donors' budget constraints and disappointment over limited Afghan progress;

-        Short-term priorities that may sideline TMAF implementation, most notably the international community's preoccupation with its military exit strategy, and the Afghan government's focus on political maneuvering in the run-up to the 2014 election; 

-        Adherence to process, fulfilling the "letter of the law" and "checking the box" on benchmarks, which is being emphasized at the expense of substance; and

-        Focus on the TMAF for its own sake, which is, perhaps, distracting both sides from achieving actual results and positive outcomes.

Furthermore, there is a risk that TMAF implementation will degenerate into a "blame game," with each side accusing the other of failing to live up to its side of the "bargain" and using perceived failures as justification for falling short on its own commitments. 

A few examples illustrate these themes.  Recent convictions of Kabul Bank senior executives involved in the theft and misuse of some $1 billion in deposits and other bank funds were presented by the Afghan government as evidence of its fulfilling commitments regarding the bank, but there was a perception internationally that the verdicts were too lenient.  Regardless, the practical point is this: with the principals of Kabul Bank convicted on some other fairly minor charges but not on money-laundering charges, the government cannot initiate formal procedures to seize the stolen assets already identified in other countries, and an opportunity for the Afghan state to recover hundreds of millions of dollars has been lost -- irrespective of whether TMAF benchmarks regarding corruption were met or not.

Some efforts by international donors to move aid "on-budget" -- providing funds to the Afghan government for disbursement through its national budget and administrative mechanisms -- seem questionable.  Most donor funding is currently "off-budget" -- channeled bilaterally -- but at the Tokyo conference, donors committed to putting at least 50 percent of their aid on-budget, a laudable objective, as part of the shift toward Afghan leadership during the transition. It was recently announced, for example, that the installation of a third turbine at the Kajaki hydroelectric plant (in a conflict-ridden part of Helmand province) would be turned over to the Afghan government, despite massive and ultimately unsuccessful international efforts to complete the project. It is unclear how the Afghan government will be able to succeed where the international community failed.

Intruding short-term priorities can also trump making mutual accountability work.  The international imperative of a timely and smooth withdrawal of foreign combat forces may be interfering with efforts to hold the Afghan government accountable for its performance.  For example, international pressure for action on Kabul Bank has greatly eased as the coalition has become increasingly focused on its military exit strategy.  It also appears that the IMF-supported macroeconomic program, which provides balance of payments support and the critical IMF "certification" that enables funding through trust funds and other budget support, is likely to remain officially "on-track," even if the government's performance falls short of its targets (for example in the crucial area of domestic revenue). No one wants to deal with the consequences of going off-track, namely a budget crisis. 

On the Afghan side, short-term political considerations in the run-up to the 2014 presidential election are sidelining and distorting TMAF implementation. Expectations that the government will take meaningful actions to improve governance, especially against high-level corruption, will become all the more unrealistic as the election approaches. There are also signs of possible manipulation of some TMAF benchmarks for narrow political purposes.  For example, the Afghan government has strongly advocated that 100 percent of international funding for the 2014 presidential and the 2015 parliamentary elections be on-budget, ostensibly related to the TMAF benchmark of moving more aid on-budget.  However, without safeguards to preserve the independence of electoral authorities, this may increase their vulnerability to interference or at least undermine public confidence in the elections (I am grateful to my colleague Scott Smith for making this point).

It is also uncertain to what extent the Tokyo pledge of civilian aid will be delivered.  Based on Afghan and international experience, actual aid commonly falls short of pledges for a variety of reasons, and it would be surprising if the Tokyo pledge turned out to be an exception to this general pattern.  Moreover, given that the pledge was slightly above even the high-end scenario ("accelerating progress") put forward in the World Bank study Afghanistan in Transition: Looking Beyond 2014, it seems clear that donors saw this amount as a "stretch target" -- something to be aspired to only if there is strong progress by the government in improving governance and fighting corruption in the spirit of the TMAF's objectives, prospects for which are doubtful in the short run.

Aside from these concerns, the TMAF is generating a substantial amount of paperwork, which may further distract those involved from substance.  The government's "anti-corruption decree" of July 2012, intended to be a vehicle for implementing the TMAF, contained more than 150 specific action points/benchmarks, called for a large amount of reporting, and would be no small task to monitor.

Overall, the larger goals that animated the Tokyo conference and the promise of the TMAF are being undermined during implementation.  But this should not come as a complete surprise given experience with conditionality, benchmarks, and similar arrangements in other countries, as well as in Afghanistan's own recent history.  Such mechanisms do not work well in the absence of a reform constituency in the country that can leverage conditions and push reforms, if objectives and targets are overly ambitious or multitudinous, and if a medium-term perspective is lacking or is dominated by short-term priorities.  

But how to move forward?  Rather than investing more effort in trying to fix and fine-tune the TMAF, let alone add benchmarks or revisit the respective "failures" of both sides, the Afghan government and its international partners need to clarify and manage their own and each other's expectations.  This will be particularly important in the immediate future while the challenges of elections and political transition, as well as the withdrawal of international combat troops, dominate the landscape.

Both sides can responsibly pursue their respective, clearly-defined objectives, while staying realistic about overlaps and disconnects.  Progress would be facilitated by clear and honest communications.  The main objectives of Afghanistan and the international community are interdependent and in many ways broadly consistent -- provided they are responsibly pursued and include a wider, medium-term perspective rather than solely serving narrow and short-term interests.  The international community's key short-run priority is to withdraw most foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and achieve a smooth security hand-over.  For this hand-off to be sustainable, the achievement of several key Afghan national objectives is required, most importantly a successful presidential election and political transition, resulting in an effective new government administration and (later) parliament that are perceived to be legitimate both internally and externally.

Once these key milestones of the current political and security transition are successfully achieved, the TMAF, if tempered by realistic ambitions and timeframes, may provide the basis for a productive partnership between Afghanistan and the international community over the medium term.

William Byrd is an Afghanistan senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace.  The views expressed here are his own.

Last week, ten Afghans and six Americans were killed in one of this year's worst insurgent attacks. While the bombing in Kabul raised eyebrows around the world, it was not mainly because of its deadliness, but because of the group behind it -- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami (HIG).

Once one of the biggest players in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, HIG took an active role in the civil war of the 1990s and has since emerged as the second largest insurgent group in Afghanistan. Paradoxically, HIG is also a legal political party, whose members make up the largest voting bloc in parliament and are (at the least) former loyalists to Hekmatyar.  Some HIG members even serve as governors, ministers and presidential advisors to President Hamid Karzai. HIG -- the political party -- has publically disassociated itself from Hekmatyar, but many Afghans remain unconvinced, suspecting members of retaining strong attachments to and respect for their charismatic, fugitive warlord leader. Moreover, the militant and political branches of HIG retain a common strand of an Islamist ideology.

However, the story gets more complex as the group's insurgent wing has repeatedly received a ‘red-carpet' welcome in the presidential palace, with Karzai shaking hands with the envoys. Parts of the Afghan press were therefore particularly scathing after last week's bombing, writing such headlines as "The crime of the guests of the Palace." Unlike the Taliban, who refuse to talk to the government, HIG's military wing has embraced direct negotiations with Kabul. It has sent 17 delegations to Kabul over the past three years, though talks were suspended last year. Since then, delegations have only met politicians, including former rivals, and Western generals and diplomats.

HIG stopped its talks with the government in May 2012 to protest the signing of the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement. After last Thursday's attack, the group's spokesman told journalists it was in response to the Bilateral Security Agreement the United States and Afghanistan are currently negotiating. One of the key conditions of HIG's February 2012 peace offer has been that Kabul must refrain from signing any deal which allows foreign troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014.

However, at the same time as ordering such a deadly attack, Hekmatyar has been saying positive things about next year's presidential elections and has suggested his party would participate by choosing a candidate to support.

What is one to make of all this? 

First, despite Hekmatyar's claims, hostility to U.S.-Afghan security agreements does not seem to be the main driver of the group's continuing armed opposition to the government. A recent HIG communique and interviews conducted by this author with several of the warlord's confidants suggest he is frustrated with the failure of peace talks and also weary of his never-ending, never-winning armed struggle. This has led him to rethink his strategy.

One of the problems for Hekmatyar is that the government's priority in any peace talks is the Taliban, a group which is larger and deadlier. Hekmatyar, as a prize, may simply not be worth the hefty concessions he is demanding, especially since any peace deal with HIG would earn Karzai more animosity than praise from the group's many rivals, who make up a sizeable part of his government, the Afghan armed forces, and the political opposition.

Hekmatyar also faces different generational demands. For older party members who accompanied him from the 1980s through all the phases of the Afghan war, being kept out of the ruling political system yet again was too wearisome to contemplate, especially as the battlefield gave no hope of victory. This is why, says Muhammad Khan, deputy leader of the legal, political HIG party, many chose to "come in from the cold." According to Khan, the party currently has three cabinet ministers and 47 members of the upper and lower houses of parliament. Karzai has also appointed half a dozen "Hezbis" as provincial governors, with more becoming his high-profile advisors and ambassadors. However, younger members of the faction, who make up the bulk of the current HIG foot soldiers and are impressed by Hekmatyar's fiery language against the "Crusaders," believe the jihad must continue until all the foreign forces are out of Afghanistan and an Islamic state is established.

To keep his group intact, Hekmatyar has to keep all of these members happy, both the war-weary old-timers and the battle-hungry youngsters. This means reshaping his vision to include both political engagement in the 2014 presidential election and jihad against the foreign troops. He is trying to simultaneously promote his political aims through militancy and his military aims through politics. This is how last week's bombing and his latest statement (available only in Pashto), made on the 35^th anniversary of the communists' coup d'etat, should be understood. In speaking about his new vision, Hekmatyar stated:

"In the case that a limited number of foreign forces stays and the puppet government of Kabul grants them legal immunity, then Hezb-e Islami [opts for] supporting a candidate closer to its policies and relatively better than the others; he would certainly easily be made a winner with an overwhelming majority [with Hezb's support]. In this case, Hezb-e Islami would continue its jihad on the battle field and badly defeat the enemy on the political field." (Author's translation)

With this statement, Hekmatyar made a U-turn, forgetting his previous demand that a full withdrawal of foreign forces was a precondition for accepting the current political order. Now he says there needs to be a drawdown of international forces and elections to be held next year, both events due to happen regardless of HIG's involvement. However, it's worth noting here that he was utterly opposed to the two previous presidential elections, calling them "ridicule[s]" and dramas performed under the wings of "the occupation's fighter aircrafts which aims at rendering a false legitimacy to a puppet government."

To avoid looking like he has blatantly changed his mind, Hekmatyar even started telling a new narrative on the war by now referring to the 2014 withdrawal as the "inevitable defeat of the United States and NATO" and "the imminent victory of the mujahedin."

Hekmatyar has also "threatened" to win an overwhelming majority in the 2015 parliamentary elections in order to gain control of parliament and use its legislative power to expel all remaining foreign forces. In other words, he implies that his military goals could finally be achieved through politics. This mixed vision of completing the "liberation" of Afghanistan through democratic means and boasting of victory while still conducting attacks against the government looks designed to keep the foot soldiers loyal. The violence may also be aimed at getting leverage in negotiations. It is a threat to the government to take HIG and its peace overtures more seriously.

Hekmatyar's explicit approval of, and indeed, his intention to participate in the upcoming election may also be an attempt to retain ownership of the many longstanding associates who have grown weary of war, especially as more and more of them have slipped away from the armed wing to join the political process in Kabul. The latest and probably most important member to do this is Qutbuddin Helal, a former deputy prime minister from the mujahedin government in 1990s, who, until last year, was heading Hekmatyar's negotiation efforts.

According to HIG sources who spoke to this author, Helal has joined the government's reintegration program, allegedly in defiance of Hekmatyar's orders. Helal himself said he had not lost allegiance to Hekmatyar as his amir, but that he was now busy discussing a future political solution to the war with tribal elders and what he called "likeminded" parties. By basing himself in Kabul with such a mission, Helal has set up a new nexus of HIG in the capital, adding to the various other minor "breakaway" groups and heavyweights.  

"Once a Hezbi, always a Hezbi," is a modern Afghan saying. Many Afghans believe that whatever name they operate under, even those Kabul-based Hezbis who are working in the government are loyal and will stay loyal to Hekmatyar to the end of their days. This suggests the "Amir's" apparent intention to enter electoral politics could unite all the various political groups, parties, and independent heavyweights who have their roots in HIG but have become scattered during the leader's almost two decade exile from Afghanistan.

However, any comeback, whether in Hekmatyar's own right -- which seems less likely -- or through a political party which explicitly speaks for him, would not be a smooth occurrence. He has bitter enemies among the former mujahedin, particularly from the Jamiat-e Islami group which, among others, fought a bitter civil war in the mid-1990s. Jamiat, a leading faction in the Northern Alliance, has done well in the post-2001 years, with ministers, governors, members of parliament, and a dominating presence in the Afghan security forces. In an attempt to pre-empt their opposition to Hekmatyar's return to politics, his representatives have met many of their old rivals over the past year, but it is unclear what success they've had.

What does seem clear is that Hekmatyar will only take up the government's invitation to insurgents to participate in next year's election if he can give up violence as a means to an end. For now, however, he seems to believe he can best further his party's interests by playing with both bullets and ballots.

Since the brutal attack in Boston a few weeks ago, the word terrorism, without being preceded by the word "cyber," unfortunately returned to our lexicon.  For those who have spent the better part of the past decade obsessed by the al Qaeda terrorism threat, there was much in Boston that looked very familiar.

Two men who have spent an even longer time watching the evolution of the al Qaeda threat, Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor in chief of the London-based newspaper, Al-Quds al-Arabi, and Phil Mudd, a former CIA analyst, Deputy Director of the agency's Counterterrorist Center, and Deputy Director of the National Security Branch at the FBI, have both written important and well-argued books that have a direct relevance to the al Qaeda inspired attack in Boston, the ongoing evolution of the al Qaeda threat and the U.S. intelligence community's current and future capacity to understand the ever-changing nature of that threat.

Abdel Bari Atwan's book, After Bin Laden - Al Qaeda the Next Generation, as its title connotes, seeks to explain the characteristics of "Al Qaeda and Associated Movements," or AQAM as he likes to call them, in the wake of bin Laden's death. 

Not surprisingly, Mr. Atwan makes a compelling case that while the death of Osama bin Laden and the decimation of al Qaeda Core's top leadership has hurt the central organization that was based in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the movement and ideology, with its worldwide presence via regional associated movements, is as much of a menace to the West as ever and undiminished in its goal of a global caliphate.

Mr. Atwan spends considerable time discussing the poorly named "Arab Spring," the successive revolutions which occurred across the Arab world and the relationship that these events have with indigenous al Qaeda-associated movements that have their own deep roots in some of the very states that saw their governments topple, sectarian conflicts break into the open, and civil wars erupt.

While many of us in the West hoped that the revolutions in the Arab states would herald better governance and the opportunity for homegrown secularists with their own domestic legitimacy to rise, Mr. Atwan saw a different future - one where Islamist parties would dominate the ballot box and armed Islamists or AQAM would have a role to play as well.

Mr. Atwan takes the reader on an impressive tour of the Islamic world, with chapters and sections on almost every country and region from Arabia to Uzbekistan.  While some of the background history that he provides on each country or region is old news to regular readers of the New York Times international section, they do provide the context in each locale for Mr. Atwan to make his most provocative argument - al Qaeda-associated movements are poised for a comeback when either the Islamists or secularists fail in their efforts of good governance, regardless of whether it is in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, North Africa, Sinai, or Central Asia.  While the situation in each country is distinct, in general, regional al Qaeda-type violence certainly seems unabated and potentially is on the upswing in countries like Iraq, Nigeria, Mali and Syria.

Mr. Atwan is at his best when explaining the tribal dynamics in such places as Yemen, where different alliances among the tribes and their long standing dissatisfaction with any central government make them a natural ally of al Qaeda-associated movements, who also seek to challenge the central government, are armed, and espouse an austere form of Islam that is not foreign to the locals.  Mr. Atwan draws similar astute insights about local dynamics when considering the prospects for growth for al Qaeda in the states of North Africa or the Islamic Maghreb.

Unlike many who follow jihadist groups, Mr. Atwan did not neglect the unstable Russian Caucasus region, including Chechnya and Dagestan -places now etched in the American consciousness.  While some may not have understood the centrality of the Caucasus in the al Qaeda narrative, Mr. Atwan captures not only its importance, but also its worldwide links to jihadists in Pakistan, the Middle East, and even Europe.

With such a broad array of al Qaeda-associated threats gathering across the globe, and a sporadic, hard to characterize, homegrown threat now having proven its capability to kill, one is likely to worry how the United States will confront this multi-faceted threat matrix.

Fortunately, we have Philip Mudd, who ate, slept, and dreamt this threat for the better part of this past decade from within various parts the U.S. counterterrorism bureaucracy, to provide a unique perspective on how the United States is organized to confront this threat.  What gives Mr. Mudd's book, Takedown - Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda, its arc is his career trajectory within a counterterrorism bureaucracy that was constantly evolving to catch up to and ultimately try to stay ahead of a rapidly evolving al Qaeda threat.

For an outsider, Mr. Mudd provides unique insights as to what it was like on a day-to-day basis working in the CIA Counterterrorism Center and FBI National Security Branch and how those entities functioned, faults and all.  Mudd's descriptions of his encounters with senior policymakers and agency heads like Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and FBI Director Robert Mueller could easily have been found in a typical Bob Woodward book about inside Washington.  However, Mr. Mudd is a gentleman and takes the high road in his recollections.  The book is less about "takedowns" of particular terrorists and much more a story of Mr. Mudd's experiences inside the U.S. national security apparatus, embedded in explanations of the functioning of the U.S. counterterrorism community's threat bureaucracy.

Mr. Mudd's vantage point from inside the different organizations at particular points in time allows him to explain how the al Qaeda threat looked to the U.S. government at various points during the last decade.  This perspective is quite important and in many ways sets up the findings of Mr. Atwan's book about al Qaeda post-bin Laden.

Mr. Mudd served as a National Security Council staffer when the attacks of September 11, 2001 occurred, after which he returned to CIA where he found himself at the rapidly growing Counterterrorism Center.  At that time, the U.S. intelligence community was concerned primarily - and rightly - with al Qaeda Core in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and how to understand the hierarchy and network that supported it.  So, the arrests, capture, and subsequent interviews of senior al Qaeda leaders such as Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided the intelligence community with information that could help potentially thwart plots or provide insights on other plotters and was, as Mr. Mudd describes it, "gold" for intelligence analysts.

As progress was being made against al Qaeda Core in the Af/Pak region, the United States mobilized for the Iraq War.  Mr. Mudd describes how, suddenly, the al Qaeda-linked insurgency in Iraq that rose up in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion became an important focus and required an expansion of resources at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.  Moreover, the phenomenon was not confined to Iraq after 2003 - but rather, an al Qaeda threat was spreading through South East Asia, North Africa, Turkey and Europe, as evidenced by attacks in these areas.

Although Mr. Mudd does not provide the detailed historical context or local dynamics that Mr. Atwan focuses on to explain this geographic proliferation of the al Qaeda threat, he does focus on one element that is a key common factor among all the al Qaeda associated groups regardless of where they are - ideology.  This ideology is not only anti-Western, but also requires the overthrow of Middle Eastern regimes, and thus "attacks are meant to spark a revolution, not an end in themselves." 

Furthermore, Mr. Mudd explains that it was during this time period (2003-2006) that the U.S counterterrorism community felt an acute sense of "surprise and unknowing" given the geographic sprawl that characterized al Qaeda attacks during this time. As time wore on, though, the intelligence community began to dedicate analysts not solely to al Qaeda Core but rather to these geographically disperse regions that now seemingly housed al Qaeda problems.  Interestingly, what Mr. Mudd describes happening at the national level was also happening at the NYPD Intelligence Division, and we too had to both widen the aperture of our analytic lens and devote more resources to a broader and more diverse al Qaeda threat during those years.

Once Mr. Mudd moved to the FBI, on loan from the CIA, he gained insight into the threat that was increasingly manifesting itself in the West and ultimately struck in Boston - the homegrown threat, comprised of "loose clusters of youths, typically kids who were angry and thought other members of their communities weren't serious about opposing what they saw as a U.S. or Western crusade in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere."  These men had little if any operational links to al Qaeda, but rather were inspired to act by the group's ideology.  

As the reader finishes both books, the authors veer off into very different directions.  Mr. Mudd makes no predictions as to what the threat will look like in future years, but gives the impression that the terrorism threat management bureaucracy in the United States had become more streamlined and regularized, or "far more well-oiled and less jumpy, than in the first years," suggestive of a higher level of functionality and capacity to thwart future al Qaeda plots.

Mr. Atwan, however, paints a picture that unfortunately does not bode well and in some ways challenges the assertions that the U.S. intelligence community has adequately evolved enough to face the diffuse, de-centralized al Qaeda threat that we face today.  In Mr. Atwan's world, various al Qaeda-type groups coordinate and collaborate across huge swaths of the earth and take advantage of the chaos and instability of the post-Arab Spring Middle East.  New post-revolutionary governments, whether Islamist or secular, may face protestors and al Qaeda-type terrorists who work together, if they falter or fail to deliver the changes that were promised. 

Mr. Mudd is clearly right in that the U.S. intelligence community now has the bandwidth and regional expertise to adequately focus on a diverse and dispersed al Qaeda threat.  However, the ability to better understand the threat and the ability to roll it back are different processes (intelligence analysis vs. counterterrorism policy execution).  Unfortunately, greater and deeper insights do not assure American counterterrorism success, especially when Mr. Atwan makes a compelling case that we face a future of many ‘al Qaedas' who have metastasized in hard to get at places, are unlikely to be completely defeated on the battlefield, nor collapse because of infighting, nor be successfully rendered impotent via U.S.-led decapitation strategies.  Thus, despite the U.S. intelligence community's increase in terms of both breadth and depth of expertise, the longest war will probably go on longer, and we may have to be content with an American strategy that can keep the regional al Qaeda franchise threats in check, but cannot eradicate them. 

Mitchell D. Silber is the Executive Managing Director of K2 Intelligence and was the Director of Intelligence Analysis for the New York Police Department from 2007 to 2012.  

As of this year, Afghanistan has experienced ten years of stabilization intervention, but what is there to show for it? Marked by massive expenditure with little to no accountability, and often marred by waste, stabilization in Afghanistan started out with arguably honorable aims. However, as troops prepare to leave in 2014, what legacy will be left behind?

Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) began with perhaps the best of intentions: to fill the vacuum of law and order left by the fall of the Taliban and undertake reconstruction, badly needed in a country devastated by three decades of conflict. The security situation was perceived to be relatively benign, with the major threats being criminals and warlords seeking to reassert power.

PRTs did some positive work, often acting as the only authority in a security vacuum, and were appreciated, at least early on, by Afghans. They were no substitute, however, for the effective governance and security required. PRTs' predominantly military staff received little to no training, lacked the technical skills required to carry out development work and focused more on short term quick impact projects instead of the long term state-and-peace-building work that was so badly needed.  Rather than seeking to build Afghan capacity - a central component of their mandate - they often worked around the government. The PRTs also created winners and losers, supporting local strongmen or funneling money through often corrupt construction companies.  

Despite early U.S. government acknowledgement of these problems, PRTs expanded rapidly, led by a multitude of different nations that were often unable to effectively coordinate amongst each another.  In 2008, the US Congress described the situation as one with "no clear definition of the PRT mission, no concept of operations or doctrine, no standard operating procedures."

As insecurity spread, the dual security and reconstruction roles of PRTs became increasingly schizophrenic. One incident in Ghazni province in 2004 saw PRT officials offering to build a well for villagers just weeks after they had fired rockets into the very same village killing nine children.  Unsurprisingly, residents were hardly consoled and Afghan goodwill for the PRTs was quickly eroded.

But the amount of money available for military-led development continued to increase.  In 2009, the US Army published the Commanders' Guide to Money as a Weapons System, which defined aid as "a nonlethal weapon" to be utilised to "win the hearts and minds of the indigenous population to facilitate defeating the insurgents." Aid devoted to these objectives rapidly increased: annual funding for the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), the primary U.S. PRT funding stream, rose from $200m in 2007 to $1bn in 2010.

No centralised, comprehensive records appear to have been kept on the PRTs, either within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or the Afghan government, and rarely even within PRTs. When auditors found CERP project files incomplete or non-existent in 2009, CERP project managers told US auditors that their focus "was on obligating funds for projects rather than monitoring their implementation." Unsurprisingly there has been no comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of CERP-funded programmes; the most thorough examination is a 2011 SIGAR audit of CERP programming in the insecure eastern province of Laghman. It's a harrowing read.  Of the $53m CERP funds allocated to the PRT between 2008 and 2011, 92% (or $49.2m) was dedicated to projects found by SIGAR to be "at risk or have questionable outcomes." Funds were not managed in accordance with standard operating procedures, which were finally established in 2009, and none of the 69 projects had sufficient documentation to track outcomes. Again and again, the audit found the Afghan government unable to take over PRT projects.

PRTs were not the only instrument of stabilization. Between 2003 and 2012, USAID obligated $1.1bn in stabilization funding to for-profit contractors but such projects fared no better. One example is USAID's ‘flagship counterinsurgency program' the Local Government and Community Development Programme (LGCD). The budget and timelines for the $400m, five-year project mushroomed despite questionable early evaluation findings and the fact that over half of LGCD's expenditures were on staff costs and security.  USAID officials were unable to visit several sites because it was too dangerous. As for its impact, the USAID Inspector-General reported ‘the project's overall success seemed highly questionable.'

Part of the problem is that the goals of stabilization in Afghanistan were never comprehensively, consistently or clearly articulated.  Stabilization works on the assumption that conflicts are fuelled by grievances about poverty or neglect, and that development projects that improve governance, opportunities and services can ‘stabilize' conflict situations. But evidence is lacking or discouraging.  A 2011 Tufts university study found while there was some evidence some stabilization interventions can work in the short term, there is little evidence of long term security gains and much more indicating a tendency to create local conflict and ‘perverse incentives' to maintain insecurity.

In an world where aid agencies are required to prove their ‘value for money' and aid-receiving governments are pressured to become fully transparent, the lack of systematic, government-led push for accountability for the multi-billion dollar investments is hypocritical and irresponsible - and speaks to an ideological unwillingness to address the problems and pitfalls of stabilization approaches.

The lack of interest in documenting the impact of the stabilization efforts - both what works and what doesn't - does not bode well for the rest of the world. As global focus turns to other complex emergencies in Mali, Yemen and Somalia, stabilization is increasingly the approach of choice. Without recognizing systematic problems, stabilization interventions are unlikely to improve and begin to fulfill their lofty goals. After the troop drawdown in Afghanistan next year, perhaps we'll have a better idea of the true legacy of stabilization. But for now, the future looks worryingly unstable.

Ashley Jackson is a Research Fellow in the Humanitarian Policy Group at the Overseas Development Institute. Before joining ODI she worked for several years in Afghanistan with the United Nations and Oxfam.

Recent election violence in Pakistan has been called unprecedented. But Pakistan's 2008 elections were bloodier. The electoral death toll in this election has crossed 100, but in 2008, over 150 were killed and 400 injured. 

If Pakistan's experience is like that of other countries around the world, then Saturday, Election Day, will be violent. But when perpetrated by political actors -- candidates, parties, party workers, and supporters -- that violence can be taken as a sign that electoral administration is getting stronger and that democracy is maturing. 

While the Pakistani and international press have expressed alarm at the vehemence of electoral violence perpetrated by the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups, Islamist parties have never won more than about five percent of the vote in any of Pakistan's elections. This election will be no different.

The apparent increase in the extremists' use of violence in this historic election is a sign, not of their strength, but of their increasing irrelevance in a society that is moving forward with regular, competitive elections between mainstream parties. 

As William McCants has argued in reference to the rise in militant violence in the Middle East, when moderate Islamists and other opposition parties begin to compete successfully in increasingly democratic elections, attacks by extremists who could not take power through political participation escalate. It is thus more important than ever for voters and parties to participate peacefully and for citizens, international observers, and other electoral stakeholders to resist the temptation to conclude that election violence implies that Pakistan, or any country, for that matter, is not suited or ready for democracy.    

Data on violent incidents collected during Pakistan's 2008 elections show that the dynamics here are consistent with those in many other parts of the world. Electoral violence is correlated strongly with two things: uncertainty and reform. The more uncertainty there is in an election -- whether because of the entrance of new candidates or shifting strength of parties -- the higher the risk of violence. And the more reform -- electoral reforms or strengthening institutions that conduct oversight -- the greater the incentives for competitors to add violence to their tactics as their support bases become less reliable and fraud gets more difficult.  

Many transitions to democracy since 1945 have been accompanied by an increase in political violence. This phenomenon, however, is not unique to Africa, Pakistan, or even new democracies. French political scientist Patrick Quantin, for example, compares African election violence with tumultuous elections in 19th-century France in order to illustrate how messy the consolidation of democracy can be.

Similarly, Rapoport and Weinberg document episodes of election violence that erupted during phases of electoral reform and political liberalization in ancient Greece, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Case study evidence suggests that at least 198 countries or territories and more than 22 U.S. states have experienced at least one episode of election violence at some point in their electoral histories. As a 2001 U.S. Agency for International Development report notes, "some violence is likely in nearly all elections. 

Contested, competitive elections have been associated with violence or the threat of violence in polities as diverse as the United States (Colfax County, Louisiana, 1873; Wilmington, North Carolina, 1898; Florida, 1920; U.S. Presidential elections in 1860 and 1876), Costa Rica (1945), Algeria (1991/92), Colombia (1875), and Côte d'Ivoire (2011), to name a few. All occurred not during founding elections, but later in the process, as electoral administration improved, multiple parties were allowed to compete on a more even playing field, new electoral coalitions formed, voter sophistication and participation increased, and other factors made incumbents less certain of winning.             

These patterns at first seem counterintuitive, but are plainly logical. Violence is on the menu of options that parties and candidates have to win elections. But there is a natural disincentive to deploy violence. It is easy to detect, makes the perpetrators look bad, and can result in sanctions. So what are the preferred alternatives? Fraud, intimidation, negative campaigning, slander, fear creation -- the quieter the means of coercion, the better.            

But reforms disrupt the usual pathways and make fraud more difficult. So throughout history and across countries, reform tends to be correlated with violence.       

Take, for example, Kentucky. Prior to the introduction of the secret ballot in Louisville in 1888, the Democratic political machine would pay clerks to mark blank ballots and buy votes from white and African-American voters alike.

In his research on the effects of electoral reform on political violence, historian Tracy Campbell finds that ballot secrecy undercut these strategies and forced the machine to resort to more flagrant means to manipulate the outcome-threatening jobs, using police to suppress turnout in the African American neighborhoods that tended to vote Republican, and moving polling stations after long lines formed. Seventeen years later, when the new Fusionist party, which had multi-ethnic support, entered the scene and threatened its dominance, the machine intensified its use of police violence and intimidation. Those attending Fusionist rallies were "whacked with sticks," Fusionist candidates and voters were thrown out of polling stations, ballot boxes were taken at gunpoint by armed thugs, and those seeking to document the tactics with cameras were driven "off the streets."

When the Democrats won, the Fusionists challenged the results with the evidence they had amassed, and Kentucky's high court ruled in 1907 that extensive fraud and violence had disenfranchised 6,296 voters and overturned the result because it had been "designed in fraud, backed up by vilification and abuse." While Kentucky and other states would still witness both fraud and intimidation, the decision was the first of its kind and would not have been possible had the rise in violence not drawn attention to the problem and bolstered the voices of those calling for reform.              

But this example is only one among many, indicating that electoral violence is intrinsic to the process of democratization.

Violence is a symptom and a sign of a strengthened electoral system.  At the same time, it creates the outrage necessary for further reform. Violence and reform feed into each other cyclically.  

Increased instances of violence in modern elections is not a sign that these countries cannot cope with democratization. Instead, it is because international norms and pressure have condensed the process of democratization for contemporary nascent democracies -- versus in the 1800s when the process could be more incremental -- that we see more electoral violence across the world today.  

Thanks to a growing body of research on election violence in a variety of contexts, including data from Pakistan's 2008 elections, the dynamics of violence driven by parties, candidates, and their supporters are well understood. What remains for Pakistan to figure out is what the intensification of militant violence directed at the political process means for the future.

For candidates, violence is a means of winning within the democratic system. For militants, electoral violence is a strategy meant to re-engineer that system or seek its very demise because it is a form of government in which they cannot compete and win based on the merits of their policy ideas and vision for society.

Megan Reif is an assistant professor of political science and international studies at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her work on election violence is based on case study analysis and data collected in Pakistan during the 2008 elections, as well as data from Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Sri Lanka, and the United States (Newark, NJ) during the same period. Nadia Naviwala is Country Representative in Pakistan for the United States Institute of Peace.

The authors are grateful to Mathieu Mérino and the election violence prevention training team at the European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES) for drawing their attention to the work done on this subject by Quantin. 

With just hours left before voters begin casting their votes for Pakistan's next leaders, political posters are plastered across markets, convoys of motorcycles and cars flying party flags clog major thoroughfares, and raspy-voiced candidates make their final appeals to throngs of people.

Election fever runs high everywhere, it seems, but in Rabwah.

The city nestled alongside the Chenab River in Punjab is home to an estimated 40,000 potential voters, but the vast majority of them will not be voting in the upcoming election due to their faith. Rabwah is a haven for Ahmedis, who make up over 95 percent of its population. While Ahmedis consider themselves Muslims, the Pakistani government has officially declared them otherwise.

The groups' adherence to Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, a man they see as a prophet, is heretical to most Muslims, who hold that the Prophet Muhammad was the last messenger of God. This difference of beliefs has made Ahmedis the subject of scorn in Pakistan, where they could be subject to death for practicing their faith since doing so would mean engaging in the illegal act of "posing as a Muslim."

While they aren't officially barred from voting, Ahmedis must sign a statement renouncing their faith in order to cast a ballot.

"I'm 37 years old and I've never voted in my life," says Amir Mehmood, a lifelong resident of Rabwah.

Mehmood says that he follows politics closely, but having to deny his beliefs to vote is more of a sacrifice than he is willing to bear.

"If the state thinks that I'm not a Muslim, that's fine. I can't change the state. But how can I say that I'm a non-Muslim just because the state tells me to? I consider myself to be a Muslim."

A 1974 amendment to the Pakistani Constitution explicitly declared Ahmedis to be non-Muslims, and a few years later separate faith-based electorates were created that forced Ahmedis to vote as non-Muslims. Instead of doing so, most Ahmedis refused to cast a ballot-and have maintained their non-participation in the country's politics ever since.

While President Pervez Musharraf unified the electorate in 2002, he soon bowed to religious extremists by inserting one glaring exception to the rule: Ahmedis would have a distinct voter list. All those who tick the box "Muslim" in the religious affiliation column of their election ballot must sign a statement certifying that they are not Ahmedi.

Due to this requirement, the upcoming election will be the eighth one in which Ahmedis refuse to take part. But Saleemuddin, a spokesperson for the Ahmedi community who uses only his first name, says this does not amount to a boycott.

"We don't approve of the word ‘boycott.' We're not boycotting. We've been so clearly discriminated against that we've been essentially prevented from casting votes in these elections." 

Saleemuddin says by phone from Rabwah, "Like anywhere in the world, voting rights should be based on citizenship. In fact, they are in Pakistan too, but one executive order has brought in religion and kept my community from voting."

He says every government has continued to propagate a second-class status for Ahmedis because of the power that religious extremists and powerful clerics exercise over the country's political arena. While this election will mark the first time one democratically-elected government will pass the mantle to another, for Saleemuddin, this milestone is undermined by the state's unwillingness to let Ahmedis vote in a free and fair manner. 

And few candidates are willing to address the issue of religious freedom.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, an independent political analyst told the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, "The elections will hardly bring any respite to religious minorities because the societal groups and parties that target them do not get their votes."

According to Rizvi, politicians don't have much to gain from courting the votes of religious groups like Ahmedis, Christians, or Hindus. "These votes which are small and scattered cannot generate enough political clout to pressure political parties effectively."

This amounts to a sort of catch-22 for Ahmedis since politicians do not feel politically bound to respond to their plight, something they cannot address without allies in the government. Saleemuddin says he had some hope that the cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan might herald in a new era of religious freedom but Khan overtly declared his accord for the status quo saying in a video statement, "I have read the Qur'an very closely and I know that those who do not recognize Muhammad as the last prophet are not Muslims."

"Imran Khan has claimed that he's going to create a ‘New Pakistan,' but before he's even had the chance to do so, he's declared that Ahmedis will be stuck in the same ‘Old Pakistan' that we've known for too long," Saleemuddin laments.

Many Ahmedis feel that Khan's statements shamed his party's name-Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf or the "Justice Party" -but Bilal Haider, an Ahmedi living in Karachi, says Khan is no different than other politicians.

"All of these parties have written into their agendas that they want equal rights but none of them actually [do away with discriminatory laws] once they get into power," he says.

While there are an estimated four million Ahmedis in the country, most politicians think appealing for their vote will do more harm than good since bias against the sect is widespread-and it isn't limited to election season or political rights, says Haider.

"Each and every Ahmedi family is now connected to someone who was martyred. It's not only about silent discrimination, it's about literal attacks."

One of Haider's uncles, along with his wife's father, was killed in May 2010 in synchronized attacks on two Ahmedi mosques in Lahore, which resulted in the deaths of over 80 worshippers.

Haider is hopeful that when he has children, they'll be born into a more tolerant Pakistan.

But for Saleemuddin, the current situation is vexing enough. "My daughter watches TV and sees all of the political advertisements and news of the election," he says. "She asks me which candidate our family supports. She's only in 6th grade and it's really hard to explain to her why we're not voting. ‘Our town is so big,' she says, ‘So how come there isn't a single political poster or party banner here?'"

He says it's difficult to tell her that no politician is willing to change the laws so that his community in Rabwah can cast ballots without having to cast aside their faith.

Beenish Ahmed is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Islamabad, Pakistan. She is reporting on education there through a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crises Reporting. 

Pakistan's election hopefuls have expressed strong and vocal opposition to U.S. drone strikes within the country.

Pakistan People's Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who participated in a government that visibly failed to do much to prevent drone strikes for five years, recently insisted that such strikes are "counter-productive."

Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and two-time former prime minister, similarly lambasted the U.S. policy saying that "Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country's autonomy and independence. Therefore, we won't tolerate these attacks in our territorial jurisdictions."

And no one has been more vocal and stringent in his opposition to drones than the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party, Imran Khan, the increasingly popular and charismatic contender for prime minister. Khan has even gone so far as to promise that, if elected, his government will shoot down any drone that crosses into Pakistan after May 11.

Yet, despite all the heavy pre-election posturing and rhetoric, the million rupee question remains: is Pakistan legally entitled to shoot down U.S. drones that enter its territory?

The short answer is yes. Unless it has consented to the use of drones in its territory, Pakistan most certainly can shoot them down as a matter of international law.

The United Nations Charter-a treaty which virtually all states in the world have agreed to follow and one that is sometimes touted as the "constitution of the international community"-forbids states from using force in another state unless it is used 1) in self-defense to repel an "armed attack"; 2) with the approval of the U.N. Security Council; or 3) because the state in which force is being used has consented to it.

That is, the U.S. drone war must fall within one of these exceptions to be legal.

We know the U.N. Security Council has never authorized the use of U.S. drones in Pakistan. And neither has Pakistan ever engaged in an "armed attack" against the United States, nor has the United States claimed as much. That leaves consent as the only legal justification for the program.

While, as I have previously written, claims of a denial of consent by the Pakistani government should be viewed with some skepticism-especially in light of former president Pervez Musharraf's admission that he allowed a ‘few' drone strikes to take place-publicly and for all official purposes, the Pakistani government vehemently denies that it has ever consented to U.S. drones being operated in its territory. In fact, in 2011, Pakistan shut down a CIA base which was being used to launch drones.

Further, Ben Emmerson QC, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, has certainly been persuaded by Pakistan's narrative that there is no "tacit consent by Pakistan to the use of drones on its territory". In a recent news article, he categorically stated that drone strikes were a "violation of Pakistan's sovereignty".

Assuming then that consent has not been given by Pakistan, the use of drones in its territory would prima facie be an illegal use of force against a sovereign nation. Pakistan would thus be well within its rights, under international law, to destroy any drone that crosses into its airspace.

Now, here's where things do get slightly complicated. Sometimes when military force is used abroad in countries which have not really attacked the "defending state," new theories can be innovated to justify such force; and the drone war in Pakistan is no exception.

Some U.S. lawyers, including Eric Holder, John Brennan, and John Bellinger have argued that drone strikes in Pakistan are a legal form of "self-defense" because Pakistan is "unwilling or unable" to prevent threats to the United States.

This is also one of the main messages of the Department of Justice memo which essentially argues that the United States has a right, under international law, to kill persons in other countries-via drones or other means-that it determines are "associated" with al-Qaeda and who pose an "imminent threat" to the United States if the country where such individuals are allegedly based is "unwilling or unable" to do so itself. Consent is desirable but not necessary.  

As I wrote in a recent journal article, this argument is very controversial and has little legal traction. Pakistan could, if it wanted to, easily challenge this doctrine as being of dubious and weak legal pedigree.

First, international law does not allow a state to unilaterally attack targets within another state to eliminate potential "threats." An armed attack must have occurred or at least be imminent against the self-defending state for an argument of self-defense to have any legal grounding.

Second, while Pakistan is legally obliged to use "best efforts" to prevent individuals on its territory from launching armed attacks against other states, unless it can be proven that Pakistan has in fact supported these individuals by, for example, supplying them with weapons or other forms of assistance, Pakistani territory cannot be attacked simply because Pakistan is allegedly "unwilling or unable" to suppress such individuals.  

To be sure, Pakistan may still be liable for reparations or other measures for failing to prevent an attack against another state, but this failure does not translate into a right for another state to conduct lethal drone attacks in its territory as a unilateral "self-help" measure.

Third, prominent American legal scholars, including Mary Ellen O'Connell and Eric Posner, have rejected the international legality of the "unwilling or unable" doctrine. In fact, apart from the United States, only three countries-Israel, Russia, and Turkey-have explicitly invoked some variant of this theory in the past fifty years or more. But even these countries, on the rare occasion when they have done so, have never justified their actions as motivated by a legal obligation.

And most importantly, the International Court of Justice-the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and popularly known as the "World Court"-agrees. It has on two recent occasions-one concerning Uganda and the other Israel-passed judgment that weak states cannot be attacked and invaded because they failed to prevent individuals in their territory from launching attacks abroad.  

And for good reason too. A theory that permits the use of force in a state such as Pakistan because it is "unwilling or unable" to do something opens up far too many loopholes for aggression and makes the prohibition against the use of force contained in the U.N. Charter somewhat redundant.

To put it succinctly, if the new Pakistani government were to argue that the use of drones within its territory are illegal and were indeed bold enough to take the unprecedented step of shooting one down, it would have a strong case under international law that it was acting in "self-defense," provided it has not consented to drone strikes.

Of course, just because an action is legally sound does not mean that it is politically feasible. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that "Pakistan has considered shooting down a drone to reassert control over the country's airspace but shelved the idea as needlessly provocative." And one can see why.

Unfortunately, that is one limitation that smaller states sometimes face when they try to assert their international legal rights against a far more powerful state.

Nevertheless, as far as international law goes, yes Mr. Khan, absent consent, you are free to shoot down any drones that enter into Pakistani territory.

Dawood I. Ahmed is a lawyer and a doctoral candidate in international law at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the forthcoming article "Defending Weak States Against the ‘Unwilling or Unable' Doctrine of Self-Defense," which can be found online here

When Amb. James Dobbins arrives at the ground-floor offices of the State Department's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan he will find a depleted staff, a moribund peace process and a mandate riddled with colossal diplomatic challenges. Secretary of State John Kerry called today's state of affairs a "pivotal moment" for the two nations. But it is also a critical moment for U.S. involvement in ending the conflict President Barack Obama once called the war "that we have to win" and now wants only to "responsibly" wind down.

Dobbins is a veteran of uphill assignments.  He oversaw the return of the American flag over a newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2001.  In addition to Afghanistan, he has served in Kosovo, Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia.  Not exactly a list of luxe diplomatic posts.

As Dobbins prepares to assume his post on 23^rd St, a series of open questions await his attention. Three of the biggest are below.

1)    Troops: Just how many U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan after 2014?  That question remains unanswered as the United States continues to negotiate an agreement with Afghanistan on the shape of the U.S. military presence post-2014. Gen. James Mattis, who most recently served as the commander of U.S. Central Command, is on the record pushing for more than 13,000 troops. Most numbers out of the Pentagon and the White House come in at less than that.  The State Department's Robert Blake noted recently that "we are still in the process of thinking through what our final military presence will be in Afghanistan after the end of the transition at the end of 2014." Exactly when that will be and what shape it will take remains to be seen.

Also an open question: how many Afghan troops will be needed? And how many will be funded? Those two numbers may well end up being different. And the latter should be known sooner rather than later.

2)    Peace process: Right now there is not one of substance to speak of. What shape might one take? The window for action is rapidly closing as frustration between Pakistan and Afghanistan remains very much alive, with Afghanistan arguing that Pakistan looks favorably on Afghan instability. Will Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to agree on conditions for talks?  And what role will the Americans take? Sec. Kerry met last month in Belgium with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and vowed to "under-promise but deliver" as the sides "continue a very specific dialogue on both the political track as well as the security track." What, if anything, the dialed-down dialog yields will be watched carefully as nearly all sides agree that a diplomatic solution - one in which human rights are not made the price of peace - is the lone shot at a lasting and durable peace.

3)    Transition: whither and at what pace will security, political and economic transitions continue? So far, the economic transition has been bolstered by GDP numbers that have been better than expected.  As the World Bank noted, "rapid economic growth" has been accompanied by "relatively low inflation."  But the government is overwhelmingly dependent on foreign coffers for its funding -- civilian aid alone is "estimated at more than US$6 billion a year, or nearly 40 percent of GDP" - and as those dollars dry up, the questions of stability and security arise immediately.  A recent IMF report mentioned by the New York Times notes that tax evasion, corruption and declining growth all mean that the government will find it tough to pay even half of its bills this year. Stories of graft and CIA-filled slush funds do not lead to greater confidence in the Afghan government from either the American public paying for it or the Afghan people who will pay the price of chaos and a political power vacuum.

These are only the most pressing of a rash of questions sure to occupy Amb. Dobbins on Day One.  Fortunately for both Sec. Kerry and Amb. Dobbins, the SRAP position does not require Senate confirmation, so they can get down to work quickly - as they must. The U.S. is speeding toward the end of the NATO combat mission, and both diplomats will soon be hard-pressed to find answers.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana.