Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is right to worry about perpetual war, but wrong to worry about drones killing Americans in America. His concerns about domestic drone strikes unfortunately obscured a far more pressing debate about how to manage and regulate surveillance via drones and other techniques such as wiretaps and Internet traffic monitoring.

The truth is, drones are not actually all that good at killing people, nor at bringing them to justice. The reason they are used in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia is because no better alternatives are readily available. Within the United States, the president has far more capable means at his disposal for using force. In terms of surveillance, however, drones are among the most effective tools in existence.

During his 13-hour filibuster on Wednesday, Paul proposed a resolution against the use of drones to "execute or target American citizens on American soil." The resolution is superfluous because the chief limitation on the use of drones is how well they work -- not legal, moral, ethical, or constitutional considerations.

The question is not what drones themselves are capable of, but how those capabilities compare to the alternatives available to military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials. Compared to other means the American government has at its disposal for the domestic use of force, a drone-launched missile is a crude, blunt, and ineffective instrument. It is not possible to deploy the FBI to Pakistan's tribal areas or to rural Yemen. Drones are being used in these countries because they provide a capability that is better, in the eyes of the national security apparatus, than the alternatives of inaction or bombing from manned aircraft.

The reason for "signature strikes" in Pakistan and Yemen -- where patterns of behavior are targeted instead of specific individuals -- is because of a paucity of information. It is far easier for the U.S. government to gather information inside the United States than it is in Waziristan.

Drones, will, of course, grow more technologically capable of flying for a longer time, seeing with keener sight, and aiming explosives still more precisely. But even the apotheosis of these efforts will do no more than replicate the abilities of a trained sniper. There is no reason to be more fearful of a drone-based assassin than one armed with a rifle. The same existing laws and norms that prevent the president from capriciously bombing, say, Texas or ordering commando squads to assassinate American citizens, also apply to domestic drone attacks.

During his filibuster, Paul worried that the government might "kill people in America without even knowing their name." This worry is baseless. National security hawks can save face by agreeing that using drones to kill American citizens in the United States would be wrong and unconstitutional. But other infringements on constitutionally protected freedoms are not notional. By grandstanding on the issue of drone attacks, Paul loses the credibility that he and other advocates for limitations on the executive's power need to hold the president to account on the use of present-day surveillance technologies.

Unfettered surveillance from drones would be useful to law enforcement, just as it would be useful to not require search warrants. It is easy to convince the military, and law enforcement authorities, to give up capabilities that were never that useful to begin with. This is why the United States ratified the international treaty banning chemical weapons with comparatively little controversy -- chemical weapons never were all that effective as a tool of war (there was a heated debate about tear gas, which is useful). But the international treaty against land mines remains unsigned despite decades of effort by human rights advocates (and a Nobel Peace Prize), because land mines are seen as a useful force multiplier. The true challenge is to place limitations on tools that are genuinely useful to authorities but whose use infringes on the rights of citizens.

As the ACLU's Jay Stanley and Catherine Crump have written, the domestic use of drones by various state, federal, and local law enforcement agencies is already widespread, and is not effectively regulated. "Because of their potential for pervasive use in ordinary law enforcement operations and capacity for revealing far more than the naked eye, drones pose a more serious threat to privacy than do manned flights," they wrote in a 2011 report. Since then, the domestic use of surveillance drones has only increased, with only a scant patchwork of regulation by some states. (Bills have been introduced into the legislatures, though not yet passed, in Florida, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, Montana, and Texas, according to the ACLU.) None of those state-level regulations would restrict federal efforts.

The 5th Amendment's due process protections are not at risk from drones within America's borders for the simple reason that drones are an ineffective tool for bringing people to justice -- as was shown when Navy SEALs were sent to apprehend Osama bin Laden, rather than a drone. But the power of drones that can loiter indefinitely overhead, tracking the past and future movements of all who pass below, is real. The questions of how the 4th Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches applies to drones, and of privacy concerns more broadly, are vexing ones that Senator Paul can help us, as a nation, come to terms with.

Konstantin Kakaes is a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation and can be found on Twitter @kkakaes.

As Afghan President Hamid Karzai visits Washington to discuss a bilateral strategic agreement between the United States and Afghanistan, policymakers and the public are debating the pace of troop drawdown and the residual force post-2014, when the security handover to Afghan authorities finishes. Missing from these discussions is a focus on the political and economic transitions underway in Afghanistan - areas that will serve as greater determinants of Afghan stability than whether there are zero, 4,000, or 9,000 U.S. troops. Politics ultimately drive the Afghan conflict, and its resolution will require a broader political consensus and stronger economic foundation than currently exists.

President Karzai's visit offers an opportunity for the Obama administration, members of Congress and others to drill down and express support for a number of political and economic priorities, which could assist in strengthening the legitimacy and competence of the Afghan state as the United States and NATO drawdown. The current Afghan state is deeply flawed and has alienated many Afghans due to its exclusive and predatory nature.  The constitutional system, which vests great power in the hands of the executive without real checks and balances, lends itself to abuses of authority. Officials often use formal state institutions to support their patronage networks, fueling high levels of corruption, cronyism, and nepotism on the national and local levels.  What's more, the dependency of the Afghan government and its security forces on high levels of international assistance for the foreseeable future, especially in a time of global austerity, threatens to undermine a sustainable transition.

Creating a stronger political consensus and a more solid economic foundation for the Afghan state will be required for long-term stability in Afghanistan. In their meetings with President Karzai and his team, senior U.S. officials must state their expectations about these political and economic processes, clarifying that long-term security support is contingent on Afghan progress on these efforts.  Expectations should include the following:

First, a free, fair, inclusive and transparent presidential election is required in which President Karzai transfers power to a legitimately elected successor.  President Karzai must work to ensure that the electoral bodies, including the Independent Electoral Commission and an electoral complaints mechanism are independent and credible.  The United States hopes to see parliamentary approval of the electoral laws and the implementation of a plan to ensure a successful election. 

Second, the United States supports an inclusive political reconciliation process, led by Afghans.  The United States supports outreach by President Karzai to more Afghan stakeholders, including the political opposition, women, and civil society groups, in addition to Taliban insurgents.  The United States and Afghanistan should create a bilateral mechanism to coordinate their peacemaking, public statements regarding negotiations and outreach to stakeholders, as well as to establish a venue, where representatives of the parties to the conflict can meet outside of Afghanistan or Pakistan to discuss a political settlement. 

Third, the United States remains committed to the agreements made at the Tokyo conference in July 2012 by the Afghan government and the international community.  In addition to agreeing to provide $16 billion in civilian assistance through 2015, the international community committed to improving the effectiveness of its aid, aligning its assistance with Afghan priority programs, and providing more aid through the Afghan government's budget rather than through outside contractors.  However, the disbursements of these dollars depends on the Afghan government progressing on its own commitments, including: 

• allowing for the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission and other civil society organizations to function freely,
• the implementation of the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law and the National Action Plan for Women
• enforcement of the legal framework for combating corruption and annual asset declarations of senior public officials
• asset recovery and accountability for those responsible for the Kabul Bank crisis
• the implementation of the Public Financial Management Plan and improvement of the management of public funds
• improvement of Afghan budget execution
• the development of a provincial budgeting process

Fourth, the United States supports the development of Afghanistan's mineral sector, in a way that benefits the Afghan population and not a select few.  While Afghanistan is already a candidate member of the Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), the Karzai administration should develop an Extractive Industries Development Framework that governs Afghanistan's natural wealth through an "accountable, efficient and transparent mechanism which builds upon and surpasses international best practices", as agreed to in Tokyo.  The Ministry of Mines should continue to engage with civil society in order to increase transparency in the mining sector and to respond to the needs of communities affected by mining.   

The Obama administration must focus on political and economic priorities during President Karzai's visit.  Military aspects-troop numbers, training of the Afghan forces, and financial support to the security services-won't be enough to ensure Afghanistan's security and stability over the long term.  Leaving behind an unprepared and expensive force to battle an insurgency that NATO has struggled to contain is more likely to create instability than lasting security.  Instead, U.S. efforts must be focused on building a more sustainable Afghan state.

John Podesta is Chairman and Caroline Wadhams is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

On Wednesday August 29, the dismissal of Afghan intelligence chief, Rahmatullah Nabil was officially confirmed. The news, which first began circulating some 48 hours earlier on BBC Persian, was met with shock by many Afghans in the capital city of Kabul.

A majority of the members of the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament were so outraged by the news that they immediately began drafting a demand letter to President Karzai to ask him to clarify the logic behind the dismissal, so widely respected was Nabil's tenure.

Some Members of Parliament (MPs), including the acting speaker of the house Haji Zahir Qadir, a Pashtun strongman from eastern Afghanistan, went further, demanding that Nabil be reinstated as the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS).

Around the capital, many social media outlets published opinion pieces expressing the widespread fear that Nabil's dismissal would be disastrous for the national security of Afghanistan.

Many Afghans wondered why in a time of growing insecurity, evidenced by the increase in terrorist attacks in and around the capital, the president would deal such a blow to the nation's main defense against the insurgency.

According to Nabil himself, his dismissal was routine. President Karzai, he indicated, wanted to change the NDS head every two years, and because he was aware of this he did not contest the action.

Other high-ranking officials corroborated Nabil's account, although they would not go on the record.

The official account, however, fails to reconcile the fact that Nabil only served some eight months in the position. Also notably absent from the statement about the dismissal was the fact that Nabil's appointment was approved by an overwhelming majority of the lower house: 208 out of a total of 249 votes. It is the apparent inconsistency between the official account and the reality that has perplexed so many Afghans and left them wondering whether there are other unstated reasons that led to Nabil's dismissal.

Nabil's accession to the highest ranks of the Afghan government was not typical to say the least. Unlike most high-ranking officials, he had no family connection to President Karzai. He began his ascent to the top serving as a junior staffer in the Presidential Palace, eventually making his way to the top of the President's Protection Force (PPF), where he served for six years. During that time he remained a virtually unknown figure outside of the innermost presidential circle.

Inside sources say that because of his quiet efficiency in the PPF, Nabil was President Karzai's first choice to replace his predecessor at the NDS, Amrullah Saleh, who had resigned over disagreements with Karzai.

According to those who have worked closely with Nabil, he is widely respected for his frankness and honesty, traits that are not always apparent, as he is reluctant to promote himself and his achievements.

Nabil also refuses to take ethno-centric positions, making him something of a lone ranger in a capital often consumed by tribalism and clannishness. While many Afghans who have watched him closely have taken comfort in his lack of ethnic or sectarian partisanship, his objectivity may have left him vulnerable, without the type of inside supporters on whom he could rely to promote his cause inside the president's inner circles.

Moreover, prior to Nabil's dismissal he had intensified efforts to rout out suspected Pakistani and Iranian spies at the highest levels of the Afghan government, making him a possible target of some of Afghanistan's neighbors and their emissaries inside the country.

Earlier this month some Pakistani senior officials went so far as to accuse the NDS of plotting to attack strategic targets inside Lahore and Islamabad. Although there was no proof offered to support these claims, the Pakistani reaction itself may have been telling. Whatever it was the NDS under Nabil was doing, it was enough to ruffle the feathers of these various Pakistani officials.

Some Afghan analysts believe that it was the pressure that such outside powers were able to exert on the Afghan leadership via their domestic interest groups that led to Nabil's demise.

Other Afghans believe that Nabil's departure is just one of many upsets that are slated to take place. In the past month, rumors of other possible high-ranking changes have surfaced daily on Facebook, Twitter, and in other media. On August 4, for example, president Karzai issued a decree that  replaced Nabil by Asadullah Khaled, the current minister of tribal affairs; Interior Minister Bismillah Khan by  Mojtaba Patang, deputy minister of Afghan Public Protection Forces will replace; Bismillah Khan  is named as the minister of defense; while there are speculations that further changes will occur with the president's chief of staff, Karim Khorram, will replace Fazal Ahmad Manawi, the head of the Afghan Independent Commission (IEC); and Manawi will be made Attorney General.

This long list of changes is seen to be the beginning of a broad transformation of the country's political landscape that will culminate in the presidential elections of 2014. From this perspective, Nabil's dismissal is regarded as part of the president's survivalist overhaul, which some see as his attempt to block what should otherwise be a stable and democratic transfer of power. They see an Afghan president trying to concentrate power in the hands of the Karzai or Popalzai clans, a move similar to what Vladimir Putin did in Russia with Dmitry Medvedev.

In this scenario, there is speculation that President Karzai is looking to Qayom Karzai as his successor, or if he meets with too much opposition, perhaps paving the way for an alternative Popalzai or Kandahari president.

Whether he will be successful in his power grab is another question. Already, the president's aspirations for 2014 are being challenged by many opposition figures, and by his fellow Pashtuns, some of whom have criticized him vociferously. Haji Zahir Qadir and other leading Pashtun figures outside the Kandahar region, for example, are his loudest critics. If these voices gain support, President Karzai's ploys could backfire and move the Pashtun center of power from the south to the east or in between.

As beloved as Nabil may be in many circles, the National Directorate of Security itself still looms as a dark force in the minds of many Afghans. Ten years of democratic rule have not been sufficient to erase the deep memories of what the organization was like during the previous eras of communist, warlord, and Taliban rule.

To change that image, many believe that it is critical that the NDS cleanse its ranks and replace them with younger, more educated Afghans who do not have the same blood on their hands that many of their elders do. These are the types of changes that Nabil was attempting to make in the organization, the types of changes that earned him the respect of so many that yearn for a more modern and progressive Afghanistan, one that protects their rights and provides them opportunities as citizens, regardless of ethnicity, sect, or tribal affiliation.

They point to the hard work he was doing in places like Ghazni to rout out the Taliban and the insurgents who have been wreaking havoc on the general population there. His plan was to motivate Afghans to join the fight against the Taliban and other extremists in the heartland, and outside Afghan borders.

To many Afghans, Nabil's dismissal is more evidence that they are losing the battle for their country, and a painful betrayal by a democratically-elected president who now seems bent on hurting the country if that will allow him and his kind to keep their monopoly on power. It's a sad time for Afghan patriots and a sadder one for Afghanistan as a whole.

Waliullah Rahmani is an expert on international security and terrorism. He is currently running the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies.

A plastic grocery bag is probably one of the most generously hoarded items in any Pakistani home. Ours all the way in Boston is no different. Two people and 200 plastic bags; look anywhere - under the mattress, over the closet, folded and tucked between prayer mats. A couple fall off every time I open my jewelry drawer to find my favorite pearl earrings my mother passed on to me with my dowry last year.  

Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed's home in Warrington, Cheshire in the United Kingdom must be no different, only they used their grocery bags to stuff their 17-year-old daughter Shafilea's mouth, blocking her airways and pinning her down till her "legs stopped kicking". But that wasn't punishment enough. Ahmed punched his teenager's lifeless body in the chest after the killing, enraged by her "desire to lead a westernized lifestyle" - wearing jeans, socializing with white girls and refusing to marry a much older man.

Shafilea is gone. So is my stockpile of plastic bags - to the very last one. But to recently convicted Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed and thousands, if not millions, likeminded others, something else has been saved, guarded, maintained.

That something also led Javed Iqbal Shaikh, a respected lawyer, to pull out a gun and shoot point-blank his 22 year-old sister, Raheela Sehto, in front of dozens of witnesses in a "packed courtroom" in Hyderabad, Pakistan earlier this month. As the bullet penetrated the "left side of her head" she fell to the ground looking her husband, Zulfiqar Sehto, in the eye. Raheela's marriage to Sehto was the reason for which her brother felt compelled to brutally murder her, and Sehto the man Shaikh regrets he couldn't kill along with his sister.   

Two women and innumerable others, time and time again, are erased from history in the hands of those who think themselves guardians of this centuries-old tradition. Regrettably, to the majority of ‘honorable' men, honor in all its entirety resides in the bodies of women and women alone, in the context of which their rights to live, let alone control, their own lives and to liberty and freedom of movement, expression, association, and physical integrity mean very, very little.

Whether out of fear or by choice, the complicity and support by other women in the family and the community - mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, cousins - also strengthens the concept of women as property. Their participation in these deadly attacks also reaffirms the perception that violence against family members is a family and not a judicial issue.

This ‘community mentality' paired with misleading interpretations of religion and suit-yourself articulations of ‘family law' encourage patriarchy within families and negative attitudes towards female autonomy. Thus an environment is created in which violence against women is accepted and justified - a huge motivation for the family and community to cover up these heinous brutalities - a crime in itself. It is not surprising, then, that various women's groups in South-west Asia and the Middle East suspect the number of both reported and unreported victims to be at least four times the United Nations' decade-old figure of around 5,000 honor killings a year worldwide.

So for those daring to trespass the boundary of ‘appropriate' chalked-out by their male counterparts and guardians, ‘honor' is but a death sentence and has been so for hundreds and thousands of years. The concept of honor and its protection is widely displayed within many different male-dominated societies in human history, dating back to ancient Rome, the Arab tribes of Babylonian King Hammurabi as early as in 1200 BC, prerevolutionary China and many other societies and historical eras long before any major religion came into existence.  

Today, however, the practice is becoming increasingly common across cultures and across religions, especially in South Asia and in Pakistan. The concept of honor in the region is largely dichotomous, and absurdly so. While honor in its masculine form is active and positive - dynamism, generosity, vigor, confidence, dominance and strength, a woman's honor, by contrast, revolves around negative, more passive concepts - chastity, obedience, servitude, domesticity and the endurance of pain and hardship without any display of feelings or complaint.

Unlike her male counterpart, a woman's honor can neither be increased nor regained - once lost, it is lost forever. What is worse is that when a woman loses her honor, the honor of her brothers, father and uncles is also lost and can only be regained through a violent display of dominance. Conveniently nonsensical but practiced explicitly in South Asia among Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims alike, with the same deadly effects.

In its latest annual report, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan presented disappointing statistics for honor crimes in the country. More than 1,000 women and girls fall victim to honor killings every year in Pakistan, the report maintains, mostly at the hands of their brothers and husbands, with less than two per cent provided medical assistance before their death.

The Aurat Foundation, a reputable women's rights group in Pakistan, however, has uncovered numbers two times that figure. According to their report released in January this year, as many as 2,341 honor killings were reported in the country in 2011 - "a 27  per cent jump from the year before". But the figures are just "the tip of the iceberg", the report warns, since its researchers relied on cases reported in the media only.

But despite being ranked the third-most dangerous country for women in the world after Afghanistan and Congo - due to a barrage of threats including honor killings - over the past decade, Pakistan has also made adequate real world efforts to fortify women's rights in the country. In 2006, the country passed a bill to strengthen the law against honor killings under the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, making the crime punishable by a prison term of seven years or even by the death penalty.  Last year in 2011, the Senate passed two landmark pieces of legislations into bills - the Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Bill  and the Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Bill - an uncommon piece of news coming from the region since both bills were introduced and carried through by female members of its National Assembly.

But tackling something as engrained and as ancient as honor killing requires every thread of the country's social fabric to work together to bring about a wholesale change in common attitudes. This development may sound almost fairytale-ish in a Pakistani context, but if social change over centuries has led to a major decline of honor-based violence in certain parts of Europe, America and even the Middle East, then the global eradication of honor crimes remains a possibility. The question is, can Pakistan be a part of this change?

The current political climate in Pakistan is marked by a tug-of-war between civilian and military rulers on the one hand, and between liberal and religious elements on the other. The main casualties in this hostile environment are the women killed in the name of honor. The sitting Pakistan People's Party government has absolutely no support from the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz , nor -- it seems -- from the judiciary, which is more interested in sacking the next available prime minister and policing the country's television channels for vulgarity than in taking legal action against the Hyderabad honor-killing incident.  

In the lead-up to the upcoming general elections later this year, Imran Khan and his political party Tehreek-e-Insaf have in a matter of months risen to unrivaled popularity among Pakistan's youth. The so-called ‘pied piper' of Pakistani politics, attracting over 400,000 to his rally in Karachi earlier this year, however, has few words on the subject of honor killings. Offering his countrymen a ‘New Pakistan' free from American slavery as he comes into power, the man eats, breathes and sleeps drones. Honor killing, not so much, even though the women killed in the name of honor each year outnumber annual drone-related casualties in Pakistan.

Honor killing is a broader, more universal problem. It is not just a women's issue, or a religious or cultural one. It is a full-scale human rights concern where daily violence happens throughout the world in the name of honor.

Wherever there is a structural acceptance for violence against women, there is an acknowledgment that men have all the rights to legislate their own morality. Inaction of the state and silence on the part of national or community leaders and intellectuals the likes of Khan only fuel the ancient trend.

In Pakistan, there is a culture of impunity where men commit vicious acts to safeguard their so-called honor and roam freely. Tremendous amounts of pressure - political, judicial and social - need to be asserted to make sure these acts are punished. The problem needs to be openly and extensively discussed so that it can be uprooted. And what better place to do it than a gathering of 400,000 in the heart of the country? Who wouldn't like a ‘New Pakistan' where perpetrators are stripped of the very honor in the name of which they take innocent human lives and are duly punished?

The question remains: can Pakistan make the change?

Rabail Baig is a Pakistani journalist based in Boston.

The Tokyo meeting on Afghanistan of July 8 exceeded expectations in terms of both the total civilian aid funding indicated by donors ($16 billion over four years, or $4 billion per year on average) and the commitments agreed to by the Afghan government. This favorable outcome in turn has generated expectations for the future.  "Mutual accountability" is the framework for implementation established at Tokyo to ensure that such expectations aren't disappointed. Mutual accountability means that the Afghan government and the international community are both responsible for -- and are accountable to each other for -- achieving mutually agreed objectives in the areas of improving governance, political transition, and development performance (by the government), and delivering aid and improving its effectiveness (by the international community). But will mutual accountability work?  A recent paper sheds light on this question based on international experience and Afghanistan's recent history.

This is not the first time that sets of commitments and benchmarks have been used to try to move forward progress in Afghanistan. The past decade has seen numerous declarations and agreements, reflecting the multiplicity of donors and the plethora of high-profile international meetings since 2001; some prominent examples are briefly discussed below. 

The Bonn Agreement of December 2001 required a number of political and institutional actions on the Afghan side, and the international community undertook to provide support.  Most benchmarks-such as convening of a national assembly (Emergency Loya Jirga), adoption of a new constitution, and presidential and parliamentary elections-were achieved, on-time.  However, the broader objective of state-building was elusive, and progress toward stable political institutions and normal political life was limited.  Moreover, the Bonn process did not set in motion self-sustaining dynamics for continuing progress after it was completed in 2005.  On the contrary, there were reversals in some respects, and the second round of elections in 2009-2010 turned out to be more problematic than the first round in 2004-2005. 

The Afghanistan Compact of 2006 is a good example of how not to do mutual accountability.  The wide range of areas covered and the sheer number of benchmarks-well over 100 of them in some 52 different areas-represented a "Christmas tree" approach which included almost everything and thereby ended up prioritizing nothing.  It soon became largely irrelevant.  Moreover, the mechanism for overseeing implementation, the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB), became an unwieldy, largely diplomatic forum.  

There has been good experience with policy-based budget support (funding provided directly to the Afghan government budget by international financial institutions, in return for implementation of an agreed set of policy measures as part of a coherent reform agenda), and also with the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund's Incentive Program (ARTF IP).   These initiatives took on board lessons from international experience; supported reform constituencies in the Afghan government; and built constructive dialogue between government and donors.  The ARTF IP, with its agreed benchmarks and financial incentives, is a good example of coordinated financing (pooled funding) by the ARTF donors.  However, these initiatives accounted for only a small proportion of total aid, did not include political conditions, and did not work well where highly connected political and financial interests were involved.  For example, the Kabul Bank crisis was of a magnitude that could not be effectively addressed through the ARTF IP and its benchmarks; indeed the entire ARTF was put at risk as donor contributions dried up during the crisis.

The Tokyo Framework of July 8 clearly reflects learning from experience.  There are 20-plus benchmarks for the government in five main areas, far fewer than in the Afghanistan Compact.  There is a long-term perspective-the "decade of transformation" (2014-2025), and the responsibilities of Afghanistan and the international community are clearly set forth and demarcated. 

However, major issues and challenges lie ahead in implementing the Tokyo Framework. On the international side, the multiplicity of donors means there is fragmented accountability, which could adversely affect coherence as well as the ability of the international community to be meaningfully held accountable for total funding, particularly given severe fiscal constraints faced around the world.  Coordinated funding will be essential, but is it realistic to expect most aid to go through the Afghan government budget/trust funds? This would require a wholesale change from past patterns whereby the bulk of aid was fragmented, project-based, and off-budget. 

For the Afghan government, uncertain political and security prospects raise doubts about its ability to meet commitments.  The reform constituency may be weakening; there has been an inability to fully address issues where high-level political connections are involved (e.g. Kabul Bank); and more generally, political will for meaningful reforms understandably may decline as the security transition proceeds and the next election cycle approaches.  Preparations for elections-presidential in 2014 and parliamentary in 2015-will be an important early test of political will, including as called for in the Tokyo Declaration developing a comprehensive election timeline by early 2013 and a robust electoral architecture to enable successful and timely elections.  Fighting corruption, including meaningful asset declarations of senior officials in the executive, legislature, and judiciary, will be another good indicator of the extent of political will for reforms. 

Moreover, it is doubtful whether major political issues can be adequately handled through an articulated mutual accountability framework with benchmarks and calibrated financial incentives.  Other mechanisms, such as that set up to oversee implementation of the Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Afghan and US governments, may be better suited for handling "big-ticket" issues, such as the preparations for and conduct and quality of the next presidential and parliamentary elections.

Inability by the international community to deliver the level of funding committed could provide a justification for the Afghan government failing to achieve its benchmarks.  Mutual accountability could then degenerate into each side accusing the other of not delivering on promises, rather than working as a framework with incentives to achieve positive results and improve behavior on both sides as intended.

How will achievement of benchmarks be monitored and enforced?  Given past experience, there are doubts about how well the JCMB (mandated to oversee implementation), and the series of further high-level meetings agreed at Tokyo, will work.  Declining aid for Afghanistan means the funding lever potentially will be stronger than in the past, when aid was increasing and pressures to spend more money were overwhelming irrespective of performance, but it is not clear how effectively it can be deployed given donor fragmentation and also that some funding (e.g. for Afghan security forces) is seen as an integral part of international drawdown strategy and hence will be difficult to hold back.

In conclusion, while the outcome at Tokyo exceeded expectations and hence was a success, the challenge henceforth will be implementation.  Mutual accountability-the cornerstone of the Tokyo Framework-is intended to put in place a set of responsibilities and incentives for the Afghan government and for the international community that will foster better behavior and performance on the part of both.  There are serious questions about whether and how well mutual accountability will work, most important among them the level of political will in the Afghan government for taking difficult actions and the degree of coherence of donors as well as their ability and willingness to use financial leverage both positively and negatively to encourage fulfillment of government commitments.  

William Byrd is a visiting senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace.  This note is based on his remarks on mutual accountability at a USIP panel discussion on the subject.  The views expressed here are his own.

In February 2011, Pakistan and India resumed formal peace talks, which New Delhi had broken off following the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Although the peace process has sparked cautious optimism among analysts, all of the core issues between the two countries remain and several new ones may be emerging. Moreover, the wounds of Mumbai have yet to heal fully and can still infect the peace process. This was evident when India took custody of Zabiuddin Ansari, an Indian jihadist who joined Lashkar-e-Taiba and played a pivotal role in those attacks. A previous post employed his story to examine the jihadist threats facing India and the role official Pakistani support is believed to play in them. The aim here is to address the impact, if any, on India-Pakistan relations. 

Ansari was arrested by Saudi authorities in May 2011, but handed over to India only days prior to last week's bilateral meeting between the countries' foreign secretaries. Indian officials took pains to make clear that Ansari's capture (specifically) and Pakistan's failure to curb terrorism (in general) would not derail the planned meeting. The two sides did make slow progress on several economic issues and it is arguable that for some time the greatest barriers to action on that front have been internal and bureaucratic rather than geopolitical. This should be cause for cautious optimism. Read another way, however, it is emblematic of the limited expectations for this process, the enormous hurdles to be overcome, the delicate balance each side must strike in terms of how to engage, and the domestic dynamics in each country that further complicate the process.

It's helpful to recall that previous attempts at normalizing relations focused too heavily either on engagements at the bureaucratic level or personal initiatives by political leaders. This current phase has sought to combine both approaches, initially aiming to make parallel progress on economic engagement as well as the more intractable problems of settling Kashmir, demobilizing the Siachen Glacier, or satisfying New Delhi's demands for an end to Pakistani support for anti-India militancy. This approach of de-linking economic engagement from normalization on political and security issues in the short term has merit to the degree that the former can be used to built trust and create space for the peace camps that exist in both countries. But it is not without drawbacks, particularly in terms of the potential for mismatched timing and objectives. To date, the slow progress made has come mainly in the area of economic integration.

The Pakistan Army, which still largely controls foreign policy, remains leery of incremental talks that could enable India, the status quo power in Kashmir, to consolidate an economic relationship without budging on territorial disputes. Moreover, although the government in Pakistan is incredibly enfeebled at the moment, such integration could empower either of the main civilian political parties - the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) - in the event that one of them wins the next election, to wrest at least some power from the military. Nevertheless, given Pakistan's struggling economy, strained relations with the United States and failure of its all-weather ally, China, to ride to the financial rescue, the Army is more prepared than in the past to endorse economic engagement with India.

Yet, various members of the Pakistani security establishment maintain that settling territorial disputes cannot take a backseat to such engagement for too long. Once the United States draws down from Afghanistan, there is likely to be a refocusing within Pakistan's security establishment on its neighbor to the east. In the meantime, and as discussed in the previous post, the Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) appear to be attempting to restrain Lashkar-e-Taiba from launching another terrorist spectacular along the lines of Mumbai. However, there is no indication that state support for that group or the indigenous jihadist movement in India has ceased. Lashkar's amir Hafiz Saeed continues to enjoy a public pulpit, from which he has declared the mujahideen will resume a "full-scale armed jihad" in Kashmir once the Afghan war is resolved. And on this most recent visit, Pakistan's foreign secretary made a point of meeting with Kashmiri separatists from the Hurriyat Conference the day prior to engaging with his Indian counterpart in New Delhi.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has made no secret of his desire for a breakthrough with Pakistan or his desire to accept an invitation to make an official visit to the land of his birth. But he also has acknowledged that, "a visit to Pakistan that does not bear fruit would be of no use," meaning that an agreement on at least one core issue is perceived as necessary in order to make such a trip viable. Resolving a boundary dispute in Sir Creek, located between Singh in Pakistan and Gujarat in India, is arguably the easiest of the core issues to resolve, and the two sides were scheduled to discuss it in May. Shortly before, Pakistan cancelled the talks with no explanation, though the conventional wisdom was that it sought to force progress on Siachen Glacier first. The two sides are further apart on this issue and there is significant opposition within the Indian military, which holds the high ground, to any compromise on it. So it was no surprise when the talks dealing with Siachen in mid-June came to naught.

In lieu of progress on any territorial issues and without much expectation that the Pakistani security establishment will make a significant attempt to dismantle the militant infrastructure, New Delhi is happy to pursue "progress" on issues such as economic integration. As several Indian officials and diplomats sought to make clear to the author, this is not the same as normalization, which they claim can only occur if Pakistan ends its support for jihadist militants who target India. To that end, while pursuing "progress," India also has sought to exert maximum pressure on Pakistan vis-à-vis terrorism.

This approach demands a delicate balance and it is sometimes difficult to determine the degree to which it is carefully calibrated or the result of differing views within the Indian government. Thus, while the Indian external affairs minister was trying to play down the impact of Pakistani inaction against the Mumbai planners and promising the issue would not hold the dialogue hostage, the home minister was holding a press conference in which he proclaimed Ansari's allegations proved Mumbai could not have happened without state support. A month earlier, the Indian home minister, P Chidambaram, declined a Pakistani request to travel to Islamabad to sign a much-awaited liberalized visa agreement as a way of sending the message that Pakistan needed to take action against all of those involved in the Mumbai attacks.

Ansari has not provided any major new insights into those attacks, but he nevertheless provides India with additional means to pressure Pakistan because of his intimate involvement in planning Mumbai and presence in the control room during the operation. He has reaffirmed much of what was suspected, including the involvement of the same two officers believed to belong to the ISI that David Headley, who conducted reconnaissance for the attacks, identified in his testimony to Indian investigators.

Despite these revelations, Islamabad still insists New Delhi has not provided usable information. Yet, plausible deniability only works as a policy if the denials are in fact plausible. Pakistan's increasingly are not, and its failure to commit fully to prosecuting all of the alleged perpetrators is becoming another major stumbling block to normalizing relations. A conviction of the seven Lashkar members currently on trial is far from certain, and even were it to occur, India has shown no indication that this alone would be an acceptable outcome. New Delhi has said publicly that Pakistani action against all of those involved in the Mumbai attacks - especially Hafiz Saeed and the two aforementioned ISI officers - would be the "biggest confidence-building measure of all." Privately, Indian diplomats go further and assert that this has become a de facto litmus test regarding the Pakistani security establishment's willingness to end its support for Lashkar.

New Delhi has already won its case in the court of public opinion. Unlike in the 1990s, when Washington and New Delhi held politically disparate positions regarding Pakistani support for militancy, today they are united both on their acceptance of the problem and their inability to find a solution to it. Ultimately, two things must happen for Pakistan's behavior to change. First, the real costs - direct and indirect - of supporting groups like Lashkar must be understood to outweigh the (mis)perceived utility they provide geopolitically and domestically. Second, those who already recognize this is the case must take control of the country's security policy.

Bilateral progress between India and Pakistan, even short of a normalization of relations, is an essential component in this regard. It has the potential to bring real economic benefits to people on both sides of the border and in doing so to begin reshaping the environment. But it will remain a slow process and one beset by numerous challenges - foreign and domestic, political and bureaucratic. On its own, Ansari's deportation to India prior to the foreign secretaries meeting was a bump in the road, and the information he provided in the days that followed is unlikely to have taken any of the key players on either side by surprise. This in and of itself, however, is a symptom of just how far the two countries have to go and the way in which new issues, like Mumbai, can make overcoming those that are already difficult to surmount all the more difficult. In the meantime, containing the threat from Pakistani militants will require the type of international coordination, described in the next post, that led to Ansari's capture and deportation.

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor at American University and a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He recently returned from an extended research trip to South Asia examining internal security issues and is spending the summer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as a public policy scholar.

In mid-June, after the fifth drone strike in two weeks, militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur of North Waziristan resorted to taking hostages. No Americans being readily available, Bahadur decided that the Western-funded effort to eradicate polio would suffice, declaring a ban on vaccinations until U.S. drone strikes cease. Militant leader Mullah Nazir of South Waziristan soon followed suit, announcing his own ban on June 26th.

From Bahadur's perspective, there is something to the argument that drone strikes do more damage than polio. North Waziristan suffered from only 14 new polio cases last year, even as U.S. drone strikes killed over 250 of its residents, many of them armed militants allied with Bahadur. Of course, that these same militants are in fact largely responsible for both the mayhem and the public health crisis in Waziristan likely doesn't enter into Bahadur's calculations. As it stands, however, the polio vaccination campaign in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) matters more to outsiders than it does to the tribal areas' residents themselves, and as such it provides a tempting target for militant groups desperate for any kind of leverage over the United States.

Bahadur's and Nazir's bans fit into a broader pattern of Pakistani militants using intimidation and violence to halt polio vaccination campaigns in FATA. Militants have long spread rumors that the vaccines are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize or poison Muslims, leading to high rates of vaccination refusal. Extremist groups have specifically targeted health workers for kidnapping or assassination, killing the head of the polio vaccination campaign in Bajaur in 2007.

The United States stands behind both drone strikes and health programs in FATA, blurring the lines between the two. This has always created tension, as seen in the debate over USAID's on-again/off-again demand that its programs in FATA be overtly branded as "from the American people," even as those carrying out such programs are labeled as spies and targeted by militants. Suspicions of U.S.-funded health programs have been compounded by revelations that CIA informant Dr. Shakil Afridi attempted to collect information on Osama bin Laden's family in Abbottabad under the guise of a vaccination campaign.

Pakistan's remaining polio sanctuaries have become closely linked with anti-Western militancy and pose a growing challenge to the worldwide effort to eradicate polio. Globally, this effort has succeeded in reducing the annual incidence of polio from over 350,000 cases in 1988 to less than 700 in 2011. The eradication campaign has foundered with the increase in militancy in Pakistan, however, as polio cases there have risen each year since 2005. Last year Pakistan was responsible for more cases than any other country, most of which were concentrated in the Pashto-speaking areas along the Afghan border, including Waziristan.

Polio can easily spread from the tribal areas to elsewhere in the country. Labor migration and conflict have resulted in regular movement between Waziristan and Karachi, where polio has repeatedly surfaced. From the sprawling port city's volatile slums the disease can spread onward, back to India, Bangladesh, and other countries which earlier rid themselves - at least temporarily - of polio. This potential danger was underscored in late 2011, when the World Health Organization traced China's first polio outbreak in ten years back to Pakistan.

In addition to Pakistan, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Nigeria. In all three countries it occurs nearly exclusively in Muslim areas home to anti-Western insurgencies. Polio persists here for two reasons: militants deny vaccination teams access to areas under their control and parents refuse to let their children be vaccinated. Both of these can be traced back to fears that vaccination is part of an anti-Muslim plot. These fears, however laughable they may appear to outsiders, need to be taken seriously.

The global campaign must be transformed into a Muslim-led effort if it is to eradicate polio from these remaining sanctuaries. Through no fault of their own, the World Health Organization's director for Global Polio Eradication, Dr. Bruce Aylward, and representative in Pakistan, Dr. Guido Sabatinelli, are no longer the most effective choices for the campaign's visible leadership. Polio has been eradicated in Muslim-majority countries as varied as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Tajikistan, leaving behind a capable cadre of public health officials who could take over such posts.

Western funding and technical support will remain necessary, but it should be discretely channeled through the World Bank or World Health Organization. The United States in particular must publicly disassociate itself from the vaccination effort. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation needs to help provide funds for polio eradication, securing at least token donations from all its poorer member states and significant amounts from the wealthier members. Polio concerns all Muslim-majority countries; if eradication continues to falter it is only a matter of time before the annual Hajj pilgrimage, attracting hundreds of thousands of Muslims from across the world, becomes a site of polio transmission.

At the national level, Pakistan must continue its efforts to brand polio vaccination as Islamic. Some progress has already been made in securing the support of religious and nationalist leaders such as Imran Khan and Fazlur Rehman. International religious figures popular among FATA Pashtuns, including Dr. Zakir Naik of India and Imam Abdul Rehman al-Sudais of Saudi Arabia should also be encouraged to lend public support to Pakistan's eradication efforts. If jihadist figures such as Hafiz Saeed of Lashkar-e-Taiba are willing to pose for photo-ops giving oral vaccination drops to three year olds, that too would be helpful.

For FATA residents to care about polio vaccination, this public relations campaign should be expanded to include health issues with a more immediate and devastating impact. In 2002, the World Health Organization found that tetanus was responsible for over a fifth of all infant mortality in FATA. Taking into account population and birth rate estimates, this suggests a rough figure of at least two thousand infants in FATA dying every year from tetanus alone, which is easily prevented with proper vaccinations for expecting mothers. The same militants who have banned the anti-polio campaign have also kept health workers from saving these and the thousands of other children who die from preventable diseases in FATA. The tribal areas' residents should be enlisted in the effort to pressure militants to cease banning health programs as a weapon in their struggle against the Pakistani Government and the United States. To do this requires speaking to their concerns and assuaging their fears of foreign-funded vaccination campaigns.

Events along the remote Afghanistan-Pakistan border have a global impact for two reasons: terrorism and polio. Despite Bahadur's and Nazir's threats, U.S. drone strikes will continue in Waziristan, and perhaps the tribal areas will eventually fade as a center of anti-Western terrorism. In order for polio eradication to succeed, however, it must be separated from the United States and its drone strikes. It will be much easier to make the polio eradication campaign Islamic than it will be to erase anti-Western sentiment in FATA and other polio-endemic areas. Only by handing over the reins - and the credit - for polio eradication to Muslims, will Waziri, Pakistani, and American children together live in a polio-free world.

Sean Mann is currently in the Masters of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University. He speaks Pashto, and recently spent a year conducting research on the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Americans are not alone in worrying that their economic futures are headed in the wrong direction. Afghans, too, fear that the next several years will bring a business tailspin that will see recent gains eked out by small and medium companies dissolve amid security woes and a sharp pullback in international largesse and, of course, foreign forces.

The "light of a new day" may be "on the horizon," as President Obama announced this May from Bagram Air Base, but Afghan entrepreneurs want to make sure their start-ups survive the changes that will accompany whatever comes next. This Thursday 50 such business-owners, 12 women among them, will gather at an investment conference in New Delhi hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industries with support from the Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs in India (CWEI).

The goal is to promote private sector investment in Afghan firms that will increasingly be seen as growth anchors for their country going forward. Companies descending on India this week in search of dollars range from big mining entities to smaller but growing entities including software, carpet-making, and media ventures. Outside Afghanistan few may think of the war-plagued nation as a small-business or start-up hub, but the resourcefulness of the dogged entrepreneurs I have covered these past seven years matches that of any I have interviewed in other countries, rich or poor. Afghan businessmen and women will need every bit of this determination as they confront the uncertainty of the coming years. And it is in America's and NATO's interests that they succeed.

As President Obama noted at Bagram, "Americans are tired of war," and the military intervention in Afghanistan has plunged to new depths of unpopularity in the latest public opinion polls. But economic development is critical to promoting stability and U.S. security interests, and it is essential to making the President's laudable idea of bringing a "responsible end" to America's longest war more than just empty words. Research shows that negative economic shocks of five percent can increase the risk of a civil war by 50 percent in fragile environments . Bolstering entrepreneurs, particularly those running small- and medium-size enterprises, is part of fostering lasting growth that is in both Afghanistan and America's best interest.

Despite remaining on the list of the world's poorest nations, Afghanistan has logged economic successes and macroeconomic stability on which to build. The country's GDP has more than tripled in the last decade, averaging around nine percent a year, with notable gains in infrastructure, telecommunications, and financial and business services. The Ministry of Communications recently began awarding 3G licenses to cellular phone companies and internet usage is expected to climb as technology improves and prices drop. Mobile phone penetration has leapt from less than one percent in 2001 to well above 60 percent today.

And business growth has not been limited to large firms. Small companies have cropped up across sectors, creating desperately needed jobs in a country whose unemployment rate is estimated at well above forty percent. The non-governmental organization Building Markets, which ran a business matchmaking service that helped Afghan firms learn of and apply for international contracts, counted 3,400 companies in its business database in 2008. By 2012 that number had climbed to 8,300, with nearly 300 owned by women. According to the World Bank's "Doing Business" report, Afghanistan ranks 30th among 183 economies when it comes to the ease of starting a business, requiring four procedures and seven days to register a firm. Training programs such as the International Finance Corporation's "Business Edge," Goldman Sachs' "10,000 Women," and Bpeace's "Fast Runners" now work with entrepreneurs seeking management and marketing training. And Afghan export promotion officials proudly point to recent wins marketing their carpets and dried fruits and nuts to consumers in Europe and the Middle East.

Yet bad news and economic question marks threaten to swamp the small steps forward. In 2010, Afghanistan's economy received nearly the same amount in foreign aid as it counted in GDP, and the assistance tsunami, often routed around the rickety central government rather than through it, has hardly helped to bolster the country's already weak institutions. Graft remains rampant: Afghanistan shared the next-to-last spot with Myanmar in Transparency International's 2011 "Corruption Perceptions Index."  Meanwhile, the trade deficit looks to top $6 billion and fiscal health remains shaky at best, with estimates suggesting government revenues will cover only 60 percent of the Afghan operating budget in 2013.

President Obama pledged in the Strategic Partnership Agreement he signed with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai that the United States "shall help strengthen Afghanistan's economic foundation and support sustainable development." This promise was not made simply because America is a benevolent power, but because an economically stable and increasingly prosperous Afghanistan connected to the world is good for the United States. It will soon be up to Congress to decide how much continued economic aid and development assistance to offer Afghanistan, and the temptation will be great to follow the Iraq example of ever-smaller requests met by even smaller authorizations. But shoving Afghanistan off the economic edge would be both short-sighted and counter-productive. As the World Bank noted recently, "international experience and Afghanistan's own history show that an abrupt cutoff in aid can lead to fiscal crisis, loss of control over the security sector, collapse of political authority, and possibly civil war." 

America may be drawing down troops and withdrawing militarily from Afghanistan, but the Afghan entrepreneurs gathering this week in India remain worthy of U.S. support and investment. They are allies in the American quest to bring "sustainable stability" to a country and a region that desperately need it.

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

On May 14, 2012, Pakistan took a wise step toward transforming the potentially impotent Afghan reconciliation efforts into some that may be relatively productive and viable. As all interlocutors involved have acknowledged, without Pakistan's sincere efforts at reconciliation, only instability in Afghanistan can be guaranteed. The decision-makers in Pakistan are increasingly recognizing that leveraging their ability to create instability in Afghanistan is no longer a desirable policy option. Irrespective of what their fears, temptations and externally-created compulsions are, Pakistan's civilian and military rulers understand that three decades of instability in Afghanistan have generated an acute security crisis at home.

As Washington shifts its Afghanistan policy away from a focus on force to a policy that finally moves towards political reconciliation -- as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had recommended in her February 2011 Asia Society address -- it appears logical for Islamabad to seek a genuine partnership with Washington and Kabul for peace in Afghanistan.

Accordingly, to revive a partnership with the United States on the Afghan reconciliation process, Islamabad has recognized the importance of sending a positive signal by making tangible moves toward reopening NATO ground supply routes through Pakistan. U.S. and NATO officials had made it quite clear that Pakistan's participation in the imminent summit in Chicago was contingent upon its lifting of the blockade on NATO supplies destined for Afghanistan, a move that could also score points for the ruling party in the next elections.

The Pakistani government, with its political opposition vehemently opposed to the reopening of the routes to NATO, has taken a major calculated risk in making the announcement. Washington has not yet made a public apology for the November U.S.-ISAF helicopter strike at Salala, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers; the terms for NATO's use of Pakistani supply routes are not yet finalized; Pakistani officials have not yet negotiated a deal ensuring that drone attacks are no longer conducted unilaterally by the CIA; and ISAF has given no concrete guarantee that there will be no repeat of the deadly attacks on Salala. Drawing on these facts, the opposition accuses the government of abject weakness, incompetence, selling out, and surrendering to U.S. power. It is being blamed for its failure to fully leverage control of the supply routes to Pakistan's advantage, and for making this decision to please Washington.

Indeed, while at least some of these accusations cannot be rejected without careful consideration, the fact remains that governments must take calculated risks, and they must balance the potential costs and benefits of those risks. That is what Pakistan's present government has done. In a less than perfect context, it concluded that the NATO summit is important because it brings Pakistan into the policy-making discussion regarding the future of Afghanistan. Clearly, when Karzai and the United States are having that discussion -- and now also pursuing the dialogue with the Taliban that Pakistan has been advocating -- Pakistan must not abandon the opportunity to be part of the process.

While Pakistan's relevance to Afghanistan's peace is arguably greater than that of other countries, Pakistan cannot "go it alone." Finding a solution to the conflict in Afghanistan is not a unilateral affair. Peace cannot and has not come by simply engaging with or trying to control the Taliban. All the parties involved need to work in partnership, on the best negotiated terms possible.

These realizations within Pakistan augur well for the Afghan reconciliation process, but some domestic truths still need to be acknowledged in Washington. For reasons of pragmatism, self-interest, and in order to maintain a viable partnership with Pakistan, the Obama administration needs to go beyond its present policy of stalling on issues that are of immediate concern to Pakistan. First, Pakistan needs an immediate apology, which the U.S. president himself must issue at his Chicago meeting with his Pakistani counterpart. Second, the United States must draw up measures to ensure Pakistan's prior knowledge of planned drone strikes, as well as its clearance of intended targets, areas of operation, and the number of attacks. Third, both nations need to agree on fair payments for the use of Pakistani ground supply routes to Afghanistan. And fourth, NATO must make comprehensive guarantees that a repeat of Salala never happens.

These steps would create a Pakistan-U.S. partnership that genuinely promotes their shared objective of regional peace and stability, not to mention the likelihood that they would make this highly controversial partnership more palatable to the Pakistani public and political opposition. Pakistan's government has indeed taken the risky political path to pursue responsible policy, and so must Washington. President Obama needs to be the statesman, and leverage his credentials as the one who authorized the successful raid on Osama bin Laden's compound to invest in a peace partnership with Pakistan, and not shy off for fear of Republican attacks, even for an apology for the Salala killings.

Meanwhile, given the political, security and financial realities, Afghanistan's future will realistically be determined by a four-way engagement, involving Afghan political leaders, the Taliban, Pakistan and the United States. It would be both unwise and counter-productive for Pakistan to stay on the margins, particularly now that Pakistani and American interests converge in Afghanistan.

Considering the typical framing of Pakistan's popular- and political-level foreign policy debates, the opening of NATO supply routes and Pakistan's participation in the Chicago summit may in some circles be interpreted as damaging to Pakistan's security interests, undermining national pride, and working against the wishes of the people of Pakistan. However, it is important to be clear where the interest of the people lies within the context of foreign and security policy. It lies in creating security and socio-economic conditions within which governments can fulfill their Constitutional responsibilities towards the people. Hence, the government should make decisions that promote internal security, economic prosperity, social development, and the defense and dignity of the country. This is where the people's relevance is key. The public's sentiments cannot dictate decisions on whether NATO supply routes should be shut or open; governments must decide -- and take responsibility. In Pakistan, like in many other countries, the people's sentiments have often been part of a circular political strategy: institutions opposing civilian policies fed their views to a segment of the public, and were then played back as peoples' sentiments.

But another interesting question within Pakistan's domestic context is, how valid is criticism of the parliamentary process that presented terms for the re-set of Pakistan-U.S. relations? Many argue that policy-making is an executive function, and thus handing this task to the parliament was misguided. On one hand, the parliament's involvement on a key foreign policy issue that has been discussed and debated for three decades was necessary to get a general consensus. On the other hand, the criticism that the issue dragged on for too long is valid. The long drawn-out process triggered the law of diminishing returns to some extent, a fact that Pakistan's ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman continuously raised with the Pakistani government.

Washington was almost in awe of the process, and began recognizing its own mistakes, including unilateral drone attacks, its hesitation to re-negotiate the terms of NATO supply routes, and blocking the release of the Coalition Support Funds (CSF). And when the U.S. was ready to make an apology, Pakistan suggested it be held back until the parliamentary process ended. A senior White House official and the Pakistani ambassador jointly announced an agreement to release the withheld CSF, but the parliamentary process dragged on, and talks on the NATO supply routes were not resumed.

With the deadlock on the supply routes now broken, Pakistan will take a seat at an important global policy reflection and discussion forum on Afghanistan and the region. And, provided that seat is wisely utilized, Pakistan will have also promoted its own security and economic interests -- just as it is doing in opening up trade and conflict resolution dialogue with India. Fortunately, as PML-N President and leading opposition politician Nawaz Sharif repeatedly says, there is national consensus at least on these landmark policy moves.

In March, the United States and Afghanistan announced that the U.S.-run Bagram prison near Kabul will soon be handed over to Afghan control. It was a major diplomatic breakthrough that paved the way for the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement by President Obama and President Karzai on May 2. But the agreement to handover Bagram is leading to a dramatic and dangerous expansion of detention power in Afghanistan-and a potentially disastrous legacy for the United States.

As part of the agreement to transfer control of Bagram, the Afghan government is creating the authority to hold individuals without charge or trial for an indefinite period of time on security grounds-a power it has never before said it needed.

While such "administrative detention" regimes are permissible under the laws of war, this new detention power is being established in order to hand over a U.S. detention facility, not because changes in the conflict have convinced Afghan officials that it is necessary. A surge in U.S. detention operations like night raids has driven the prison population to over 3,000 detainees, most of whom the United States lacks evidence against for prosecution under Afghans law. Because the Afghan constitution, like the United States', protects individuals from being detained without charge or trial, the Afghan government needs a new detention law, which is now being modeled on deeply problematic U.S. detention policies and practices.

As a result, Bagram's real legacy may be the establishment of a detention regime that will be ripe for abuse in a country with pervasive corruption and weak rule of law.

Despite potentially far-reaching consequences, the development of this new detention power has been hidden from public view. When I met with leading Afghan lawyers and civil society organizations in Kabul several weeks ago, few knew that the government was proposing to create a new, non-criminal detention regime. Their reaction was disbelief and dismay. None had even seen a copy of the proposed regime, which the Afghan government has not made public and is trying to adopt by presidential fiat.

The Open Society Foundations recently obtained a copy of the proposed detention regime, and after review, we have found what it details deeply troubling. The proposed changes leave open critical questions about the nature and scope of this proposed detention regime, which if left unanswered make it ripe for abuse. Who can be held in administrative detention and for how long? Where will it apply? When will the government cease to have this power? How will the government ensure it will not be abused to imprison the innocent or suppress political opposition?

Most alarming is the failure to address the serious, long-term risks posed by such a regime. From apartheid South Africa to modern day China, administrative detention regimes adopted on security grounds have too often been used as tools of repression. In Egypt, the former government used administrative detention for decades to commit gross human rights violations and suppress political opposition, relying on a state of emergency declared in 1958, and nominally lifted only after last year's revolution.

Across the border in Pakistan, the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations are another stark reminder of the long, dark shadow that such legal regimes can cast. The ongoing imposition of these British, colonial-era laws, which among other things legalize collective punishment and detention without trial, are cited by many as a key driver of the rise of militancy in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

But there is still time for the United States to avoid this legacy in Afghanistan. If the Afghan government cannot be dissuaded from adopting an administrative detention regime, then the United States should urge the Afghan government to include provisions that limit its scope and reduce its vulnerability to abuse.

First, a ‘sunset' provision should be adopted, which would impose a time limit on such powers, or require an act by the Afghan Parliament to extend their duration.

Second, the regime should be limited to individuals currently held by the United States at Bagram prison. There is no clear reason why the handover of Bagram detainees requires the creation of a nation-wide administrative detention regime. More generally, the scope of who can be detained must be clearly defined and limited.

Third, detainees must have right to counsel as well as access to the evidence used against them in order to have a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention-a fundamental right in international law. At present it seems the government will follow the well-documented due process shortfalls of the U.S. model.

The United States and its Afghan partners must be honest about the serious, long-term risks of establishing an administrative detention regime in Afghanistan-particularly one that lacks clear limits and is democratically unaccountable. Protection from arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life or liberty is at the constitutional core of the United States, and is essential to lasting stability and security in Afghanistan. Living up to the President's promise of responsibly ending the war in Afghanistan requires defending, not betraying this principle.

Chris Rogers is a human rights lawyer for the Open Society Foundations specializing in human rights and conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On April 26, Pakistan's Supreme Court took the unprecedented step of convicting Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of contempt of court. While the prime minister avoided a jail sentence, the conviction could force him from the premiership, has ramifications on Pakistan's internal political dynamics and could distract from the reconciliation process currently underway with the United States.

No Jail Time, but a Time Out

Prime Minister Gilani was in the dock on charges of contempt for repeatedly refusing to write to Swiss authorities to reopen old corruption cases against Asif Ali Zardari, the sitting President and co-chairman, along with Gilani, of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The contempt charges could have landed Gilani in jail for six months but the court chose instead to sentence him to symbolic detention in the courtroom until the judges left the chamber, a sentence lasting no more than a minute. The verdict served as a final flourish to the high drama that had surrounded the judicial proceedings ever since the court first summoned Gilani on January 19.

What remains unclear is whether the ruling is a victory for Gilani and the PPP or an albatross around their neck that will bring them down in the next election. Although Gilani is not serving a jail sentence, he is now a convicted felon and the first sitting prime minister in Pakistan's history to be convicted of contempt of court. The conviction might cost Gilani his seat in parliament and, by extension, the premiership, since Pakistan's constitution forbids anyone with a criminal conviction from serving as a parliamentarian. Indeed, the court's justices, while reading their verdict, made specific reference to this fact, indicating that they hoped to see exactly that clause invoked in order to sack Gilani. The leaders of major opposition parties called on Gilani to resign after the conviction, saying he had lost all "moral authority." Imran Khan, the leader of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf, threatened to start a massive civil disobedience movement if Gilani did not step down. Analysts further questioned whether the PPP's coalition partners would stick with the PPP and a convict prime minister "enmeshed in controversy." Opposition parties are sure to use the conviction as a campaign slogan against the PPP in the upcoming election to be held sometime within the next ten months.

The Long Road to Joblessness

The PPP has rallied strongly around the prime minister since his conviction and has vowed to both fight the ruling and oppose his ouster. The process by which Gilani could be forced from office is long, tortuous, and could be challenged and delayed at every step. Gilani could keep his post for months.

Gilani and the PPP have publicly stated their intention to appeal the ruling. Only once the appeal is dismissed can petitions be brought in parliament for Gilani to be disqualified to hold a seat in the National Assembly, Pakistan's lower house (and even the dismissed appeal can be filed for "further review," dragging the process out even longer). Authority over the proceedings rests with the Speaker of the House, Fahmida Mirza, who is herself a PPP stalwart and would have the ability to delay if not derail the process. Even if a petition were to successfully get through the National Assembly, final authority rests with the Election Commission of Pakistan. Any decision taken by the commission to unseat Gilani would be subject to challenge and appeal as well. The PPP holds enough seats in parliament to be able to pick the next prime minister, meaning little would change politically even if Gilani was dismissed.

The PPP's Response

The PPP is fully aware of these facts and is openly pursuing a strategy to prolong any final decision for as long as possible or until the prime minister's term in office lapses (Gilani is already the longest serving premier in Pakistan's history) and any ruling becomes irrelevant. It is also clear that the PPP plans to use the conviction as part of its own rallying cry come the next elections. The PPP will likely try to present Gilani as a political martyr and the contempt decision as the witch-hunt of an activist court acting on the direction of an interventionist military with a historical agenda against the party. While opposition parties will be trying to paint Gilani as a criminal, it remains unclear if contempt of court is a crime that could get the blood of the masses boiling, given that they have repeatedly and knowingly elected leaders whom they generally believed to be guilty of much more visible criminality such as corruption and graft-the PPP and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz have, for example, made repeated returns to power at the ballot box despite having their tenures cut short on grounds of rampant corruption.

In the end, while not clear-cut, the verdict can be considered a victory of sorts for the PPP. In what had become a charged, almost personal battle of wills between the government and the judiciary, the judiciary seems to have blinked first. Gilani is still the prime minister for the time being and, more importantly for the PPP, Zardari is still the president. Zardari was the ultimate prize throughout the whole proceeding; putting Gilani in the dock was the court's way of attempting to force the government to open corruption proceedings against Zardari. The government consistently refused judicial pressure on the grounds that Zardari has presidential immunity from prosecution; the court-initiated procedure for sacking the prime minister could take months; and a new prime minister will likely be from the PPP as well. For better or worse, Zardari remains inviolate and looks to remain so until the next elections.

Wider Implications

The ruling relieves much of the pressure from the government and lessens fears of an irreparable institutional clash between the judiciary and executive. What it does do, however, is throw the matter out of the courts and back into the highly charged political arena in an election year; all parties are likely to latch onto and spin the issue in their favor during campaign time.

Alongside the political drama, Pakistan is currently engaged in a complicated and long-drawn out reconciliation process with the United States. Pakistan is renegotiating its entire terms of engagement with the U.S. and is in the vital stages of finalizing agreements over the reopening of NATO supply routes to Afghanistan, resumption of reimbursements for counter-terrorism assistance and other cooperation issues. While the verdict provides for cast continuity, the internal political wrangling prompted by the court ruling could distract the government from focusing its attention on these key issues. The government is also less likely to support controversial or unpopular requests from the U.S. in parliament, since it will want to limit the number of issues on which opposition parties can vilify it and score political points against it in front of a broadly anti-American electorate. There is also the question of whether, given the now questionable legality of Gilani's status as prime minister, any decisions signed by him following the conviction could be dredged up later as illegal and therefore void.

While the ruling is a positive development for Pakistan in terms of furthering the democratic process and strengthening a historically weak judiciary in Pakistan, it does not bring closure to the issue of Gilani's status or to Zardari's corruption charges. It complicates the political debate in Pakistan in an election year, and possibly delays and complicates finalization of agreements with the U.S. on key bilateral issues. Where the dust settles remains to be seen, but what is clear is that the ruling muddies far more issues than it clarifies.

Reza Nasim Jan is the Pakistan team lead at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.

Pakistan warrants concern, and not just because it is sitting on the fifth largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The country is in the throes of a destabilizing and dangerous energy crisis. It faces gas shortages, and electricity outages of up to 20 hours a day. As a result, factories have been forced into closing. There is double-digit inflation. Infrastructure is crumbling for want of resources. And harrowing stories of the newly impoverished setting themselves on fire or resorting to crime have become the new normal.

Good deeds never go unpunished in Pakistan. The United States, Pakistan's most generous ally, remains public enemy No. 1 for reasons that do not withstand any rational scrutiny. But then Pakistan has never been accused of being terribly rational. As someone invested in Pakistan's progress, I have always maintained the U.S. must provide an energy lifeline to our ally country to establish in real and rapid terms the consideration it accords the 190 million people of Pakistan. If the U.S. were to help solve Pakistan's energy crisis-and it can-there could be no better measure to manage and mitigate anti-America sentiment in the country and no better billboard to showcase that the U.S. means business.

Unfortunately, far too often the urgency of U.S. economic support announcements and photo ops in Islamabad are dulled by inaction or bungled by red tape in Washington. This fuels disenchantment at many levels. Speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington last April, Pakistan's finance minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said his country had "not even received $300 million" of the $1.5 billion in annual economic support promised to Pakistan under the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009.

It is also true that the government led by President Asif Ali Zardari is crippled by compulsions of keeping intact a coalition of disparate parties often at odds with each other. Thus, Mr. Shaikh is the country's fifth finance minister in four years. The turnover at the other key ministries-water and power, and petroleum and natural resources-is just as alarming. The government's capacity for economic and information management also seems woefully inadequate.

Then there are the corruption allegations Mr. Zardari faced in the 1990s and which didn't lead to a single conviction. These are still in circulation and, coupled with Pakistan's governance crisis, provide Zardari critics in Pakistan's freewheeling media and opposition virtually uncontested space to hurl with indignant certitude all manner of accusations against foreign, and local, investments made on his watch. In other words, any projects during the last four years for the economic advancement and eminent good of Pakistan-including the Enhanced Partnership Act with the U.S.-are, in the popular imagination, either Trojan horses or sweetheart deals.

As if things weren't bad enough for Pakistan's image abroad, the country's irreversibly sensational and bizarrely anti-business media gleefully peddles self-fulfilling prophesies of an economic and political meltdown. If you strip down the self-righteous rhetoric, the media in particular is determined that Pakistan's economy fail-at least while Mr. Zardari is around.

We have seen this picture before. In the mid-90s, when Mr. Zardari's assassinated wife, Benazir Bhutto, charmed investors into setting up privately-owned power plants, her government was accused of corruption. When Nawaz Sharif's government took over, it launched "investigations," arresting not only the executives of these foreign and local power companies but also their family members. The effects were disastrous. The investment climate became toxic and would remain so until 9/11. And potential investors like Gordon Wu, who had wanted to invest $6 billion in Pakistan, ran for the nearest exit.

Faced with international censure and arbitration proceedings, Islamabad eventually agreed to a settlement: the power companies reduced their tariffs to afford the government some face saving, and the government rewarded the companies by extending their contracts with public sector power buyers. Today, the "independent power plants" Bhutto set up provide almost 30 percent of Pakistan's total electricity supply. One hopes that Bhutto and Zardari opponents realize how much worse the energy crisis would have been had these power plants not been installed.

Since the summer of 2006, Pakistan has seen recurrent and riotous protests over power shortages. These picked up after the Zardari-led government was elected in 2008 and as outages grew, exacerbated by the government's liquidity problems. The protests have resulted in the destruction of public property-and deaths. The opposition has led several of these protests while simultaneously ensuring through litigation and an unrelenting media trial that no new power generation capacity comes online during Zardari's term. Yet, no one has called out the opposition over its rank contradictions and persecutory power past.

For the last two years, Pakistan's Supreme Court had been hearing three "human rights" petitions, including one filed by a Sharif lieutenant, challenging the installation of fast-track power plants as a short-term solution for the country. On March 30, the eve of another power protest by the opposition, the court delivered its verdict: all "rental power" contracts were declared illegal and rescinded and an independent agency was ordered to launch inquiries in support of the judgment. At 7:40 p.m. that day, we were directed to shut down power supplies to Naudero, Bhutto's constituency. American personnel at the plant have been flown back. Almost all Pakistani staff has been laid off.

In Pakistan's increasingly cynical society, all success is suspect. Unless you're Chinese, all foreign investors are viewed not as risk takers and growth drivers for the Pakistani economy but as usurpers, looters, and worse. After the recent court judgment, even the Ankara-supported "Turkey-Pakistan friendship" power ship has been impounded. And the proposed Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline is popular not just because it is critically required but because it also provides the added bonus of showing down the United States., which is opposed to the project.

There's also the Tethyan Copper Company, a partnership between Chile's Antofagasta and Canada's Barrick Gold, which spent $220 million working toward a $3.3-billion copper and gold mine in Reko Diq in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province only to be stamped as colonizers by the courts and media. When the company was forced into placing advertisements to push its facts forward in the public domain, it was slapped with a gag order and disallowed to challenge the fevered narrative of misrepresentations against it. Tethyan is headed for international arbitration, an all too familiar venue for foreign investors who put store in Pakistan. 

Pakistan is complicated. It hates the U.S., yet America is the second most popular destination for Pakistani immigrants. It resents American economic support, yet complains that there is too little of it. It craves investment, but will rescind legal contracts in paroxysms of nationalist hysteria casting a cloud over every existing and future contract.

America can help. It needs to emphasize to all Pakistani stakeholders-politicians, the judiciary, the Army-that their country must abide by its legal contracts and that it must unreservedly depoliticize the energy sector and the economy. Pakistan must enact a real defamation law that provides economic disincentives to the incendiary media and sets it on a path to self-correction. The U.S. must facilitate capacity building, especially in key Pakistani energy ministries and agencies, to effect durable, long-term economic planning. It can and should provide speedy debt support, for example through the U.S. State Department's Overseas Private Investment Corporation, to expedite energy projects that can visibly and meaningfully improve the lives of Pakistanis. The U.S. must make its aid to Pakistan conditional on the country delivering on these basic and essential reforms.

The opposition and torch-wielding media lynch mob claim to have the best interests at heart of the tens of millions of Pakistanis-whose everyday lives are roiled by energy shortages and rendered meaningless from darkening economic prospects-but if they think they're doing well by the people of Pakistan, they should think again.

David Walters was the governor of Oklahoma from 1990 to 1994. He is the founder and president of Walters Power International, a power solutions firm doing business in over 14 countries, including the U.K. He is a partner in Pakistan Power Resources, LLC, and Walters Power International Limited owns a 51-megawatt power plant in Pakistan.

In 2014, Afghanistan is scheduled to hold its third presidential election since 2004, just 18 months after the next U.S. presidential inauguration, and at the height of the withdrawal of the international military presence. Then, just a year later, they are supposed to hold a legislative election in 2015.  There is little prospect that either election will be adequately funded or competently administered. But even if, by some miracle, they come off without a hitch, they will only serve to entrench the corrupt, over-centralized administration in Kabul, and do little to improve governance in the localities. Holding elections in Afghanistan in the midst of its long-running political crisis is a lose-lose situation.

The United States and United Nations should work with the Afghans instead to push for a grand political bargain that could actually make a difference in the counterinsurgency against the Taliban: a new Loya Jirga to amend the constitution, devolve power, adjust the electoral calendar, change the voting system, and invite the Taliban to form a political party. Neither Kabul nor the international community stands to gain from holding another round of elections, but a new political bargain can break the paralysis in Kabul and break the logjam in talks with the Taliban.

I.                    Devolve Power

Afghanistan's slow-burning political crisis began in 2003, when a Loya Jirga convened in Kabul in December to ratify a new constitution. The new document was modeled closely on the 1964 constitution, itself following closely in the footsteps of constitutions in 1923 and the 1890s. That a new democratic constitution was modeled on the older constitutional monarchy is telling:  the new system simply replaced the hereditary Afghan monarch with an elected President and retained on paper many of the centralized powers that the Afghan kings had claimed (though not always exercised) since the late 19^th Century. The new constitution was unanimously ratified by acclamation in January 2004.

The United States and the U.N. are often blamed for creating or forcing a centralized system onto the Afghans at the Bonn Conference in 2001. The accusation is wrong - the centralized system came from the Afghans themselves, stemming from the century-old practice of Afghan rulers, and readily accepted by the Loya Jirga. But the point remains true that Afghanistan has one of the most highly centralized systems of government in the world. Provincial governments are not independent governments, like U.S. states, but implementing agencies of Kabul. Provincial councils are advisory, not legislative, bodies. Provincial governors and district chiefs are appointed by the president, not elected by the people.  Provincial and district police chiefs are also appointed by the president, not by governors. That makes the President personally responsible for hiring and firing every governor and police chief in 34 provinces and nearly 400 districts nation-wide.

The centralization is almost completely unsuitable to Afghanistan's culture, economy, and society.  According to Thomas Barfield's magisterial book, Afghanistan:  A Political and Cultural History (arguably the most intelligent thing written on Afghanistan in a decade), the Afghan government has always claimed centralized powers, but has been most successful when it exercises those powers sparingly, or in cooperation with local elites like tribal elders and landowners.  Efforts to use centralized government to compel social change tended to provoke resistance, as it did under the reign of the modernizing king Amanullah Khan (1919-1929), who was overthrown by a coalition of rural tribes and conservative mullahs; the communizing efforts of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (1978-1989); and the Islamizing efforts to the Taliban (1994-2001), the two most recent of which sparked civil war. 

Despite the potential lessons of that history, the ten-year reign of Hamid Karzai looks more like Amanullah in his efforts to centralize power and push social reform, than that of Zahir Shah (1933-73), who took a more relaxed approach to the provinces and whose rule was marked by relative stability.  Devolving power, for example by making governors elected and giving them the power of appointments in their province, giving provincial councils legislative power, and enabling provinces to levy their own taxes would bring the formal government into closer alignment with the informal practices that worked in the past.

II.                 Adjust the electoral calendar 

Afghanistan's political dysfunction gained a new complication in 2004 when the nascent Afghan government and the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) first decided to separate presidential and legislative elections. They were supposed to be held simultaneously under the original Bonn Agreement, but the latter were delayed a year because of logistical difficulties.  That immediately saddled Afghanistan with the burden of hosting not one, but two expensive national elections every five years. The 2004 election and voter registration drive cost in the neighborhood of $200 million; the decision to separate the elections simply doubled the cost of Afghan democracy and delayed the day Afghanistan could pay for its own government. 

The first round of split elections in 2004 and 2005 were relatively successful: Afghans turned out to vote in large numbers and the results were widely accepted. The success masked a deeper problem, however:  the elections were not held by the Afghan government. The international community, primarily the United States, paid the entire cost of the elections. And the U.N. administered the elections through the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), a hybrid U.N.-Afghan organization in which the international community could ensure the elections did not fail.

The weaknesses were exposed by the second round of elections in 2009 and 2010, which the U.N. turned over to the Afghan government to administer.  The elections were notoriously marred by logistical problems, fraud, and low turnout. Although the Afghan Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) took the accusations of fraud seriously, launched a credible investigation, and eventually disqualified over 1 million votes (facts almost always overlooked by critics of the Afghan government) it is nonetheless true that that the elections were a disaster for the legitimacy of the Afghan government and the Karzai administration.  The international community's and the Afghan people's disenchantment with Karzai accelerated dramatically after 2009.

III.               Change the voting system

Afghanistan's political crisis is not simply a matter of over-centralization, expensive elections, and fraud. It also stems from the absence of the one institution that is essential for the basic functioning of any democracy: political parties. As any political scientist will argue, political parties are essential for aggregating and articulating voters' grievances and demands, translating them into a political agenda, mediating political participation, moderating extremism, and linking citizens to their government.  Without political parties, democracy cannot thrive.

Political parties exist in Afghanistan, technically.  But they play no role in the political system, thanks to the (frankly) bizarre voting system that President Karzai settled on in the Electoral Law in May 2004. The system, called the single non-transferable vote (SNTV), is used almost nowhere else in the world.  Just three other states (Jordan, Indonesia, and Thailand) use versions of it for part or all of their legislative elections. The reason is that it is blatantly undemocratic and hostile to political parties.

In a normal parliamentary system, seats are allocated to parties in proportion to their share of the vote: if a party wins 35 percent of the vote, it is awarded 35 percent of seats.  In the SNTV system, by contrast, the individual who wins the most votes in a given constituency is awarded the first seat; the candidate with the second-highest vote tally is awarded the next seat, and so on down the line until all seats are awarded. Regardless of how many votes the candidate wins, he is awarded one seat. In theory, the top candidate could win 90 percent of the vote and win one seat, while the fifth-place candidate might win two percent of the vote, and also win one seat. 

The result is obviously undemocratic, but it also results in a highly fractured legislature composed of a few extremely popular, well-known (or feared) candidates with an independent political power base - the first-place finishers in each province - and scores of unknown, often extremist candidates who have no connections or loyalties to established political groupings.  Political parties have no entry point into this system, and so play almost no role in Afghan political life. Without parties, there is nothing to structure debate or formulate competing agendas, and the result is a fragmented, disorganized branch. Americans have grown jaded about the U.S. Congress, but it is a well-oiled machine compared to the Afghan legislature.

IV.               Invite the Taliban to form a political party

Counterinsurgency is competitive state-building. The counterinsurgent must build a government that is more attractive to the people than what the insurgents offer. Kabul will not win a counterinsurgency against the Taliban with a government that is distant, over-centralized, disconnected from the population, and in which the only opportunities for participation are periodic elections that are too expensive to succeed and marred by fraud.

But most importantly, Kabul will not end the war and stabilize Afghanistan until the insurgents and the constituency they represent believe they have an opportunity to participate in Afghanistan's political life. Afghanistan needs a Taliban political party.

The Taliban were the only faction not represented at the original Bonn Conference.  That is their fault: they were still actively fighting a shooting war against the Northern Alliance up until the day after the conference closed, and they almost certainly would not have accepted an invitation to participate if one had been extended. Regardless, the Taliban do have a constituency, and represent a view of Afghan political life that a small minority of Deobandi Pashtuns still find compelling. Their exclusion from Afghan life feeds resentment, and gives the insurgents a potent narrative with which to sell their rebellion. Karzai knows that, which is why he has consistently and aggressively sought to reach out to the Taliban ever since his 2004 inauguration. 

The Taliban as a whole are not going to surrender, lay down their arms, and peacefully convert into a political party.  The leaders, if no one else, are true believers in their brutal theocratic system, in which elections and compromise have no place. But the average Taliban foot soldier is probably more flexible in his commitments, so long as he believes he is secure and respected.  Holding talks with the Taliban and creating a way for them to participate in Afghan political life will not end the insurgency, but it can weaken the movement, sow disarray in their ranks, incentivize defections, and bolster Kabul's legitimacy. Reconciliation with some Taliban could be a potent weapon in the counterinsurgency campaign.

V.                 Convene a Loya Jirga

Each of these problems - centralization, the disjointed electoral calendar, the wonky voting system and weak political parties, the exclusion of the Taliban - exacerbates the others.  The weakness of parties make it hard for an authentic local voice to be heard in Kabul, while the over-centralization gives Kabul little incentive to seek such a voice out. The electoral calendar has driven the cost of elections up, while fraud and corruption is making the international community ever more skeptical about providing the money necessary to keep the democratic charade going. The exclusion of the Taliban fuels the insurgency, but Kabul's incompetence and political paralysis cripple its own counterinsurgency efforts, and weakens the will of its international backers. Under these circumstances, new elections in 2014 and 2015 offer nothing good for Afghanistan or the international community.

Afghanistan has a mechanism for dealing with the "supreme interests of the country":  the Loya Jirga. The Loya Jirga, a grand council of elders, is the supreme authority in Afghanistan, higher than any branch of government and the constitution itself. It is perfectly legal and constitutional:  Chapter Six of the Afghan Constitution describes the Jirga and its powers.  It is also a relatively democratic gathering, consisting of the National Assembly and chairmen of provincial and district councils, almost all of whom are elected (only one-third of the upper house of the Assembly are appointed by the President). The Afghans held an Emergency Loya Jirga in 2002 to ratify the Bonn Agreement, and a Constitutional Loya Jirga in 2003-4 to ratify the new constitution. Karzai has called "mini" loya jirgas in the years since to ratify specific decisions or agreements, including the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership in 2005.

Many of the political changes needed would not even require constitutional amendments. Chapter Eight of the Afghan Constitution actually mandates that the government "delegate certain authorities to local administration units for the purpose of expediting and promoting economic, social, and cultural affairs, and increasing the participation of people in the development of the nation." The President's power to appoint governors and police chiefs is nowhere mentioned in the constitution.  The voting system was created by statute, not by the Constitution. Changing the Afghan political system to be more decentralized, more democratic, and more responsive to the people could probably be accomplished even without the two-thirds vote of a Jirga required for constitutional amendments.

But the biggest potential benefit of the Jirga would be the inclusion of Taliban representatives.  The Jirga could itself be an important medium in the ongoing efforts to hold talks with the insurgency. Kabul would have to be flexible about the Jirga's composition - the Constitution does not exactly have a clause about representatives from an active rebellion sitting in on a Jirga. But there are ways to skirt this, for example by allowing Taliban "observers" to attend without voting rights or, even better, through an understanding that district council representatives from southern provinces would be speaking for the Taliban. Regardless of the modality, the presence of Taliban spokesmen or their proxies would be an important symbolic step in the effort to incorporate willing Taliban into Afghan political life, catalyze talks with the insurgents, prompt defections, split the insurgency, and edge closer to peace.

A Loya Jirga in 2014 would be a more cost-effective use of international money.  More elections at this point will accomplish little to stabilize Afghanistan or bolster Kabul's legitimacy.  A Jirga, by contrast, has a greater chance of being seen as legitimate and accomplishing something worthwhile. An election will only pick the next person to head the corrupt and incompetent administration in Kabul. A Jirga, by contrast, would be empowered to tackle the full range of problems that plague Afghanistan's political system.  Elections, held just as the international military presence is winding down, would be a dangerous nation-wide event for which security would be a major challenge. A Jirga, by contrast, would be a smaller, easier affair to secure.

Of course, a Jirga would be unwieldy and unpredictable. The international community would not be able to control it. Even with the substantial aid international donors continue to give Afghanistan, the international community has much less leverage over the course of events in Afghanistan than it did in 2001-2. But that is probably a good thing. The heavy international hand guiding events in Afghanistan ten years ago was perhaps necessary, but it was also abnormal. A new Jirga, this time under unquestioned Afghan leadership, could be the step needed to restart normal Afghan political life.

Dr. Paul D. Miller is an Assistant Professor of International Security Studies at the National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs. The views expressed here are his own, and do not reflect those of the U.S. government.

Deep in reverence, over 1,800 turban-clad young clerics with flowing beards were packed into every inch of the huge lecture hall at the Darul Uloom Haqqania -- the oldest and largest Islamic seminary in Pakistan. The graduating students were listening raptly, absorbing the final lecture of the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) by the chief cleric Maulana Samiul Haq, in pin-drop silence.

After addressing the assembly of students in Pashtu, Maulana Haq, who also heads a religio-political party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-Sami group), met groups of visiting Taliban in private before sitting down to speak with me. Haq's close relationship with the Taliban, and role educating many of its key figures, including the group's leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, has earned him the nickname "Father of the Taliban."

"There's no other way but to have meaningful talks with Taliban," Maulana Haq authoritatively declared when we talked recently at his residence adjacent to the seminary, which boasts over 8,000 regular students. The madrassah is regarded as the most prestigious seminary and center of the Taliban movement. It is located in the town of Akora Khattak, about 60 miles from Islamabad, and its alumni include Mullah Mohammed Omar, insurgent leader Jalaluddin Haqqani (his last name denotes his time spent at the madrassa).

While Taliban groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan have repeatedly denied having engaged in talks with the United States or the Pakistani government, Maulana Haq, who freely admits supporting various Taliban groups including the Haqqani Network, emphasized the necessity of holding talks with the insurgents in order to establish regional peace.

Talks are needed now, more than ever, as the jihadist scene along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has moved far beyond the Haqqani Network and the ‘Mujahideen Shura of North Waziristan' -- a conglomerate of al-Qaeda-linked firebrands of various nationalities associated with the Taliban - to become the "North Waziristan Militants Complex".   

"If the talks fail," septuagenarian Maulana Haq said, "Then the solution would be jihad -- that would be a public uprising against the Pakistani rulers and America."

During the war in Afghanistan, NATO forces have made several controversial incursions into Pakistani territory near the border with Afghanistan.  Maulana Haq, who also heads an organization named ‘The Defense of Pakistan Council' warned, "If America steps into Pakistan, the war would escalate and the U.S. will be trapped in it." 

That said, one reason why the United States has avoided placing the entire Haqqani Network on its list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations is likely because the Haqqanis can still be a viable group to talk about a future broad-based national government in Afghanistan, local analysts believe. American allegations of a relationship between the Haqqanis and the Pakistani state also complicate efforts to designate the group, as such an effort would likely require the United States to also designate Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism.

A mediator role for the Haqqanis would suit both Pakistan and the United States, as the United States moves towards its planned 2014 departure from Afghanistan. However, what seem to worry the U.S. about this option are the elements that continue to endanger U.S. interests in the region. While U.S. drone strikes attempt to wipe out al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan's northwest tribal areas, American officials feel not enough is being done by the continuing Pakistani Army operation in the same region.

Additionally, engaging the Taliban in dialogue is difficult as there is no one "Taliban" movement, but many, in addition to numerous affiliated militant and criminal networks operating on both sides of the Durand Line. However, this does not mean that it would be easy to deal with the groups separately, or pursue a "divide and conquer" strategy.

"The Taliban can't afford to detach from the Haqqani Network," said Maulana Hamidul Haq, a former legislator and son of Maulana Samiul Haq. "In fact, Taliban leaders consider the Haqqani Network as their patrons," he added, emphasizing that "the Haqqani Network can play an important role in talks with Taliban, as both Haqqani and Taliban are one."   

Local analysts believe that the trick is not just to consolidate talks with Taliban hardliners at various levels, but to break the ice with those who might be brought around by Pakistani negotiators -- such as members of the security establishment -- who understand the militants and their movement best.

Certainly, some groups of militants and criminal elements are unlikely to be reconciled through negotiations. However, gaining locals' confidence in North Waziristan and across Pakistan would be the key to strengthening the Pakistani military's hands.  It would help alleviate several major headaches, including the band of thugs safely operating their businesses under the Taliban franchise in North Waziristan and elsewhere. The Punjabi Taliban is one such element, and has become not only a painful liability, but also a serious threat to Pakistan's national security.

Secondly, these talks would assist in countering the likely spate of terrorism that would occur after a massive operation against militants is launched in the so-far insurmountable North Waziristan -- no matter who executes it, Pakistan or the United States.

And third, the document endorsed by many Pakistani political and religious leaders during the All Parties Conference (APC) in September further guaranteed the Pakistani public's support for all actions of the military, which has undergone a successful image building exercise at home.

If soaring inflation, fumbled governance, and unbridled terrorism reflects the administrative failure of the elected government at home, it also presents an opportunity for the Pakistani military to step in and find a solution with the Taliban. This would create a win-win situation for both domestic politics and for Pakistan's sinking relationship with the United States.

Maulana Hamid also had a suggestion for the United States. In order to alleviate the complex nature of coordinating talks with an active insurgent group, "Americans should talk to genuine religious leaders and get the governments out from in-between." American officials must ultimately adopt a similar course of action to that proposed here for the Pakistanis, in order to protect its long terms interests in the region, and facilitate an end to a conflict that straddles borders and interweaves two nations' strategic goals.