Last weekend, the Associated Press released a study of ten drone strikes in Pakistan in the last 18 months. This is the most ambitious journalistic investigation of drones so far, which also does what the Obama administration has so far failed to do:  to meaningfully investigate claims of civilian casualties and publicly evaluate why those killed were targeted.

The study found that at least 138 militants were killed, while the remaining 56 were civilians and tribal police. It is difficult to extrapolate much from ten cases. But if the same pattern held true for other strikes, the civilian casualty rate would be far less than is commonly asserted in Pakistani public discourse -- but also far higher than the Obama Administration has suggested previously. Senior counterterrorism official John Brennan has in the past suggested the civilian casualty rate was zero, whereas President Obama has described it as "few." In contrast, Pakistani public discourse often suggests that most casualties of drone strikes are civilians. The AP article quotes prominent Pakistani public figure Imran Khan on drones: "Those who lie to the nation after every drone attack and say terrorists were killed should be ashamed."

The coverage of the AP study so far (and even the headline of the story itself) has largely focused on the discrepancy between the AP's finding that mostly militants were killed in the drone strikes it examined, and the common assertion in Pakistani media and politics that drones are primarily killing innocent civilians. Inflated civilian casualty claims due to drones are certainly a problem in Pakistan. They not only distort public discourse and policy-making, but they also inhibit sound analysis of what is causing civilian casualties, and possible steps to prevent and mitigate civilian harm in the future. However, reading the AP reporting as only exposing the hot air behind bogus civilian casualty claims misses the real contribution this study makes to the overall debate about drones.

The AP study is novel because it is based on something more substantial than the whispers of anonymous officials in the halls of Islamabad and Washington. AP took the time (and risk) to actually speak to those who knew the individuals killed, who saw the strike take place, and in some cases buried family members.

What's more, contrary to those who suggest that any ground reports will be hopelessly compromised by propaganda and anti-American bias, what the villagers interviewed told the AP smacks of truthfulness. If the local villagers were motivated to lie to inflate civilian casualties -- as one of the anonymously cited intelligence officials in the AP story seems to suggest -- they certainly gave AP the wrong impression. According to the 80 villagers AP interviewed, militants were the only victims in six of the ten strikes examined.

And while the AP found that militants were killed more frequently than civilians, it did find civilian casualties in a number of strikes. This begs the question: if the AP is doing assessments like this, why isn't the U.S. government? To the best of our knowledge, U.S. review of drone strikes consists of video footage before, during, and after the incident. For example, following one strike in which AP found that three women and two children were killed, the anonymous intelligence officials' rebuttal was that women and children had not been observed prior to the strike.  Certainly no public investigations of drone strike cases -- of the type that typically follow allegations of civilian casualties by the U.S. military in Afghanistan -- have been forthcoming.

This is problematic because, while video surveillance can be an aide to investigation, it often presents an incomplete picture. Even with the best intelligence in the world, the conflict in the tribal areas of Pakistan is murky, as are the activities and affiliation of individuals operating within it. Across the border in Afghanistan, where troops have years of experience with the terrain and the communities, and greater field intelligence and access, mistakes are regularly made. The Administration's claims that such mistakes are almost impossible to avoid, or its attempts to dismiss claims to the contrary as propaganda alone, willfully disregards all the military has learned in its past ten years in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In addition, video surveillance is often not enough to determine who is a civilian or who is a combatant under international law. Under international law, members of an armed group that is party to the conflict, or civilians who directly participate in hostilities can be directly targeted. While there are ongoing international legal debates about what constitutes "direct participation," the provision of food, shelter or medical care to one of the parties to a conflict, or mere association with one warring party does not constitute participation.

In Afghanistan, our organization, Open Society Afghanistan, has had more access to investigate such cases, and found that civilians have sometimes been killed or detained because their proximity to insurgent groups led to a sort of "guilt by association." Studies like the AP report raise concerns that the United States may be applying the same broad standards for direct participation in Pakistan. In one strike documented by the AP, 38 civilians and tribal police were reportedly killed at a public jirga -- a level of civilian harm that U.S. intelligence officials disputed on the grounds that "the group targeted was heavily armed, some of its members were connected to al-Qaida," according to the article. The AP analysis of the incident based on villagers' accounts found that some militants were present but that the majority was comprised of civilians, tribal elders, and tribal police -- many of whom may well have been armed given the cultural context and insecurity in Waziristan. 

The lack of transparency in the Obama's Administrations' drone policy have made it impossible to know how the U.S. government chooses its targets in any given incident, and thus difficult to get any real traction on important questions of civilian harm.  The Obama Administration's response to such concerns has ranged from outright denial to mere assertions that its strikes comply with international law (for example, in speeches by Legal Advisor Harold Koh and counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan). In a recent chat forum, President Obama dismissed the potential civilian harm from drones, as "not huge" concerns and assured those on the chat room that the U.S. use of drones was "judicious" and not "willy-nilly." Such remarks were the most candid, but also disturbingly casual in addressing these critical concerns.

The AP's findings starkly illustrate where the Obama Administration is falling short on public accountability for civilian casualties. At the same time, reaction to the AP report demonstrates how the debate over the percentage of civilian casualties can distract attention from equally critical issues, specifically the complete lack of transparency and how the U.S. distinguishes between militants and civilians.  The Administration's closeted response to serious public concerns about its drone program does not befit its stated democratic values.  Given the prominence of drones to U.S. national security policy, and the demonstrated consequences of these strikes, we need to move beyond the "willy-nilly" standard of killing.

Erica Gaston is a human rights lawyer for the Open Society Foundations specializing in civilian casualty issues. Chris Rogers is also a human rights lawyer for the Open Society Foundations specializing in human rights and conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In his last official event as an ambassador, barely an hour after the un-redacted transcripts of his alleged Blackberry Messenger (BBM) conversations with Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz were released, Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani bore a grim expression as authors read out from short stories and poetry at the Pakistan Embassy (in the interest of full disclosure, I frequently cover issues relating to U.S.-Pakistan relations, and have interviewed Ambassador Haqqani a number of times).

Later that evening, he lost his cool with the media after they harassed him for a sound byte on Ijaz's accusations that Haqqani was the "senior diplomat" who led a plan following the death of Osama bin Laden to solicit American assistance to prevent a coup in Pakistan, and to help remove the country's senior military and intelligence personnel, by means of a "backchannel" memo to then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen. At the time he denied any involvement and said his fate was in President Asif Ali Zardari's hands, a position he maintains.

A day later, he boarded a flight to Islamabad.

This morning, news outlets reported on a meeting taking place at the Prime Minister's House with President Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and intelligence head honcho Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha with the ambassador. Not long after the meeting, Haqqani tendered his resignation, which was then accepted by the PM. According to Pakistani news channels, the Prime Minister asked for the Ambassador's resignation. In an official statement, a spokesperson for Gilani said, "As a result of controversy generated by the alleged memo which had been drafted, formulated and further admitted to have been received by Authority in USA, it has become necessary in National interest to formally arrive at the actual and true facts." Further details on what really happened in the meeting weren't available, but for days, many had speculated that this would be the expected outcome.

Several names for replacements for Haqqani have been making the rounds since he offered to resign last week, in light of the "memogate" disclosures. These include current Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir, former ambassador to the United States Maleeha Lodhi, the current Pakistani representative to the United Nations Hussain Haroon, and former Pakistani Army chief Gen. Jehangir Karamat.

Lodhi, when asked about whether she would want to be ambassador, said at an event at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) last week that she had picked up the American expression, "three strikes and you're out." Lodhi has twice served as Pakistan's Ambassador to Washington under Benazir Bhutto and General Musharraf's governments respectively.

Bashir, who at 59 years old is due to the reach the age of retirement soon, could be asked to resign from the Foreign Office and become a political appointee to the United States. Bashir's brother is Admiral Noman Bashir, the former Chief of Naval Staff, and he is viewed as being close to the military and establishment. He was also part of the Pakistani delegation that met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York in September.

But beyond the rumours on Ambassador Haqqani's replacement, there are dozens of unanswered questions about "memogate." Who was responsible for the contents of the memo, which did not reflect Haqqani's polished and erudite English prose? (Though by all accounts the alleged BBM transcripts closely resemble Haqqani's style). Why did they decide to use Mansoor Ijaz, who has a history of making extravagant and sometimes false public claims? And lastly -- what motive did all the players have for their roles in this episode?

More importantly though, it is unclear how this affair will impact civilian and military relations within Pakistan. It is no secret that the Pakistani Army was not Haqqani's biggest fan -- and if it turns out they insisted on his resignation, one can expect that they plan to call the shots with Pakistan's next emissary to Washington.

Huma Imtiaz works as a correspondent for Express News in Washington DC, and can be reached at huma.imtiaz@gmail.com

Those who argue about the Afghan war on bumper stickers and in sound bites would do well to pay extended attention to the Asia Foundation's annual survey of Afghan public opinion. The results cut both ways, demonstrating more progress than is admitted by the "Afghanistan is hopeless" crowd, while simultaneously calling into question the more extravagant declarations of those who claim a clear path to success. The survey is one of the most careful periodic studies of Afghan opinion. Conducted annually since 2006, this year's survey interviewed 6348 respondents in all 34 of the country's provinces, with sophisticated oversight and training of the pollsters. No survey can wholly correct for the tendency of some people, especially in countries like Afghanistan where the security situation is tenuous, to give the answers they think an outsider wants. The fact that 95 villages originally chosen (out of 876 villages and urban points originally selected for interviewing with a total of 166 later switched for various reasons) had to be replaced by others because of poor security in sampled areas probably slants the results somewhat more toward positive responses. However, it is fair to note that fewer villages were switched for security reasons in 2011 than in 2010 (95 compared to 138 in 2010). Despite these caveats, though, this survey is brim full of important results.

On the positive side, and at a time when many Americans have an undifferentiated view that everything Afghan is sliding downwards, nearly half the Afghans surveyed believe their country is moving in the right direction, a trend that has held up since 2008. The numbers who are optimistic about the country's economic future has risen since last year's survey. The survey also shows continued high esteem for the Afghan Army, the most highly respected institution in Afghanistan by a sizable margin (though those wanting to replicate the Iraq "awakening" example should note that the least respected institution are local militias). Confidence in local government shows improvement, particularly at provincial and district levels, although in this as in every aspect there are wide ethnic and regional differences that merit close attention. 

There is strong support for a negotiated peace, although the regional differences evident in the survey results suggest great concern that a badly designed peace might bring the Taliban back to power. This fear of civil war if the Taliban returns to power is one I heard much about when I visited Afghanistan in March. The survey indicates that such fears are particularly wide spread among ethnic minorities, so the kind of peace we pursue matters, in order to prevent a move toward armed conflict from populations who are most concerned about a Taliban return. Support for the Taliban has declined, and there is clearly an increased revulsion among Afghans against the civilian casualties caused by the insurgents. Afghan respondents also show increasing awareness of improvements in health and education.  In short, there is progress.  But there is also a great deal about which to be concerned.

Afghan fears about security are growing, and now overshadow complaints about corruption (still a major problem). Afghans in the areas of heavy combat in the southwest, south and east show much lower levels of confidence in security than their counterparts in other parts of the country.  Suicide bombers are increasingly rattling the confidence of city dwellers, who have more negative views of security than do villagers. More than half of the respondents say they fear for the safety of themselves and their families, a statistic that would presumably be higher if some of the excluded sample points had been included. More worrisome still, the number of respondents showing such fear has not declined from 2010 to 2011, and in eastern Afghanistan, where the Haqqani Network is predominant, such fear is rising.

There are also growing concerns about freedom of expression in the country -- a concern that reflects somewhat negatively on the Afghan government and warlords, but is specifically linked by many respondents to poor security and fears of the Taliban. The survey lays bare the great deal of doubt that Afghans see about the Taliban being rolled back, even in the areas where direct confrontations with U.S. and international forces have diminished substantially. Concerns about and resentment of the behavior of foreign troops are also a growing problem. There are wide variations on these views even in different districts within provinces, so it is a mistake to say the survey flatly challenges NATO views of success -- but counterinsurgency is as much about psychology as about statistics. These perceptions are a cause for concern that military analysts need to consider.

Ultimately, for all of the negatives in this survey, there are many areas of optimism as well.  America has twice ignored Afghanistan, after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and after our initial success in 2001. And twice we have paid substantially in blood for our loss of attention.  Before we give up and declare everything hopeless, we need to look closely at how much has been achieved in the eyes of Afghans, and what that means in terms of the possibilities that still exist to succeed. But we need to look equally clearly at the negatives, the places where Afghans remain or have grown more skeptical, and think of corrective actions, even as international forces redeploy within Afghanistan and eventually withdraw. In doing so, the Asia Foundation survey is an important document, but only if we are willing to think in terms more complicated than slogans.

Ronald Neumann was the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan 2005-07 and is the author of The Other War: winning and losing in Afghanistan. He is president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, but the views expressed here are his own.

The brutal, execution-style attack on Shi'a Muslims in the Mastung area of Baluchistan this week was, at once, debilitating, shocking, and instructive.

It was debilitating because it reminded observers and Pakistanis alike that the threat of indiscriminate violence Pakistanis face as a result of domestic militant groups shows no signs of abating.

It was shocking because even by the standards of Pakistani society, where violence is accepted with nonchalance -- or "resilience," depending on your point of view -- the attack represented a new low, mainly because of the method of the killings. As multiple reports have indicated, the militants stopped a bus en route to Iran, forced the pilgrims off, lined them by the side of the road, and shot them. As Dawn noted in its editorial on the killings, the attack showed a "descent into new depths of savagery."

Finally, it was instructive because it shed light on the precise nature of the militant threat the Pakistani state and society face, and the long-term struggle ahead to adequately address the threat.

Since Pakistan's alliance with the United States after 9/11 -- I use the term "alliance" loosely here -- Pakistanis have borne extremely high levels of violence; some 35,000 civilians, police and military officials have perished in the last seven years. Within the country, this has led to a sharp debate about the origins of the violence, and the advisability of the partnership with America.

The dominant narrative within Pakistan is that this war is not "our war"; that Pakistani leaders, both military and civilian, have allied with the United States out of a combination of greed and pusillanimity; that the militant violence directed at the Pakistani state and society would not have occurred had Pakistan not signed on to do America's bidding in its war; and that the solution to the terrorist threat lies in the U.S. exiting the region.

The proposition that the death toll from terrorism would be lower had Pakistan not gotten involved in the U.S. war in Afghanistan is likely accurate. But to take that to mean that Pakistan would have been a peaceful society without U.S. intervention in the region is a step too far.

The gruesome events on Tuesday demonstrate this truth, because groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which claimed responsibility for the attack, existed well before 9/11 and will exist well after the U.S. draws down in Afghanistan. Indeed, rather than being strictly being an anti-American group, LeJ's raison d'être is primarily sectarian -- they are an offshoot of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, itself an anti-Shi'a terrorist group. The notion that groups such as LeJ did not threaten Pakistanis until the military and civilian leadership allied with the United States rests on a very narrow understanding of "Pakistani." Shi'a still count as Pakistani, despite the efforts of groups such as SSP and LeJ.

For more than fifteen years, LeJ has carried out attacks against Pakistani religious minorities. In April 2010, the group was responsible for a bombing in Quetta - in a hospital, no less - which killed 11 people. That same month, two LeJ female suicide bombers blew themselves up at a relief camp for internal refugees who were waiting to get registered and receive food, reportedly because Shi'a were receiving food aid. In September 2010, the group was responsible for a suicide bomb and grenade attack in Lahore, targeting a Shi'a procession that killed more than 40 people. This year alone, LeJ has been behind at least four different attacks on Hazara Shi'a in Baluchistan, resulting in dozens of casualties. And this is just a sample of the group's activities in recent times.

LeJ is an extremely daring and dangerous organization. In the late 1990s, then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ordered a crackdown on it, a move that invited assassination attempts against him. In Pakistan: Eye of the Storm, Owen Bennett-Jones reports a remarkable incident of the group's reach:

The police were told that anyone who managed to arrest or kill Riaz Basra [then head of LeJ] would be given a 5 million-rupee award.

Despite this, the security forces proved incapable of controlling the militants' activities. Riaz Basra showed his contempt for the police's capabilities when he turned up at one of Nawaz Sharif's political surgeries [meetings with party supporters]. Having slipped in with the petitioners who wanted to see the prime minister, Basra positioned himself directly behind Nawaz Sharif and got one of his accomplices to take a picture. Three days later staff at the prime minister's house received a print of the photograph. The faces of Sharif and Basra, within a few feet of each other, had been circled and underneath there was an inscription: ‘It's that easy.'

Those claiming that widespread terrorism in Pakistan is solely a result of U.S. involvement in the region cannot address the existence of groups such as LeJ. Essentially all militant groups operating in Pakistan today, including LeJ, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jaish-e-Muhammad, existed in some form before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. That their activities were less widespread before Pakistan backed the United States is neither here nor there, because their very existence on Pakistani soil should be intolerable to Pakistani citizens and the state.

Unfortunately, the aftermath of the Tuesday attack itself sends a signal of the state's woeful capabilities in tackling groups such as LeJ. The organization's leader, Malik Ishaq, was meekly placed under house arrest for ten days due to "security reasons," and authorities followed the next day by placing his key aide Ghulam Rasool Shah under house arrest as well. Malik Ishaq was released from prison earlier this year, despite having 44 court cases against him (he was acquitted in 34, and granted bail in 10). His release was due to a lack of evidence.

Though outsiders may scoff at a publicly recognizable leader of a terrorist group not having sufficient evidence tying him to murder, it is actually quite understandable for those more aware of ground realities in Pakistan. First, witnesses are scared to death -- literally -- of coming forward and testifying. Second, judges themselves are unsafe, and afraid of handing out guilty verdicts in high-profile terrorism cases. Third, police procedures, investigative techniques and equipment are not advanced enough to tie individuals to specific incidents; even if police forces in an area know exactly who is behind a particular incident, proving it in a court of law is not easy, especially since Pakistan's anti-terrorism laws remain flawed. Fourth, there exists a baseline of sympathy for such organizations and their actions even amongst the "educated" legal community, as the reaction to the Salman Taseer assassination so eloquently showed.

All this is to suggest that, unfortunately, the terrorism problem in Pakistan is not going to disappear as U.S. forces leave Afghanistan. To the contrary, it will take dedicated work and long-term reform in the Pakistani legal system, the courts, and the police to rid the country of this scourge.

Most pertinent of all, the Pakistani military must abandon the analytical distinction between "good" and "bad" militant groups, as well as abandoning the hope that "good" militant groups can fulfill regional strategic objectives, such as bringing India to the negotiating table on Kashmir or attaining "strategic depth" in Afghanistan. If nothing else, the last decade should have put paid to that theory of national interest. Notwithstanding the security establishment's desire to play favorites, the array of militant groups in Pakistan have a lot more that unites them than divides them. Indeed, LeJ -- to take one relevant example -- has deep connections with the Pakistani Taliban as well as al-Qaeda, both of whom have used extraordinary levels of violence against Pakistani targets. The idea that the state can take on one set of elements and leave others untouched is, in the medium- and long-term, completely fanciful.

Ahsan Butt is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Chicago and blogs at Five Rupees.

Twenty-six Shi'a Muslim pilgrims,en route to Iran, died at the hands of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi(LeJ) in Baluchistan's Mastung area Tuesday evening. According to news reports and eyewitness accounts, attackers armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers stopped the busand forced passengers to get off. While women and children were reportedlyspared, they witnessed the execution. A car arriving to rescue the pilgrims was also fired on, and three people died in the second attack.

According to the bus driver "The attackers askedpassengers to step out of the bus and shot them after identifying them as Shi'as"

The attack was not an isolatedincident, but was instead part of a systematic campaign of violence in theprovince directed towards the Shi'a. In July, 18 people werekilled within 16 hours in Quetta in targeted attacks by the LeJ, including sevenpilgrims waiting for transportation to Iran. On the Eid-ul-Fitr holiday, a suicide bomber reportedly intended to attack the congregation of 25,000 people prayingat a mosque in the Shi'a-populated area of Marriabad in Quetta. Hisexplosives-laden car  still killed 12 Shi'aand injured 32.

The campaign of anti-Shi'a violence has largely been directed towards the predominantly Shi'a Hazaracommunity in Baluchistan. According to a recent report in Newsline, "at least 347 Hazaras have been killed in [targeted] killings andsuicide and other attacks since 1999. Of the 328 Hazaras killed up untilDecember 31 last year, as many as 105 had been killed in 2010 alone."And government inaction is only helping the problem spread. According toAmnesty International, "Successive [Pakistani] governments have failed toaddress the increasingly explicit threats faced by Shi'a Muslims from groupslike Lashkar-e Jhangvi, operating openly in the Punjab and Karachi andapparently striking their victims at will in Balochistan and other parts of thecountry.

The LeJ, the militant wing of the virulentlyanti-Shi'a Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), has claimed responsibility forseveral of the attacks, and has vowed to kill more Shi'a. The Deobandi group'sstronghold is in southern Punjab, and since its inception in 1985, it has spread its campaign of anti-Shi'a incitement and violencethroughout Pakistan.

The group is officially banned inPakistan, but the ban has been far from effective. The state supported thecreation of the SSP, as General Zia-ul-Haq's regime propped up Deobandi movements to counter its perceived rival Iran.

Zia's death in 1988 did not endstate patronage of such groups. Hundreds of Shi'a have been killed since then,and the state continues to support groups such as the LeJ, and has called onits leaders for assistance in times of crisis. For instance, LeJ leader MalikIshaq was reportedly flown out of jail by the Pakistan Army to talk to the militants that had stormed the army headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009. Ishaq wasreleased this year after serving 14 years in jail. He was accused of killing 70 people and faced charges in 44 cases.

It was revealed after his releasethat his family was given a stipend by the Punjab government while he was in jail, and that he had been provided with police guards -- while the witnesses who testified against him lived in fear of possible repercussions. Ishaq's freedom -- after being acquitted in 34 cases and being bailedout on 10 -- was met with a display of adoration by his supporters, whoshowered rose petals on him.

Since then, he has embarkedon a public speaking tour, addressing crowds in Sindhand Punjab. His message has been consistent: he believes he was on the rightpath, and vows to work to further the SSP's mission. And despite knowing thatthe intelligence services and government are keeping an eye on him, the crowdsstill show up to hear Ishaq speak, helping validate the belief held by Ishaqand his followers that the SSP's mission is right.

In a letter to The Friday Times journal, the Pakistan Ulema Council has urged "different segments of societyto stop making assumptions about Ishaq's release and help him become a usefulcitizen" while heralding his services to the army in the 2009 headquarterssiege. But for anyone who has seen Ishaq's speeches, readily available onseveral social media platforms, it is hard to not foresee a bloody future aheadfor the Shi'a community in Pakistan. The speeches conclude with the crowdschanting anti-Shi'a slogans, while in Balochistan, a bloodied communitycontinues to mourn its dead.

Saba Imtiaz works as acorrespondent for The Express Tribune newspaper and can be reached at saba.imtiaz@gmail.com

On a day of suicide attacks in Quetta and bomb threats againstPakistani airliners, Ali Akbar Salehi's September 7 arrival in Islamabad attracted predictably little media attention in Pakistan.

For Pakistan's government, however, his visit was freighted with importance. Salehi, Iran's foreign minister, was in town for a meeting of thePakistan-Iran Joint Economic Commission (JEC). The two-day talks produced agreements on technical, financial, and media cooperation, with additional steps taken to strengthen cooperation on energy, money laundering, and trade.

This economic summit came on the heels of intensive efforts by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to reach out to Tehran. He visited Iran in late June for a two-day conference on terrorism, and then returned just a few weeks later. Both times, he was received by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And on both occasions, the rhetoric flowed freely. At the first meeting, Zardari praised Iran as "an important friend and player in the region," noting that bilateral ties "are rooted in historical, cultural, and religious bonds." During the second visit, Khamenei lauded Pakistan for being "a great nation with [a] long and deep background of struggle."  

Shortly after the JEC meeting, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani traveled to Tehran. Talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad culminated in outcomes both symbolic (designating Multan and Rashtas sister cities) and substantive (pledging to boost bilateral trade from $1.2to $10 billion -- which would approach the $15 billion trade volume Pakistan seeks with China). On September 12, Gilani declared that his and Zardari's successive visits to Iran underscore the "highest importance"Islamabad places on relations with Tehran.

At first glance, Pakistan's courtship of Iran is puzzling. The two nations have rarely seen eye to eye in Afghanistan; Tehran has sided with the Northern Alliance and other anti-Taliban elements of the population (particularly Shia Hazaras), while Islamabad was once one of the fewnations to accord the Taliban full diplomatic recognition. Iran has also enjoyed a legacy of strong relations with India. Baluchistan province in Pakistan has long served as a sanctuary for Jundullah, an Iranian Baluch militant organization that Washington designates as a terrorist group and regularly attacks Iran's government and military. Perhaps most importantly, Shia Iran is regional rivals with Sunni Saudi Arabia, one of Pakistan's most crucial allies.

However, the strategic sands in South Asia have begun to shift, creating new opportunities for Pakistan and Iran. The latter's view of the Afghan Taliban has softened, with some observers arguing that Tehran now perceives it less as a virulent Wahhabi Sunni threat, and more as a welcome anti-imperialist group that shares Iran's strong desire to expunge America's military footprint in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, India's relations with Iran have taken a tumble. Several times in recent years, India has backed American positions on U.N. Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency votes on Iran's nuclear program and human rights violations. Additionally, tighter international sanctions against Tehran have undercut India-Iran energy relations, a pillar of the bilateral relationship. India used to pay Tehran for crude imports through an opaque "clearing house" system, yet last December the sanctions prompted India to renounce this method and to request a more transparent arrangement. Tehran refused, and in July briefly suspended crude supplies to New Delhi. India immediately turned to Riyadh, concluding a deal this past summer that provided Indians with 3 million barrels of Saudi crude in August -- and sparked talk of a potential "strategic energy partnership" that could yield a 30-year oil supply contract.

Against this backdrop, Islamabad's diplomatic forays into Tehran can be seen as both politically and strategically driven. On the one hand, at a time of strained relations with Washington, Pakistan's government undoubtedly relishes the opportunity to thumb its nose at America by embracing what the latter regards as a pariah state. Pakistan may also wish to capitalize on Iran's pro-Pakistan gestures over the last year. These include the withering criticism Khamenei has directed at India's policies in Jammu and Kashmir, and the flood relief aid furnished byIran since last summer (Iran recently vowed to provide support to internally displaced persons (IDPs) until they are "completely rehabilitated").

Strategically speaking, deeper ties with Iran can enhance electricity-starved Pakistan's energy security. Islamabad is well aware that construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has not begun, and has underscored its desire to expedite the construction of a pipeline with Iran -- which could be operational by 2015. The project is slated to provide 750 million cubic feet of natural gas toPakistan daily, and its power generation capacity is expected to approach 5,000 megawatts -- roughly equivalent to Pakistan's energy shortfall.

Furthermore, Pakistan badly needs allies in its efforts to forge a regional stability arrangement amenable to Pakistani interests, and it sees Iran as a key collaborator in formulating a political solution to the Afghanistan imbroglio.

It would be a mistake, however, to read these developments as the portent of a new strategic partnership. Pakistan's vital relationship with Saudi Arabia--undergirded by five decades of intelligence-sharing, military cooperation, and deep mutual trust -- precludes any such possibility. So does the House of Saud's largesse. According to the Center for Global Development, Riyadh's average annual grant assistance to Pakistan between 2004 and 2009 totaled nearly $140 million -- more than any other country aside from the United States. And the U.N. reported last November that the Saudis had provided $100 million in aid to deal withlast year's crippling floods -- again, more than any nation save America at the time.

The Pakistan-Saudi partnership has stayed strong even amid the geopolitically volatile Arab Spring. Recall how Pakistani organizations likely tied to the state dispatched security forces to Bahrain to help the Saudi-allied Sunni regime suppress anti-government protestors -- members of the country's Shia majority whose demonstrations have drawn strong support from Tehran. According to Al JazeeraEnglish, "at least 2500" former Pakistani servicemen deployed to Manama this spring, enlarging Bahrain's riot police and national guard by about 50 percent.Pakistan's decision reportedly prompted an infuriated Tehran to summon a high-level Iran-based Pakistani diplomat for an explanation.

Predictably, Zardari boarded a plane to Saudi Arabia soon after his return from Iran in July. His visit was billed as an effort to reduce tensions between Tehran and Riyadh, though it was likely also meant to assuage Riyadh's concerns about Pakistan's Iranian embrace. And if there was any lingering doubt about Pakistan's determination to smooth ruffled Saudi feathers, Gilani followed up with his own trip -- with the explicit objective of getting ties back on track. Predictably, he emerged from his meetings gushing rhetoric about the renewal of the partnership. Then, late last month, Riyadh committed 10 billion rupees (justover $114 million) to help repatriate IDPs in Pakistan's tribal areas, a gesture that Pakistani media identified as another sign of a revitalized relationship. And just a few days later, Riyadh officially endorsed the Taliban reconciliation process that Islamabad fervently supports. Tehran has not followed suit.

Tellingly, while Islamabad has soothed Riyadh,it has acted cautiously toward  Tehran in recent days -- in deference to Saudi Arabia, but perhaps also to America. At the JEC meeting, Pakistan, "fearing the consequences" of international sanctions, demurred when Iran offered to help construct the Pakistan portion of the Iran-Pakistan pipeline. And Pakistani media reports now speculate that Washington may succeed in persuading Pakistan to abandon the pipeline altogether.

Foreign Minister Salehi and his delegation may have arrived in Pakistan last week laden with gifts and offerings, with Gilani impressively calling on Tehran barely 72 hours later. Yet at the end of the day, the Iranians will continue to play second fiddle to Saudi Arabia in Pakistan's strategic calculus.

MichaelKugelman is the South Asia associate at the Woodrow Wilson International Centerfor Scholars. michael.kugelman@wilsoncenter.org

There is no better way to understand Pakistan's connection to the war in Afghanistan than to travel to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and stand on a spot along the 1,600-mile border, which cuts through the heart of the region's Pashtun tribal belt. Because it isn't a border at all. Pakistan may have gained independence from India in 1947, but in the FATA, being Pashtun took precedence over citizenship. The FATA is often referred to as Pakistan's Wild West, since, despite its name, most control is in the hands of tribal elders, not the federal government. The female literacy rate is about three percent. The fiercely conservative tribesmen live by a strict code of honor -- Pashtunwali -- that above all else dictates that guests must be provided with warm hospitality and protection. That, combined with the fact that the FATA was the jihadi epicentre in the 1980s, made it the perfect place for the Taliban and al-Qaeda to find refuge.

But getting to the border in 2006 was going to require some serious help. This meant tagging along with experienced journalists, or enlisting the aid of the army. In the end, photographer Pete Power and I were fortunate enough to get both.

"You're in luck!" army spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told me as we sat in his office in Islamabad. The military was organizing a junket to a remote outpost in Kundi Gar, on the Afghan border, which would give us an excellent view from ten thousand feet-even if it was a view controlled entirely by the Pakistani army. It was going to be hard, Maj. Gen. Sultan said, shaking his head, but he would do his best to secure us a spot. We drank more tea and talked of Canada.

Days later, we were in the company of a handful of journalists, including the BBC's Barbara Plett and the Guardian's Declan Walsh, one of the most respected foreign reporters in the region. Declan had the unassuming and easy-going nature of a foreign correspondent who had talked his way out of more than one precarious situation. Only when he darted around Islamabad in his battleship grey Volkswagen bug he had named Betsy, driving like a true Pakistani, did you see his aggressive side.

With brief stops at staging areas, ostensibly to have a tea-but in fact, we later learned, to repair our helicopter-we eventually arrived at a desolate Shawal Valley post that consisted of little more than well-worn goat paths and stone compounds that looked like they were constructed in the days of Ghengis Khan. The military outnumbered the journalists about five to one.

Maj. Gen. Sultan, an officious and compact officer who had been educated in the United States and had served as the public face of Pakistan's army since 2003, strode up the hill toward the base while some of the cameramen wheezed under the weight of their equipment at such an altitude. "You're the first women up here," he said, delighted. In our honor, an English sign that read "Ladies Urinal" had been erected with an arrow that pointed to a hilltop khaki tent. I went inside, to be polite and show that I appreciated the effort, but changed my mind as I was about to drop my pants over the dugout hole and a fierce wind shook the tent. I feared that I would not be remembered as one of the first women to visit the base, but rather the Canadian reporter who mooned the troops.

The purpose of the trip was clear. The army wanted us to visit the tranquil base and report that its troops had the region under control. "This border is sealed," army Brigadier Imtiaz Wyne pronounced dramatically at a makeshift podium erected for the occasion. As if on cue, thunder began to rumble and the sky turned an angry shade of grey. "We stop any movement across the border from rear to front or front to rear," Wyne continued over the noise, adding that since operations were launched in the area, 325 "miscreants" had been killed, while the army had lost 56 of their own troops.

The visit was cut short as the angry weather rolled in. Although our group had arrived in two khaki Mi-171 helicopters, we all crammed into one for the quick descent. We rocked horribly as the helicopter struggled with the weight, slowly rising like an obese man attempting to stand after sitting cross-legged on the floor for too long. Looking out the windows we could see that the troops below were running, fast. It took a few minutes to realize that they clearly thought we were going to crash, and as we clipped a tree before clearing the ridge, Pete and I thought we would too.

In Rawalpindi at the end of the day, we drank more tea and Major General Sultan presented each of us with a small plastic trophy bearing the words "Gold Army Division." Although this type of formality may have been common in Pakistan, it still felt strange to have soldiers clapping for us, especially since I knew our stories would be unlike the glowing tales of military dominance that some of the local press would write.

The problem was that it was almost impossible to verify the army's claims that they had the upper hand in the area. Foreign journalists were forbidden from going alone, and many local journalists had been killed when they tried. We had been unable to talk to area residents during our escorted visit. We would find out later that in nearby Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, a convoy of paratroopers had been ambushed by Taliban-linked fighters on the outskirts of the city just after we left.

There were other telling and ominous signs. A few months earlier, another attack in Miranshah had shown just how brutal the frontier had become and how ineffective the army had been in protecting its residents. A local gangster named Hakeem Khan had ruthlessly ruled the region for months, but had made a fatal mistake when he killed four members of the local Taliban who refused to pay his required "tax." Vengeance was swift. Truckloads of black-turbaned Talibs arrived and not only was Khan beheaded for the murders, so were his relatives. Their bodies were hung in the centre of town and their houses were burned to the ground. A twenty-eight-minute video recording of the executions spread quickly throughout Pakistan, and a few days after our visit to Waziristan I watched the film at Declan's house. Men shouted, "Long live the Taliban of Waziristan," as the corpses were dragged behind a truck. Hundreds looked on with a mix of disgust and bemusement. The video ended with the words: "This is not drama. This is reality." The reality was that the Taliban was now firmly entrenched in the region.

Despite their claims otherwise, the Pakistani army was breathing its last gasps during our visit. A few months later, in September, the army pulled out of the area after a negotiated settlement with tribal elders known as the "North Waziristan Accord." The agreement amounted to a ceasefire, on the theory that if the army withdrew, the locals would have no trouble cracking down on foreign militants. Without having to worry about attacks from the Pakistani army-which was ill equipped to fight in the region and all too often killed civilians in the crossfire-the old order could resume and fight cross-border Taliban traffic. President Musharraf celebrated the deal during a trip to Washington, even though within Pakistan the Waziristan Accord was widely regarded as an admission of defeat. After a White House meeting President Bush told reporters: "When the president looks me in the eye and says, the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people, and that there won't be a Taliban and won't be al-Qaeda, I believe him."

Gaining a foothold in the FATA region was critical and the Waziristan Accord would ultimately fail. Soon, that wouldn't be the only region of Pakistan in peril.

Michelle Shephard is the national security correspondent for the Toronto Star and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone," from which this piece is excerpted.

In a lengthy message on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr holiday released last week under Mullah Mohammad Omar's name, the fugitive Taliban leader used a mix of "jihad-light" bravado and toned-down political rhetoric to express his group's position on key issues, as part of a push to influence public opinion that has garnered a variety of reactions from different Western and South Asian quarters.

Yet despite the hype among AfPak watchers, the message is more a reflection of an emerging dual-track strategy that promotes Omar as a credible interlocutor while masking his flaws, and is directly tied to the NATO decision to end its military engagement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Read on

The world shook when Osama bin Laden was killed, but it has taken less notice of reports that a CIA drone in Pakistan reportedly killed Atiyah abd al-Rahman al-Libi, now ubiquitously referred to as "al-Qaeda's number two." And while there is no doubt that bin Laden's death was the more significant blow politically, Atiyah's death may have a larger impact on how the al-Qaeda network functions.

Since 2001, al-Qaeda has evolved from being structured hierarchically -- with bin Laden at the top -- into a network with bin Laden as one branch of the overall organization. Bin Laden's continued authority was a function of his reputation within the network and, critically, his ability to communicate effectively. That ability to communicate is where Atiyah came in: if bin Laden was the most politically important branch of the al-Qaeda network, Atiyah was the node that connected his branch to the others. That also meant coordinating between al-Qaeda's central leadership and potential al-Qaeda operators, such as Bryant Neal Vinas, in Europe and the United States.

Read on

When I was in Kabul in June, I found the various embassies and military installations about as easy to get into as a nuclear bunker.  And I would guess that government probably seems that impenetrable, too, to the outsider -- protected by secrecy and omerta that is as strong as any concrete blast wall.

Cables From Kabul, the recently-released book from Sherard Cowper-Coles, is the equivalent of a guided tour around the inner workings of the international community in Afghanistan. It is a warts-and-all tour, with institutional failings laid bare. It is written by a man who knows those institutions well, having been British Ambassador to Kabul 2007-2009, and then the British equivalent to deceased U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke (to whom the book is dedicated) between 2009 and 2010. The book has caused controversy in Britain -- and also been greatly praised -- for its pessimism about the war in Afghanistan, its trenchant attacks on Britain's military leadership, and its unprecedented frankness about the inner workings of diplomacy. Although it will be of less interest to the American reader, it is rare to hear any senior figure with such experience of Afghanistan speak out so candidly, and at the end he addresses himself to specifically American questions.

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On Tuesday, Hina Rabbani Khar became the first woman and the youngest parliamentarian ever in Pakistan's history to hold the post of Foreign Minister.

Does this mean that we start cheering? No.

Women like Hina Rabbani Khar may be educated, hardworking parliamentarians, but their elevation to their jobs has been through their political influence, rather than their skills or political knowledge. Khar, for instance, is a talented restaurant owner (anyone who has eaten at the Polo Lounge in Lahore can testify to that), and reportedly a skilled mountain climber, but she has never publicly campaigned to win an election. Her election as member of the National Assembly has been on the basis of her last name and her feudal lineage -- as part of the Khar family, her father is a politician, her uncle was Punjab's Chief Minister in the 1970s -- as opposed to her popularity amongst the masses, or her achievements as a restaurant owner, or as deputy finance minister in the Musharraf regime. As part of the political elite, Khar's elevation to Foreign Minister has very little to do with women's rights, and more perhaps, to do with the lack of candidates that the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) could call on to be the next Foreign Minister, five months after sacking Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Secondly, it is widely accepted that the civilian government controls very little of foreign policy, and has ceded most of their control over it to the men in Rawalpindi. From relations with India to the United States, it is believed that the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters (GHQ) that is calling the shots. Khar, in her position, will most likely be an administrator, and not a visionary.

Third -- women MPs being elevated to positions of power has rarely translated into real action and change for the women of Pakistan.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman and the youngest parliamentarian to hold the post of Prime Minister. During her two stints in office, the PPP-led government was unable to change the Hudood Ordinance, a draconian law from the time of dictator Zia ul-Haq that deprived rape victims of their rights. Indeed, the government contained coalition partnersthat included religious parties violently opposed to any changes in the Ordinance.

This is not to knock the women MPs that are serving in both the National and Provincial Assemblies. Following a change in the number of reserved seats for women in parliament by the Musharraf regime, now nearly 22 percent of parliamentarians are women. Repeatedly, women parliamentarians such as Sherry Rehman and Farahnaz Ispahani from the PPP have pushed for laws against the sexual harassment of women and the persecution of minorities. The opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz's (PML-N) Tehmina Daultana took the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha to task  when he was testifying in the National Assembly about the presence of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan.

In the provincial assemblies, parliamentarians like Sassi Palijo (also from a political family) have won on general seats as opposed to seats reserved solely for women in the province of Sindh, and have publicly campaigned for votes. The PPP's Firdous Ashiq Awan has been elected on a general seat in Punjab, and is currently serving as Information Minister. She may have resigned now, but the PML-Q parliamentarian Marvi Memon cemented her reputation by being more than her father's daughter, by working simultaneously on a number of political issues and raising awareness for a number of causes -- from flood victims to rights of workers. The fact that they have managed to do so much in the light of obvious slights and terrible insults, such as when former president Pervez Musharraf intimated that women used rape claims for money or to obtain visas, is heartening. Let us also not forget that some of the most opposition they face is from within their own parties -- male chauvinists who'd prefer to see women behind closed doors, who would block legislation in parliament rather than allow women their rights, or would announce women being buried alive as part of their "tradition."

Despite this, Khar's election is not the time to wave the banner for a moderate Pakistan, or for the PPP to boast about its liberal credentials. When Khar gets elected on a general seat on her own merit, is allowed to publicly campaign without threats to her life, and is given a ministerial portfolio on merit, you can hand me a banner. Until then, let us reserve the optimism for another day.

Huma Imtiaz works as a correspondent for Express News in Washington DC, and can be reached at huma.imtiaz@gmail.com

United States-Pakistan relations have been in free fall since the successful raid by Special Operations Forces on May 2nd  killed Osama bin Laden and several others in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Now an investigation by the Guardian has revealed details of an intelligence operation in the months prior to the raid that attempted to use a fake vaccination campaign to confirm the terrorist leader's whereabouts. The operation, which reportedly failed, attempted to use the pretext of a free Hepatitis-B vaccination to collect DNA on those living inside Bin Laden's suspected compound, hoping to match it with the DNA of his relatives. However, while few details about the operation are known, one thing is certain:  its existence will cause serious damage to legitimate domestic and international health campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Immunization programs in Pakistan already have a hard time convincing many to get vaccinated. In 2007, a polio-vaccination campaign in northern Pakistan failed to immunize 160,000 children, due to rumors that the vaccine was an American attempt to sterilize children. The rumors were at least partially spread by local clerics, who claimed that the polio-immunization drive was "a conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to stunt the population growth of Muslims." Some vaccination teams were even beaten after locals heard the rumors. In another case, a Pakistani doctor was killed in 2007 after working to fight anti-vaccine propaganda in Bajaur agency. And the risk to health workers has increased drastically in recent years. According to the Aid Worker Security Database, which tracks attacks against national and international humanitarians, only two aid workers working in Pakistan reported being the victim of attacks in 2004,  while by 2010 that number had risen to 28. Furthermore, the Red Cross claimed this month to have observed a spike in attacks against humanitarians, fueled in part by anger over the Abbottabad raid. Simply put, it has never been more dangerous to be a health worker in Pakistan.

Similar distrust towards health workers exists in Afghanistan. Taliban fighters have always had an uneasy relationship with vaccination teams and aid workers, suspecting they are government or Western spies. In 2007, Taliban fighters kidnapped one vaccination worker in Uruzgan province during a polio-vaccination campaign. They beat him and only released him after he promised to stop vaccinating children. It is not just vaccination efforts that are harmed by the rumors: less than a year ago a group of international and Afghan aid workers were hiking back from a three-week medical mission in the Hindu Kush mountains when they were captured and executed by gunmen. A Taliban spokesman took credit for the attack, claiming that the aid workers were spies.

Insecurity has a serious negative effect on health care in rural communities. The greater the personal risks, the greater the appeal for both national and international health workers to stay within the safety of major cities, venturing out only in large convoys. This so-called "bunkerization" diminishes the ability of health campaigns to target rural communities -- often those most in need of primary health care. The best way to overcome bunkerization is through building relationships with communities and local elites, allowing for the free movement of health workers in a region -- exactly the kind of thing undermined by the CIA's apparent operation.

Given the precarious relationship between health workers, militants, and civilians in many areas of both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the existence of a fake vaccination program ran by the CIA is likely all the evidence many need to accuse all vaccinators and health workers of spying. The end result will be fewer families willing to have their children vaccinated, and more attacks on health workers providing any manner of medical care to communities. Some people will no doubt say that the operation was a reasonable and necessary attempt to confirm bin Laden's location, and that nobody was directly put at risk as a result. Tell that to the next vaccination team in Abbottabad.

Christopher R. Albon is writer and researcher on public health in armed conflict, health diplomacy, and human security. Writes at Conflict Health, UN Dispatch, the US Naval Institute, and elsewhere.

Pakistan's 2011 census kicked off in April, but less than three months later, it is embroiled in controversy. Several members of the Sindh Census Monitoring Committee have rejected as "seriously flawed" the recently completed household count. They allege that census workers, directed by an unspecified "ethnic group," have counted Karachi's "inns, washrooms, and even electric poles" as households in an effort to dilute the city's native "Sindhi" presence.

These Census Monitoring Committee members are not the only Pakistani politicians to be concerned about the census. Pakistan is experiencing rapid urbanization; while a third of the country's people have long been rurally based, at least 50 percent of the population is expected to live in cities by the 2020s. Pakistan's political leadership draws much of its power from rural landholdings, power that could be greatly reduced if a census confirms this migration toward cities.

Read on

In January of this year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai yielded to domestic and international pressure and endorsed the seating of the new Afghan parliament against the recommendation of a Special Court he created to evaluate election fraud claims. Few would have predicted then that six months later Karzai's Court would bring the country to the brink of complete political collapse.

Afghanistan's 2010 parliamentary elections were yet another reminder of the extraordinary difficulty of administering elections in the midst of a wide scale counter-insurgency effort. Like the 2009 presidential elections, the September 2010 Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, elections, were marred by widespread fraud, with more than a million votes ultimately invalidated. Despite the pervasiveness of fraud, the process did offer some hope for the nascent democracy. Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) showed strong signs that despite enormous external pressure, it could exercise the necessary independence and impartiality that observers felt was lacking in 2009.

The results of the election were not favorable to Karzai, who fought throughout the process for ways to advantage his political allies. In the pre-election period this included unsuccessfully advocating, against the recommendation of the IEC, for the opening of 87 additional polling stations in some of the country's most insecure districts. After election day, President Karzai expressed his dissatisfaction with the results from Ghazni province, where Hazara candidates swept the seats despite the presence of a Pashtun majority. The Special Court would become President Karzai's favorite instrument to remind the new members of parliament that it was he who truly controlled their political fate.

Last year, after Afghanistan's Electoral Complains Commission (ECC) referred hundreds of cases to the attorney general (AG) to review whether candidates had committed criminal offenses, the AG decided to submit 232 candidates to Afghanistan's Supreme Court for adjudication, despite no provision in the electoral law authorizing it to do so. In the weeks that followed, it became clear that the AG was not guided by a legal framework but motivated by a preferred political outcome. Indeed, the AG's office was outspoken in voicing its desire that the results of the elections should be invalidated entirely.

On the 21^st of December, the Supreme Court took the next step by recommending that President Karzai establish a Special Court to further investigate and adjudicate the claims of disaffected, defeated candidates. On the 26^th of December, President Karzai approved the creation of a Special Court through presidential decree and named Sadiqullah Haqiq, head of the Kabul Court of Appeals, to lead the court. According to the president and the Supreme Court, the Special Court would begin investigating results, and would have the authority to make changes to the results of the September elections.

Shortly after the creation of the court both the IEC and ECC disavowed the court and reaffirmed their position that the authority to administer elections and announce results was the sole duty of the IEC and adjudication of complaints was that of the ECC. The international community publicly supported the independence of the country's legitimate electoral institutions and called on all actors to respect their decisions.

Often, it is ambiguity in the Afghan legal framework that causes such political impasses. In this instance, however, the law is clear. The constitution, through Article 156, establishes the IEC as the sole authority for the administration of elections and grants it exclusive authority for the announcement and certification of election results. Neither the constitution nor the electoral law sanctions the creation of a special court to review election results. Nor does either document grant the Supreme Court or Attorney General the authority to engage in electoral affairs.

The idea for the creation of the court likely did not originate with the Supreme Court, but directly from within the president's office; rather, during Democracy International's observation of the process, many well-connected Afghans reported to us that the idea came from two of President Karzai's own legal advisors, who were seeking out ways to alter the results of the September elections that had strengthened opposition to Karzai in the parliament.

After months of the Special Court reportedly conducting re-counts and investigations throughout the provinces, it finally announced a ruling on June 22 in which it declared that 62 sitting members of the parliament should be replaced. The decision launched the country into a political crisis and elicited an immediate reaction from parliament, which voted for the removal of the attorney general and six members of the Supreme Court. The crisis reached new proportions last Wednesday, when the parliament began debating the impeachment of the president, who has reportedly proposed his own list of 17 candidates to the IEC who should be immediately certified as winners. The instability has, according to Afghan news sources, motivated members of parliament to begin carrying firearms into sessions of parliament, and has resulted in physical altercations between MPs.

The authority to arbitrate constitutionality lies with Afghanistan's Independent Commission for the Oversight of the Constitution. In this instance, however, the commission has only contributed to the confusion. In January, the commission reportedly met with a group of MPs and expressed its opinion that the establishment of the Special Court was illegal. This was reported widely at the time in Afghan newspapers. Just last week, in an apparent about face, the constitutional commission issued a decision stating that the IEC should cooperate with any bodies investigating election issues. To complicate matters further, a member of the constitutional commission appeared on TOLO television (the nation's most popular political news outlet) the next day and declared the Special Court illegal and explained that the decision of the commission had been misunderstood.

The implications of the Special Court's ruling are serious, and the willingness of the president to embrace its legitimacy threatens to undermine more than just the parliament. If the court's decision is ultimately respected and the makeup of the parliament is altered, the legitimacy and credibility of the IEC and future Afghan elections will forever be tainted. Candidates and their supporters are unlikely to respect the authority of an election commission whose decisions they know can be trumped by ad-hoc courts. In addition, if the Special Court brings criminal charges against sitting parliamentarians, it will also undermine the authority of Afghanistan's legitimate judicial bodies.  At a time when a country struggling to establish robust democratic institutions needs support from its executive, that executive seems all too willing to endorse the defanging of those institutions.

The political implications are even more serious. If Karzai's Court is successful at shaking up the composition of the lower house, the effects could be felt far beyond the body's votes on the president's initiatives. The president would then likely have a parliament more amenable to his call for a Loya Jirga, a powerful traditional body that has the authority to amend the constitution. The current parliament has called the president's plans for a Loya Jirga unconstitutional, on the basis that chairpersons of district councils, who are constitutionally mandated delegates to a Loya Jirga, have not yet been elected. Not only would President Karzai likely have the support in the lower house to move forward with his plans, he would also have 62 more votes in favor of whatever agenda he decides to pursue within the jirga, including a possible constitutional amendment to allow him to seek a third term.

With no clear ending in sight, the president, by supporting the actions of a Special Court with no legal authority, has brought the country to the brink of political collapse. What happens next is anyone's guess. The IEC has so far shown resolve against Karzai and has reportedly presented him a plan to solve the impasse. While details of the plan have yet to be released, there are rumors circulating that it would require President Karzai to declare the Special Court illegal and to honor the independence of the IEC and the credibility of its decisions. In return, the IEC would agree to review some previous decisions of the ECC, which it believes is allowed under Article 65 of Afghanistan's Electoral Law.

If the president disagrees with the IEC's plan, he could always attempt to replace the leadership of the IEC, which is within his constitutional rights, and thus pave the way for the implementation of the Special Court's decision. This would not, however, prevent the likely violent backlash from the 62 parliamentarians the Special Court is threatening to remove. Perhaps a more likely outcome is for the AG to circumvent the IEC altogether and begin implementing the Court's decisions himself, as he has promised recently to do. This would likely entail arrests of sitting MPs and would undoubtedly lead to political chaos and possibly violence.

The crisis created by Karzai's Court underscores the necessity for a genuine Afghan led dialogue on democratic reform. Options must be explored to strengthen the independence and resilience of Afghanistan's democratic institutions. To achieve any level of democratic sustainability, Afghan politicians must operate on a stronger democratic foundation, one developed with the support of civil society and the very institutions President Karzai is attempting to delegitimize (the IEC, the ECC, and the lower house of parliament). If the international community and the Government of Afghanistan do not begin to take democratic reform seriously, a strong democratic Afghanistan will become even more of a fantasy than it is now.

Jed Ober is Director of Programs at Democracy International. Throughout 2010, he served as Democracy International's Chief of Staff in Kabul where he oversaw the largest international election observation mission to Afghanistan's 2010 parliamentary elections. Democracy International's final observation report can be downloaded at www.democracyinternational.com.