Whipsawed by a long-drawn U.S.-led military operation and a decade of erratic international economic assistance, Afghanistan is in shambles.  With economic development always considered secondary to security concerns, little has been done in the past decade to establish a sustainable Afghan economy. While the international community has tried to generate a steady flow of aid, the Afghan government is still unable to cater to the population's basic needs. Moreover, the little economy we have seen evolve in Afghanistan since 2001 is predominantly based on the international security presence. The bulk of Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP) stems from international aid, and the impending 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of international combat troops will be accompanied by a parallel reduction in aid money. Thus, as the tide of war recedes, a large chunk of the economy will also disappear, posing an increasing threat to stability. The country's current economic trajectory beyond 2014 is fraught with corruption and uncertainty.  However, despite the dire situation, Afghanistan's economic transition has received only minor policy attention, with the focus remaining on the ongoing security transition. Thus the question remains: How will Afghanistan sustain its economy beyond 2014?

The decrease in foreign assistance is like to cause today's economic bubble to burst, potentially plunging the country into an economic recession. And if the security environment further deteriorates, the country could face full economic collapse.  A financing gap of 25 percent of GDP by 2022 due to increased military and non-military spending by the Afghan government further puts Afghanistan's economic stability at risk. While the international donor community can help to prevent a total collapse of the economy by decreasing aid gradually, the key to a prosperous Afghanistan is to invest in the long-term economic advantages the country has to offer.

One such advantage may lie in Afghanistan's geographic location.  The New Silk Road strategy, often promoted by the United States, aims at linking Afghanistan with its South and Central Asian neighbors, transforming the country into a nucleus for regional trade. Focus should also be placed on rebuilding the oil and gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and on to Pakistan and India.  If done right, these initiatives might enable Afghanistan to attract increased foreign investment, connect the country to foreign markets, and promote growth, gradually reducing its dependence on foreign aid. However, the key to such a scenario lies in Afghanistan's relations with regional players, in particular Pakistan. Given its location, Pakistan is expected to serve as the main transit route for Afghan exports and access to the port cities of Gwadar and Karachi will remain crucial to Afghanistan's development. However, a volatile relationship with its eastern neighbor could mean a precarious dependency for Afghanistan.

Another potential economic trigger may be found in Afghanistan's untapped mineral reserves, ostensibly valued in the trillions of dollars. Based on cautiously optimistic assumptions by the World Bank, the iron ore project at Hajigak and copper mine at Aynak could deliver $2 to $3 billion to the extractive industry, with each deposit potentially generating over half a billion dollars in government revenue in just a few years. The mining industry may appear at first glance to be a potential panacea for the Afghan economy, but it will take decades before the country can reap the benefits of such a project. The Afghan mineral reserves require significant investments in infrastructure, and more importantly, effective and accountable governance that can efficiently and transparently manage revenues. Furthermore, in 2010, of the total $17 billion government expenditure, only $1.9 billion of the spending were drawn from Afghanistan's own sources of revenue; the rest: foreign assistance. Hence, besides the projected tax revenues and some foreign aid, even if mineral resources did manage to generate the estimated revenue, the Afghan budget would still face an annual deficit of $7 billion.

Rebuilding after more than a decade of conflict must also involve encouraging growth in Afghanistan's nascent private sector, a sector that has been stifled to some degree by the international donor presence. In a "donor drunk" economy, there are a large number of foreign, private NGOs, which dominate the private sector and make entry into it difficult for Afghan organizations. Although some of these private entities are effective development organizations at the grassroots level, many carry a negative perception among the Afghan people, who see the ubiquitous "briefcase NGOs" as money-making mechanisms for the people involved. Meanwhile, the influx of foreign money and employers has also artificially inflated labor costs for low-skilled workers over the past years, and has made Afghanistan an attractive venue for external laborers from neighboring countries such as Pakistan. However, as the flow of aid dwindles, those who have been paid hefty salaries over much of the past decade for low-skilled work for foreign entities may now prove more affordable to Afghan businesses, and will also open up more jobs for Afghan workers. While the initial transition phase from a military focused economy to a regular one will be difficult, it will leave room for a more long-term, sustainable economy to develop.

Regardless of Afghanistan's many potential sources of revenue, any real progress will be limited without the long-term support of the international community. While the West's future commitment to Afghanistan is vague at best, the increasing number of strategic partnerships with key allies signals a willingness by certain powers to remain involved in shaping Afghanistan's future beyond 2014. In the past week, Afghanistan has signed strategic partnership agreements with key European allies such as the UK, France, and Italy that ensure an enduring commitment and cooperation with Afghanistan in key areas, including economy, security, and governance. While only time will tell if the West really will stay committed to Afghanistan, this week's agreements are at least a step in the right direction.

Similarly, any future foreign aid funneled by the West to the Afghan government is effectively futile without properly addressing the raging corruption and lack of transparency and accountability in public finances. As the world's second most corrupt nation, any failure by the West and the Afghan government in tackling this menace in the so-called "transformation decade" would mean repeating and wasting yet another inefficient ten years of international assistance.

Today, as U.S. and NATO troops prepare to assume a lighter military presence, many Afghans fear a serious economic downturn when foreign aid and spending recede, leaving Afghanistan with little or nothing to fall back on. It is still uncertain if and how the Afghan government will function after 2014 without an open-ended $8 to $10 billion yearly commitment from the United States and Europe. However, responsibility for a stable and secure Afghanistan ultimately rests with the Afghans themselves, and there is still a sense of optimism among the Afghan people about the future of their country. The Afghan government, for its part, must foster transparency and accountability in public finances drawn from foreign aid, and work to cut leaks that enable corruption. If these reforms and the myriad of other challenges go unaddressed, the hard work and accomplishments of the past decade could easily unravel and ultimately lead to an even more troubled Afghanistan than we have seen in the past ten years.

Javid Ahmad, a native of Kabul, is Program Coordinator with the Asia Program of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC. Louise Langeby is a Program Associate with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels. The views reflected here are their own.

Afghanistan is ruled not by law, but by power and patronage. The absence of the rule of law fuels the country's savage insurgency. When citizens can't rely on the state to protect them against systemic abuses, then rebellion becomes a far more attractive option. Tragically, in Afghanistan the abusers, more often than not, are from the government itself - including ministers, governors, police chiefs and militia leaders.

It needn't be this way. If there is one policy reform that all the main actors in Afghanistan purport to agree on, it's the critical importance of building the rule of law. President's Karzai's speeches are liberally salted with promises to reform the legal system and tackle corruption. The Taliban understands that a key way to win Afghans' hearts and minds is to provide them with the justice they so desperately desire. It does so by setting up mobile courts, delivering a very rough and ready justice, but one that is often preferred to the arbitrary rule of local commanders. And Western governments have spent billions on rule of law reforms, with little tangible impact.

So with this apparent unanimity on the need for the rule of law, why in Afghanistan do the powerful continue to abuse the weak with near total impunity?

The answer is that the purported commitment is largely in name only. True rule of law requires laws that are public, clear, and apply equally to everyone. It needs government officials who accept that they are subject to the law. It requires reasonably fair, competent, and efficient courts, prosecutors and police who respect the presumption of innocence and due process. It needs judges who are reasonably independent and impartial, and have the confidence in their safety to properly perform their jobs.

But the reforms necessary to achieve all this present an existential threat to the power of the ruling elite in Afghanistan. Building the rule of law involves challenging vested interests at the highest levels of the government. It is far more a political exercise than a technical one. Many Afghan power holders -- from President Karzai downwards -- benefit from a patronage based system. It enables them to buy and maintain loyalty. Corruption is an integral part of such a system.

It's not just corruption that thrives in such an environment.  Equal treatment by the law requires that those who have committed atrocities against their people be held accountable for these crimes. Failure to do so promotes a climate in which the powerful continue to commit abuses with impunity. But in Afghanistan those responsible for grave human rights abuses continue to occupy positions of power. These include officials like Vice Presidents Mohammad Fahim and Karim Khalili, who face credible accusations of war crimes or crimes against humanity during the brutal civil war. They also include a generation of post-Taliban leaders -- such as the Minister of Tribal and Border Affairs, Asadullah Khaled, as well as powerful provincial governors allied to Western forces -- accused of serious human rights violations since 2001. A report soon to be released by the Afghan human rights commission -- if not blocked by the government -- will document many of the past crimes.

International intervention encouraged and promoted this impunity by returning to power warlords and commanders. Influential international actors continue to rely on alliances of convenience with these abusive power holders to promote perceived stabilization goals.

Meanwhile the Taliban also preys on the local population, and subjects those it is purporting to liberate from foreign occupation to horrendous abuses, including suicide bombings, assassinations and the use of civilians as human shields.

For Afghans, the tragic result is that today's reality is not much different from that of the last thirty years, and their lives are still dominated by powerful men with guns.

Achieving accountability is not a question of naïve aspiration: the culture of high-level impunity must be challenged, as failure to do so will undermine all other rule of law efforts and perpetuate an environment in which conflict will flourish. 

The culture will not change until some of those responsible for the worst abuses against the Afghan people are prosecuted. The best option would be for the government itself to pursue some of these abusers. This would increase its legitimacy in the eyes its people and would send a clear warning to those in authority and to those seeking to do deals with the government who believe they can continue to kill with impunity. It would also undermine one of the claimed attractions of the Taliban -- that it provides harsh, but fair, justice where none otherwise exists.

Unfortunately, there is no prospect of the government providing high-level justice. The Karzai administration has consistently opted for expediency over principle when it comes to accountability, most notably in enacting a law giving amnesty to former warlords. Most international actors have been largely silent on this law. In fact, it appears that a desire for a quick exit by NATO countries may have stifled all discussion of the critical need to link reconciliation with accountability and to tackle Afghanistan's longstanding culture of impunity.

But expediency will not promote stability, and a failure to build the rule of law will lead to more instability, not less. It will also ensure that Afghan power holders - government and Taliban alike - continue to commit abuses that shock the conscience of the international community and fuel the very instability that led, a decade ago, to such a costly international  intervention.

Nick Grono is the Deputy  President of the International Crisis Group.

The on-again, off-again effort by the Obama administration to begin preliminary peace talks with the Taliban is still struggling to get off the ground. The first move focuses on a statement by the Taliban against international terrorism and in support of a peace process and the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar.  For this the Taliban have called for the release of its prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay.

To garner support for this initiative, the administration's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Marc Grossman, has been traveling in the region, including meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to make sure he is on board. Afghan officials have expressed concern about the possibility of a ‘secret deal' being struck between the Taliban and the U.S.

But that would be unlikely, given the administration's oft-repeated public assurance that it supports an "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned" reconciliation process.  In fact, what is more likely than a ‘secret deal' is no deal at all.

Earlier high-level efforts by the U.S. government to have ‘peace talks' with the Taliban may be instructive.  As Winston Churchill said: "The further back you look, the farther forward you can see."

The Taliban history of negotiating with its opponents reveals little reason for optimism. Striking a deal with its sworn enemies does not appear to be in the Taliban's DNA. Instead, past experience suggests it has adopted the negotiating equivalent of the "rope-a-dope' strategy in boxing -- agreeing to enter the ring, playing for time, evading and avoiding committing itself, letting the opponent wear himself out, then hitting back hard as it had intended to do all the time.

In April 1998, then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson traveled to Afghanistan to meet with the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, in order to bring them to the table to discuss the possibilities for peace. He also tried to persuade the Taliban either to expel Osama bin Laden or extradite him to the U.S. for his complicity in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. 

In his memoir Between Worlds, Richardson described the outcome: "Flying back to Pakistan that night, I thought, Well, this was a good day's work. Peace talks would get started later in the month, and if they went well, we might get bin Laden after all.  But it wasn't to be. The agreement held for a while, but we quickly learned that the Taliban had no intention of making peace with the Northern Alliance. By early May, a belated spring offensive had begun and the two sides were at it again."

In February 1999 there was another attempt at direct talks with the Taliban.  After the bin Laden-directed bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, I traveled to Islamabad with the State Department's coordinator for counter-terrorism, Michael Sheehan, to meet with Mullah Abdul Jalil, a close adviser to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar (from 1997-2001 I attended some 20 meetings with Taliban officials). The U.S. government had repeatedly demanded that the Taliban stop giving safe haven to terrorists. Now we told Jalil that the U.S. would hold the Taliban itself directly responsible for bin Laden's actions, and respond accordingly.

Mullah Jalil said that bin Laden was becoming a burden on Afghanistan, but that he was under the Taliban's control and he could not possibly be operating a worldwide network as we suggested. Later efforts were made to provide the Taliban with more information about the U.S. case against bin Laden, but they never responded.

Subsequently the UN Security Council tried to persuade the Taliban to turn over bin Laden.  Two resolutions were adopted, and sanctions were imposed, but, again, the Taliban defied these calls by the international community. On a scale of one to ten on good faith negotiations, the Taliban proved to be a zero.

Are the Taliban likely to be any more accommodating today, specifically the Quetta Shura faction still led by Mullah Omar? Recent statements issued by the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" on January 3 and January 12 suggest not. That was the name the Taliban gave Afghanistan during its rule from 1996 to 2001. The international community never recognized it. The Taliban still stick to it.

Taken together, these statements lay out the Taliban's ‘going in' position for peace talks, including the departure of all U.S. and foreign forces and a continuation of their "jihad" until that goal is accomplished. Also, the movement remains at least in rhetoric opposed to negotiations with the Karzai government (referred to as "the stooge Kabul administration") as well as acceptance of the Afghan constitution.

Administration officials say that while they are under no illusion about the chances of success in opening direct talks with the Taliban, they are convinced that a political settlement is the only solution to the war. But they also need to be convinced that the Taliban is serious about a future for Afghanistan that is not a return to the days of the "Islamic Emirate." 

In this regard, several probing questions need to be asked of Taliban representatives during what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says is "still in the preliminary stages of testing whether [talks] can be successful":

• Do the Taliban accept a political solution to the Afghanistan conflict, and what is their vision of it?
• Do the Taliban have a political and economic plan for the future of Afghanistan?
• Will they accept the international instruments to which Afghanistan has acceded, particularly with regard to human rights?
• Will they honor and enforce the rights of women, minorities and ethnic groups?
• Will they respect the role of shuras (tribal councils): local, provincial and national?
• Are they willing to support and abide by internationally acceptable mechanisms of legitimization, like elections, referendums or tribal consensus?

During the years of repressive Taliban rule, none of these questions could have been answered in the affirmative. Can they be today? 

And, more importantly, what concrete steps can be taken by the Taliban to demonstrate that they will abide by their declarations and assurances in the future?  A good, measureable place to start for the Taliban to establish their bona fides would be an end to all suicide bombings in Afghanistan. Other confidence building measures would need to follow.

Another quote by Winston Churchill that relates to opening up direct talks with the Taliban is one of his most famous: "To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war." It is axiomatic at this point that the conflict in Afghanistan will not end by military means alone. And the search for a political settlement must reach out to all parties -- but with eyes wide open.

Karl F. Inderfurth is a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  He served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs in the Clinton administration (1997-2001).

Audiences around the world were horrified to see the image of Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan girl whose nose had been cut off by her husband and his family, on the cover of an August 2010 issue of TIME Magazine. Western media outlets largely attributed Aisha's case to the Taliban, and portrayed it as a warning ofwhat is to come for Afghan women once the international community withdraws from Afghanistan.  The unfortunate reality is, though, that there are many other cases like hers happening today in Afghanistan, despite the presence and efforts of foreign troops and the international community over the last decade. The most recent case to make headlines was that of 15-year-old Sahar Gul, who had been locked in a basement and tortured for five months by her in-laws, allegedly because she refused efforts to force her into prostitution. These crimes were not perpetrated by the Taliban, but instead some of the most extreme manifestations of domestic violence in Afghanistan.

As former Taliban Minister of Foreign Affairs Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said to me in an interview a year ago when I asked what he thought about the case of Bibi Aisha: "Even when the West are in Afghanistan, these things are still happening. It seems to me to be a family matter, what happened to this woman."In Afghanistan, everything is a family matter, and familial ties will continueto govern Afghan society long after international troops have left the scene. While attention is focused in Kabul on signing documents ensuring women's political participation and securing women's rights, there is very little trickle down from such progress to the majority of Afghan women living in rural areas. Instead of working from the top down, sustainable progress that can take root in conservative Afghan households can only be made by accepting the realities of rural Afghan society and working within existing cultural boundaries.

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Pakistan's immediate reaction to the tragic November 26 airattacks on two check posts located barely 400 meters from the Afghan border inMohmand tribal agency, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, was to declare thatthe attacks were "unprovokedaggression" and convey impressions to the local media that the attackwas a premeditated assault by U.S and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Thisaroused a nationwide furor, further roiling an already tense relationship andleading to immediateretribution against American military and political interests in Pakistanand Afghanistan.

Soon after the incident, Pakistani army officials reportedlychangedthe rules of engagement for forward-based units on the country's westernborder, authorizing them to fire on any such air intrusions without having toseek permission from senior commanders or headquarters, and indicated that airdefenses would be beefed up in that sector. But amid the hue and cry withinPakistan, somealso questioned why Pakistan's large and expensive military forces had notresponded with air defenses to protect the posts, especially since the armyclaimed the supposedly "unprovoked" NATO aircraft attacks had lasted up to 2hours. Why were Pakistani Air Force (PAF) fighter aircraft notscrambled and dispatched to the scene? Did the PAF prudently stay out of anarmy screw-up (if, as U.S. officials insist, Pakistani forces fired first), ordid they just not get the word? It would have been an acute irony if Pakistan hadsent up its American-built F-16 fighters against American helicopters orslow-flying AC-130 gunships being used against the Taliban insurgency inAfghanistan.

In fact, the furor masks the fact that Pakistan's close-in airdefenses along the border with Afghanistan are thin, and long-range radarsfacing Afghanistan are notalways on , as they were hardly needed in the past, except against Soviet airforces during the Afghan occupation of the 1980s. Ground-based radars'line-of-sight detection provides virtually no early warning against low-flyingaircraft coming through gaps in the mountains, either, although triangulationof their beams coupled with GPS coordinates of mapped border locations mayallow them to judge whether an aircraft has crossed into Pakistani air space. Whetherthey did on November 26 is not yet clear, since the firing on the posts couldeasily have been at standoff range, behind the Afghan side of the Durand Line.

The bulk of Pakistan's fixed site and other long-range groundradar constituting the national air defense system (ADGES) are orientedprimarily to detecting threats from India, along the Line of Control dividingKashmir to the north, or coming across the main Indian border along the east, andprovide, from southern locations surveillance of potential threats from theArabian Sea. They also provide general surveillance of high-altitude trafficfrom Afghanistan but are not oriented to close-in mountain border surveillance.Most of Pakistan's large numbers of low-altitude radar, anti-aircraft artilleryand surface-to-air missile (SAM) launchers travel with armored and mechanizeddivisions and independent brigades deployed to counter a possible Indianinvasion. Pakistan has a large inventory (about 1,900 as of 2010) of transportableanti-aircraft guns of various types and calibers, and also has concentrationsof such AA guns and SAM defenses around air bases and sensitive facilities inthe interior. The PAF operates the national air defense system from a commandcenter in Chaklala (on the outskirts of Rawalpindi) through a network thatcontains high-and low-level ground radars.

RecentPAF acquisitions also include three Swedish (Saab 2000 Erieye) and two Chinese-madeZDK-03 airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft, which have360-degree vision and look-down radars that can detect aircraft at any altitude,as long as they are not hidden in ground clutter. Their primary missions areregarded as strategic, i.e., early warning, air defense and close-in,ground-based missile surveillance. And the PAF also deploys Pakistan's mainstayair defense weapons, namely fighter aircraft with air-to-air interceptormissiles.

The vast majority of Pakistan's estimated 3,150 ground-basedair defense missile systems in 2010 were in the low-altitude MANPADS (man-portableair defense systems) category, though some heat-seeking, low altitude types (suchas the Crotale)are mounted on vehicles. The shoulder-fired missiles are in the same general categoryas the American-made Stinger missiles that the Afghan mujahideen used to bringdown Soviet aircraft in the 1980s. The Pakistani army deploys a contemporaryassortment of these types of infra-red, or heat-seeking, short-rangemissile systems, including some 2,500 Chinese Mk1/Mk2 (an adaptation of theRussian SA-7) and HN-5A, 230 French Mistral,200 Swedish RBS-70, as well as 60 up-to-date Stingers (Raytheon FIM-92A).

It would be very easy for Pakistan to shift additionalanti-aircraft machine guns and to introduce these shoulder-fired missiles to itswestern region, and reportssuggest that the army is actually doing that now. However, if Pakistanifront line border posts are equipped with these systems and expected to use themagainst any air intrusion -- accidental, pre-notified, or otherwise -- thereare almost certain to be further accidental collisions and disruptions of U.S.-Pakistanicooperation. If U.S. aircraft accidentally stray into Pakistani territory andtake ground fire from anti-aircraft guns or missiles, they will almostcertainly retaliate as a standard operational procedure. Second, Pakistan wouldface the threat that some of these advanced missiles could get into militanthands, which would put not only U.S./NATO aircraft, but also Pakistani aircraft,at serious risk, and also broaden suspicions in the West of Pakistanicomplicity with militants. Stinger proliferation to militants might further deterthe Pakistani military from establishing control over its tribal territory, andwould, in effect, provide insurgents with yet additional cover in safe havensin Pakistan. Third, Pakistani firing of Stinger-type missiles against U.S.aircraft operating in Afghanistan may be seen as acts of war against the UnitedStates. While the Pakistani public increasingly views America's war on terroroperations in Afghanistan as "not Pakistan's war," they may be locked byescalation into owning "Pakistan's war on American forces." It should takelittle imagination to grasp where that would lead.

The westward deployment of these MANPADS or low-altitudeanti-aircraft guns would probably not be able to threaten U.S. drones, because bilateralprotocols for U.S. drone activity along the Afghan-Pakistan border alreadyexist and are followed. Normally drones fly at altitudes above the ceiling of shoulder-firedmissiles, and their infra-red signatures, even at low altitude, are much moredifficult for infra-red sensors to detect than those of manned aircraft. Dronesmay not even be readily detectable by Pakistan's existing ground radars in theregion. By diverting AEW&C aircraft with advanced radar to that region, however,Pakistan probably could detect and shoot down drones with fighter aircraft and,possibly, in the unlikely event they were relocated to the tribal region, targetthem with its small number of high altitude SA-2 missiles. But thesecontingencies, which would disturb Pakistan's preferred strategies and airdefense deployments against India, seem far less likely than the prospect offurther (accidental or not) air-to-ground or ground-to-ground clashes betweenNATO and Pakistani troops. Risking the loss of Pakistan's scarce 4^thgeneration fighter aircraft and pilots in cross-border shoot-outs with U.S. forceswould be a recipe for further disaster.

Although the U.S. Central Command's assessment of theMohmand incident is still a week away, the findings will likely blame communicationsbreakdowns and fog of war confusion, exploited by deceptive firing frommilitants close by Pakistan's border posts, for the tragic case offriendly-fire. This was after all the most lethal, but not the first,cross-border incident of its kind. This may turn out to be one case where theextremist tail did wag the dog.

Lessons will be gleaned from this incident, but the crucialones concern the vital importance of transparent military-to-military communicationand information-sharing on the activities of militants, and dedicated measuresof mutual support for efforts to run them to ground. Neither side can afford tobe responsible by inconsistent strategy for taking the lives of the other. Technicalmeasures for avoiding collisions that have not yet been exploited include theuse of reprogrammable, identification-friend-or foe (IFF) transponders. Whenplaced with personnel at Pakistan's forward check posts and supportinstallations, these should serve to ward off inadvertent fire by US forces,supplementing existing communications protocols. Frequently updating codesshould protect these instruments from theft and successful spoofing use bymilitants.

Beyond that, both sides must get back to basics onharmonizing policies on the future of Afghanistan. This would include pursuing asfar as they prove viable the so-called "reconciliation" negotiations with thoseinsurgents who might be induced to withdraw from combat in favor ofparticipation in the Afghan political process. Secretary Hillary Clinton'srecent visit to Islamabad warmlyinvited Pakistan to be a central player at the front end of this process, aprocess and role which Pakistan itself has long urged. Moving forward withrelevant bilateral working groups developing road maps and strategies couldhelp calm ruffled feathers while, importantly, working together for peaceful,internationally-supported outcomes in Afghanistan that will also satisfyPakistan's legitimate long-term interests.                   

Dr. Rodney W. Jones isPresident of Policy Architects International in Reston, VA, and an expert onsecurity in South Asia.

Members of the international community met this past week in Bonn, Germany to discuss Afghanistan's future in the shadow of a NATO withdrawal oftroops. At the conference, key policymakers, from the United States to Afghan PresidentHamid Karzai, expressed the consensus that corruption is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to efforts at rebuilding and stabilizingthe country.

In a time of belt-tightening in aid budgets in the United States and Europe, andweariness at a lack of significant progress in Afghanistan's corruption outlook,donors may prove less and less willing to provide development assistance thatis then lost to graft. Similar to post-conflict and poor countries elsewhere,Afghanistan's government agencies lack accountability. Service delivery can beseverely compromised because of graft, in turn fueling mistrust of thegovernment.

Another example of malfeasance is the widespreadelection fraud perpetrated during the 2010 election for the Wolesi Jirga,Afghanistan's lower house of parliament. The voting itself and the subsequent dubious adjudication process provide a stark illustration of howcorruption can destabilize political institutions. The Afghan Electoral ComplaintsCommittee (ECC) had to delay the induction of parliament after adjudicatingnearly 6,000 allegations of malfeasance. Nine members have lost their seats evenafter serving for nearly a year.

With an eye towards understanding howinstitutions like the Wolesi Jirga could be strengthened through cleanerelections, we developed and evaluated a new approach to policing electoralcorruption for the 2010 races. It involves the implementation of a photo "quickcount" of election results. Specifically, we took photographs of tally sheetsfrom polling stations right after voting concluded, and compared them to whatshould be carbon copies of tallies from the same polling stations later in theaggregation process. We then took differences in results for specificcandidates as evidence of rigging. We implemented our project with funding fromthe newly established Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) at the United States Agency forInternational Development (USAID), a unit that embodies the organization'srenewed enthusiasm for improving development through rigorousevaluation procedures.We partnered with Democracy International (DI), the largest internationalorganization monitoring elections in Afghanistan.

To evaluate the effectiveness of thistechnology, we randomly announced monitoring in about half of a sample of 471polling centers. This sample spanned 19 of the 34 provincial centers in allregions of Afghanistan and was drawn from a universe of 5,897 polling centersscheduled to open on election day. We deployed a team of Afghan researchersthat delivered letters to polling center managers during voting on election day,announcing that the team would return the following day to photograph thetallies; teams visited the other polling centers without providing any priorwarning.

Through a comparison of these"treatment" polling centers and the "control" centers that were unaware thatour researchers would photograph results, we found that our program worked insignificant ways to decrease electoral corruption. Specifically, the monitoringprogram reduced vote counts by 25 percent for the candidate our team deemed mostlikely to rig the vote (generally the candidate with strongest links toofficials in the Election Commission or President Karzai, and those with ahistory of working in the government) and reduced the theft of vote tallies andother election materials by about 60 percent. In the study,we also found that candidates react to undermine the effort, and that they doso in a way that is predictable based on their connections to officials in theelection commission.  Specifically,candidates with a connection to the Provincial Elections Officer moved theirfraudulent activity in the direction of manipulating the returns form inpolling centers that did not receive a letter. By contrast, candidates lackingthis connection committed fraud by altering the count before the form wasposted.

We assessed the effect of the programusing a Randomized Control Trial (RCT), the most robust form of programevaluation. In a RCT, researchers estimate the effect of a program on keyoutcomes of interest (in our case, election fraud) by first identifying apopulation of potential beneficiaries and then randomly assigning the programto a subset (usually half). The half receiving the program are "treatments" andthe remaining half are "controls."  Themethod is therefore a straightforward adaptation of the approach used inmedical drug trials, only applied to questions of governance and institutions.A comparison of outcomes in the "treatments" and "controls" metes outeverything else that was going on in parallel with the program. For example,because we randomly assigned "treatments," we did not need to worry aboutwhether international monitors might be creating the change that we attributedto photo quick count. Additionally, one might worry that the effect we documentedis due to a selection of polling centers where fraud was less likely. But oneof the core strengths of RCTs is the ability to remove such a "selection bias"from our estimates of program effect. Because polling centers were selected bya random number generator, we can summarily rule out this concern.

We draw three important lessons from ourstudy. First, these results provide a convincing proof of concept that theapplication of new technologies can improve the fairness of elections and helpbattle corruption. In Afghanistan, we implemented the program using simpledigital cameras. In February of 2011 we replicated the experiment in Ugandausing smart phones and an application developed by Qualcomm to similar effect. Ultimately, webelieve this approach can be implemented via crowd-sourcing (essentiallyencouraging average people to document the process, as cell phones and evensmart phones become more accessible in the developing world), which woulddramatically reduce costs and increase coverage as citizens mobilize to policeelections.  

Second, while corrupt candidates surely willdevelop their own innovations to undermine fair electoral processes, making theaggregation process impermeable will greatly increase the difficulty of theirtask. If the election returns form posted at the polling center must match thereturns form that enters the official count in the capital, a major avenue offraud is shut off to candidates. More generally, we need to worry more aboutconnections between candidates and officials at the lower and middle echelonsof election commissions. Such officials can use their position and influenceover the aggregation and vote-counting process to dramatic effect. Reflectingthis, known affiliates of candidates should not be allowed to staff thecommission. Similarly, punishments for using such positions to favor a givencandidate should be serious, and these officials should be monitored. While a variety of evidence demonstrates corruption in Afghanistan'selectoral commission, the country is not unique in this regard -- mostdemocratizing countries fail to establish truly independent election managementbodies and suffer fraud as a result.

Last, and most importantly, we only havescientific evidence of the effectiveness of a small numberof democracy assistance strategies. This is an area ripefor experimentation,which we encourage the international policy community to take seriously becauseof its clear importance for stability and welfare in fragile states likeAfghanistan. While clean elections will not solve all of the country's problems,helping to reduce corruption and strengthen confidence in institutions like theWolesi Jirga will pay important dividends as foreign donors exert less and lessinfluence over Afghanistan's future, and Afghanistan must take moreresponsibility for its own future.

MichaelCallen is a post-doctoralresearcher at the Institute on Global Conflict andCooperation at the University of California, San Diego.  James Long is a doctoral candidate in political scienceat the Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego. Mohammad Isaqzadeh is an assistant professor of politicalscience at the American University Afghanistan, and provided researchassistance for the study.

At the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germanylast week, 85 countries affirmed their commitment to Afghanistan for the decadefollowing the 2014 transition, and highlighted gains over the past 10 years inthe areas of security, women's rights and the capacity of governmentinstitutions. They also acknowledged the reversible nature of this progress, aswell as the significant work left to be accomplished. Previousdiscussions on Afghanistanwithin the international community have exclusively addressed the transitionperiod between now and 2014. This conference introduced the concept of a muchneeded blueprint for the years following the transition: the "transformation decade"of 2015-2024. This blueprint details two initial milestones: the May 2012 NATOsummit in Chicago, where an announcement is anticipated regarding long-term AfghanNational Security Force funding (ANSF), and a July 2012 conference in Japan, wheremore details regarding international economic support will be announced. Thoughthe December 5 Bonn conference, eclipsed in part by Pakistan'slast minute withdrawal, fell short of announcing major breakthroughs in thepeace process (against high expectationscreated by Bonn 2001), it was an important first step in acknowledging themagnitude of the task that remains unfinished. Now that we have affirmed our longterm commitment in spirit, tangible demonstrations are essential in order tobuild momentum and avoid the perception of empty promises. The internationalcommunity and Afghanistanshould proceed to the next step of defining the first concrete details in theblueprint's foundation. 

As the 2011 Bonn conferenceconclusions stated, "this renewed partnership between Afghanistan and theInternational Community entails firm mutual commitments in the areas ofgovernance, security, the peace process, economic and social development andregional cooperation." The United States should demonstrate this long-termcommitment to Afghanistan in the form of a formal strategic partnershipendorsed by both nations and announced as soon as possible.  It should reflect planned troop reductions (33,000by the end of summer 2012), but maintain U.S. advisory and counterterrorismcapabilities beyond 2014, through the next Afghan political administration in2019. This force would sustain the tempo of counterterrorist operations andprovide professional advice and enablers to the Afghan army and police. Itshould number 10,000 to 25,000 personnel and could be reduced as the ANSFdemonstrate their post-transition competence through the 2014 elections andinto the next political administration. U.S. personnel numbers could alsobe reduced by coalition contributions. Counterterrorist operations should focuson al-Qaeda's attempts to relocate in remote areas of Afghanistan, aswell as target the leadership of insurgent groups who refuse to reconcile andcontinue to challenge the stability of the government. Advisory and enablingforces should focus on the professional development and training of the Afghanarmy and police, as well as their effective performance in the field. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,in her openingremarks at Bonn stated: "...the United Statesis prepared to stand with the Afghan people, but Afghans themselves must alsomeet the commitments they have made, and we look forward to working with themto embrace reform, lead their own defense, and strengthen their democracy."Afghans should consider improving their government by empoweringprovincial-level authorities and reducing corruption. Both measures areessential to the condition-setting that must take place prior to seriousnegotiations with insurgents. Each province should be granted the right toselect its own governor and to employ independent fiscal, legislative, andconflict resolution powers. Provincial government employees should be hiredfrom within the province and should answer to provincial leaders. Internationalfinancial aid for projects like medical clinics, roads, schools and electricityshould be funneled directly to the provinces in order to create rapid publicsupport. These measures, over time, would bring the power and resources of thegovernment to parts of the country where Kabul'sleadership is viewed as corrupt and incompetent as a result of nepotism,cronyism and its management of funds.  Atthe same time, anti-corruption efforts from within the government must beintensified. Afghans should enact laws consistent with The Afghan NationalAnti-Corruption Strategy.  Continuedcoalition and international assistance through this decade in the form ofadvice, investigation, and prosecution is essential. More effective localgovernance and courts would also serve to undermine the appeal of localconflict resolution currently offered by insurgents.

Some reforms empowering provincialand district governance have already been planned. In the spring of 2010, theAfghan Government's Independent Directorate of Local Governance published its Sub-nationalGovernance Policy. This policy is comprehensive and, if resourced,supported, and given time, would significantly enhance the contribution oflocal government to Afghan quality of life. This will take time and require thecontinued commitment of the UnitedStates and the coalition to educate Afghancivil servants. This policy appropriately calls for and schedules elections ofprovincial, district, and village councils and should be modified toincorporate the election of provincial and district governors. Should Afghansdesire these measures, the constitution would have to be modified through theassembly of a constitutional loya jirga. This initiative could be a part of Afghanistan'snational dialogue in the run-up to the 2014 election and perhaps lead to apost-election loya jirga. 

Without U.S.and international commitment through the end of this decade, Afghanistan will likely fall backinto the civil war it experienced in the early 1990s. As fighting spreads, India and Pakistan will back their Afghanproxies and the conflict could intensify. This situation would not only createopportunities for safe haven for extremists, but also invite a confrontationbetween adversarial and nuclear-armed states. The potential for such an outcomeruns counter to U.S.and coalition interests.

Bonn 2001 began a journey toward Afghanistan'sstability and representative government that has demanded great sacrifice byAfghans, Americans, and other members of the coalition. Bonn 2011 continues thejourney and acknowledges the requirement for long term international commitmentand Afghan resolve. The journey has come far from its humble beginning, butrequires sustained international support and American leadership to remain oncourse.

COL Mark Fields is aMilitary Fellow at the Center for Strategic Research, part of National DefenseUniversity's Institute for National Strategic Studies.  He has served in Afghanistan and is theauthor of "AReview of the 2001 Bonn Conference and Application to the Road Ahead inAfghanistan." The views expressed are his alone, and do not necessarilyrepresent those of National Defense University, the Department of Defense, orthe U.S. Government.

The idea of defiance against tyranny and oppression owes a great deal to Hussain ibne Ali, the hero of the battle of Karbala in 680 AD. With just 72 valiant followers and family members, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad faced the military might of the Muslim empire ruled then by a despot, Yazid bin Mu‘awiya. Hussain refused to sanctify Yazid's reign through baya'a (allegiance) and consequently, he and his small contingent were martyred in the most brutal of fashions. The accompanying women and children were imprisoned for months in the dark alleys of Damascus.

On every Ashura, the 10^th day of the Muslim calendar month of Muharram (which fell on December 6 this year), many Muslims all across the world commemorate Hussain's great sacrifice, but tragically the central message ofKarbala appears to evade the broader Muslim thinking today. In Western literature and research on Islam, this episode is often viewed through the lens of certain Shi'a rituals practiced on and around Ashura. It is worth probing why that is so. Even more importantly, it is critical to understand why terrorists and extremists like al-Qaeda andthe Taliban often attack the Ashura related gatherings (as is evident from attacks in recent years in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan), and what is at the core of their disdain of all the things that Imam Hussain stood for.

A brief historical reference is required to understand the context of Ashura.After Prophet Mohammad's death in 632 AD, the expansion of Islam became a global phenomenon, courtesy of a variety of means. Islam was a rising power in theworld, but in the process, the fabric of Muslim society was also being transformed, as the Muslim outlook was gradually influenced by people from various cultures. New elites that were more interested in power and wealth alone started emerging as more influential, and consequently, Islam's emphasis on egalitarianism, justice and equity started getting diluted. A deliberate attempt to imitate the dynastic empires of the Byzantines and Sasanians was obvious to many observers at the time. The distortion of Islamic ideals became a favorite pastime of Yazid and his coterie. The expansion of influence by way of the sword was a hallmark of his times.

Imam Hussain, the spiritual custodian of Islam at the time, staunchly stood against this shifting tide, and his unprecedented sacrifice was intended to shake the Muslim conscience and expose the misleading path introduced in the name of Islam. It was a matter of principle for him - one of human dignity and honor. Challenging the newly introduced monarchical system of government was another important feature of this struggle. In his last sermon before departing from Madina on his journey towards Karbala, Iraq, he made clear his mission: "I seek to reform the Ummah of my grandfather." An armed struggle for that purpose was never his intended route. He believed in conveying the message through love and compassion. It was a message motivated truly by humanity. The great Indian leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aptly acknowledged this by saying: "I learned from Hussein how to achieve victory while being oppressed."

This was not a mere political battle, though some Muslim historians try to project it that way so as to cover up not only Yazid's atrocities, but indirectly to defend his school of thought as well. The mainstream view, however, both among Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, is very sympathetic toward Imam Hussain. It would be an absolute travesty of Muslim history to call this a Sunni-Shi'a battle. Some writers still do that, either out of lack of in depth understanding, or in a flawed effort to simplify things for a lay Western reader. On the Muslim side, only a handful of controversial clerics project this version.  Still, most Muslims shy away from digging too deep into the matter, and carefully avoid questioning the historical developments leading to the rise of Yazid.

Insightfully, the whole narrative of tragedy at Karbala would have remained unheard of without the tireless struggle of Hussain's sister Zainab ibne Ali, who as an eyewitness of the tragedy propagated details of the event far and wide among Muslims. While in chains, she courageously challenged Yazid's policies on his face in his court in Damascus soon after the battle at Karbala. Many Muslims -- some out of ignorance and others out of bigotry -- avoid appreciating the crucial role of a woman in this grand struggle. Zainab's contribution to fighting for the essence of the Muslim faith was as critical as that of Hussain.

Though Shi'as are often at the forefront of commemorating the tragedy of Karbala, Sunnis, especially those belonging to the Barelvi school of thought in South Asia and almost all Sufi circles in broader Asia and the Middle East, also enthusiastically participate in paying homageto Imam Hussain and his companions. Extremists and terrorists among Muslims want to destroy this element of unity, as sectarianism suits their divisive and violent agenda. Distorting religion to make it dogmatic in outlook and regressive in approach is also what helps them achieve their goals exceedingly well. For them, political power is an end in itself. Hussain's message stands completely contrary to this perspective.

The attack on Shi'a Muslims observing Ashura in Kabul on December 6, which killed 55 people, was a manifestation of the perpetrators' perverse worldview. Next door in Pakistan, where this threat is more pronounced, a heavyprice (in the form of terrorism and violence) is being paid for ignoring the expanding tentacles of religious extremism. Though things remained peaceful on Ashura in Pakistan this year, the Kabul attack was claimed by a splinter wing of a banned Pakistani sectarian group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi(LeJ). Authorities have yet to uncover solid proof ofwho was responsible. Irrespective of whether the Afghan Taliban was directly involved in this specific attack or not, their policies during the ‘reign of terror' in Afghanistan (1996-2001) indicate that they hold similar views toward those who honor the martyrs of Karbala. Taliban massacres of ethnic Hazara Afghans (of whom the vast majority areShi'a Muslims) in the late 1990s are a case in point.  The curse of sectarianism has inhibited spiritual growth of many Muslims.

The remedy to the malady lies in mainstreaming the message of Karbala both within the worldwide Muslim communities and among those who are interested in deciphering the foundational themes of Islamic discourse. At a higher level, Hussain's message of defiance against oppression and personal sacrifice for the cause of humanity is applicable for a broader audience for generations to come.

Dr. Hassan Abbas is a Senior Advisor at the Asia Society and the editor of Watandost blog. He is based in Washington D.C.

We often see thearts as only fit for museums, galleries, and film festivals, cloistered inhalls only for the intellectual elite.  But the arts can help build anation, or in the case of Afghanistan, are rebuilding a nation, employing itspeople, and recalling a history forgotten in recent decades of continuousconflict. And a small group of social scientists, architects, and entrepreneursare using culture as a vehicle to restore Afghanistan, challenging theconvention that the arts are only for aesthetics.

"Culturalconservation is directly linked to development and livelihoods here. Thehistoric sites that we're rebuilding are functioning places, generating revue,providing jobs, and are self-sustaining," says Ajmal Maiwandi,  anAfghan-American architect who returned to the country nearly a decade ago totake up a post with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) to help rebuildAfghanistan's most historic sites. In that time, Maiwandi explains thatAKTC has preserved nearly a 100 sites, even during tense periods of conflict.

For WashingtonD.C.-based Dr. Cheryl Benard, the desire to revive the arts in Afghanistan cameout of seeing the destruction of Europe following WWII, where monuments werepillaged, destroying not only beautiful edifices but also erasing history withthem.  As a young child, growing up in post-war Germany and Austria, shethen saw the resurrection of what had been knocked down and pillaged-- anexperience she explains has made her more sympathetic to those living inconflict-ridden societies.  Benard, who founded the Bamiyan Project, anon-profit dedicated to cultural preservation in Central Asia, wants to seethat same movement in Afghanistan.

"[The arts] arenot taken so seriously. It's something that people think about much later, whenthe tourists arrive.  But they're fundamental to the process ofreconciliation and reconstructing the nation," she says with urgency.

Maiwandiagrees. As CEO of the AKTC in Afghanistan, he's led numerous successfulprojects, such as the restoration of the gardens of the Mughal emperor Babur, the Mausoleum of Timur Shah, and urban regeneration initiatives in the Asheqan wa Arefan neighborhood of Kabul.  In the old city of Herat, the Trusthas revived five notable historic houses, seventeen public buildings, and thegravesite of the Sufi poet, Abdullah Ansari, in Gozarga.

This flurry ofactivity has created a local demand for labor.  In Herat alone, therestoration has provided for 60,000 work days of employment.  And theapproach to restoration is "holistic," Maiwandi notes, meaning that not onlyare old, crumbling building attended to, but drainage systems are put intoplace, pavements are laid down, and waste is removed.  In short,these efforts are not just about beautifying but also redevelopingneighborhoods, investments that have long-term impact, he explains.

AKTC couples thishistorical preservation with more hands-on training, offering courses in tradessuch as carpentry, teaching students how to craft doors, windows, woodcarvings, items that go beyond the classroom and have local demand.

Turquoise Mountain, a social enterprise created by Britishauthor and parliamentarian Rory Stewart, takes the training a step furtherthrough a global market place for handmade Afghan crafts, having sold nearly $1million worth within the country and abroad. While Turquoise also tends tourban regeneration in old Kabul, its Institute of Arts and Architectures givesstudents year-long lessons in calligraphy, woodworking, ceramics, jewelry, andgem cutting -- trades that give them employment in addition to carrying onage-old traditions.

Such pragmaticart is coupled with large-scale preservation, akin to AKTC's work on Bagh-e-Babur,which fuels tourism. Benard's non-profit, for instance, is restoring thelegendary poet Rumi's birthplace in northern Afghanistan.  The restorationprocess, Benard explains, has generated not just local employment during andpost construction, but also created an oasis for locals and tourists that willbe sustainable in years to come. And in remembrance of Rumi's poems, whichoften featured lyrical descriptions of nature, the site houses a number ofgardens, something that will keep the locals coming after they've seen thetouristy bits. Benard notes that the Rumi Gardens are located in one ofAfghanistan's "safe pockets," and have never been attacked by militants; evenif security deteriorates in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of troops in 2014,her NGO does not feel particularly concerned about security threats.

Benard originallystarted the non-profit in 2010 to help preserve an expansive site in Bamiyanprovince, one that once housed housing two colossal-sized Buddhas from the 6thcentury, remnants of the country's more pluralist past that were destroyed bythe Taliban in March 2001. Yet in the meantime, another threat arose,diverting her attention again.

In 2007, TheChinese Metallurgical Group Corp, backed by the Chinese government, leasedone of the world's largest untapped copper mines, estimated at $3.5billion, with intentions to begin mining in 2009.  A profitable deal forthe Chinese who aspire to tap into Afghanistan's rich minerals, it marks thelargest foreign investment in the country, one that could reap nearly $1.2billion from the mine and the jobs it creates.  But the mine sits onanother piece of Afghanistan's Buddhist history: Mes Aynak, home to a 5thcentury Buddhist monastery, whose crumbling statues dot the hilly landscape.  To allow for excavation, which would removethe delicate ruins from the site to be placed in a nearby museum, the Chinesehave delayed mining until the process is completed.

Though a reminderof the country's Buddhist past, Bernard says that she was impressed by howlocal Afghans have made an effort to preserve it.  Being an Islamic nationhasn't stopped them from expressing their support for the preservation of theBuddhas, she says, illustrating that the arts can be a catalyst in redefining acountry's story.

Benard continues,explaining that "one piece of the story that doesn't get covered is the risksthat people go to save their cultural heritage.  For example, earlier,when the locals realized that that Taliban were coming to destroy the [NationalFilm Archives of Afghanistan], they erected walls to break up the collectionand reduce the damage. In museums, the staff concealed so many items, taking abig risk on their own safety. This simply shows that the arts are important tolocals -- even in war when more basic needs are at stake."

Benard is nowcollaborating with other preservationists to develop a plan for some of theBuddha statues to remain in their original form at Mes Aynek, and not bewhisked away to museums, so that the site can be visited and admired in itsnative state.  The Chinese will still be able to access the site formining, though they may need to use a more "gentle technology" to extract thecopper without damaging the Buddhas, Benard says.

Hamid Naweed, anAfghan art historian, has been working closely with Benard and recentlytraveled with her throughout the country, talking with locals on the BamiyanProject, Mes Aynek, and the cultural heritage of Afghanistan more broadly.

"What amazed mewas the response of the Afghan people," said Benard. "They were moved bythe discussions, crying even, to hear their history presented in a coherent,positive way. The Afghans have a history rich with achievements as well. So,it's a real game changer for them to hear it first-hand."

With morepreservation projects under way for Benard, Turquoise, and AKTC, the Afghanswill not only be hearing it, but will see it unfold in front of them, as thearts becomes a means of employment and a way to reconstruct their nation.

Esha Chhabra is a writer who focuses onsocial innovation and social enterprises. She was recently the RotaryAmbassadorial Scholar at the London School of Economics, where she specializedin Global Politics and Social Enterprise. This piece was completed in partnershipwith Dowser.org.

In the winter of 2009, standing on the mud wall of a border outpost manned by our partnered Afghan Border Police, I was chatting with Commander Aziz, a well-known local police chief commander. Aziz pointed east to the locations of Taliban training camps on a mountain just inside Pakistan, and to their usual infiltration routes around the dusty bordertown of Angor Adda. Suddenly, the high-pitched whoosh of rockets launching screamed across the valley from the direction of Pakistan to our left front towards our main coalition base to our rear. "Incoming!" one of my operators yelled as we dove under the nearest vehicles in a flash. I was only visiting, but they knew that typically the rocket attacks on the coalition base were accompanied by mortar fire on the Afghan border posts. As we dusted ourselves off, and my Air Force combat controller jumped on the radio to call for one of the aircraft continually circling over Afghanistan, I looked off in the distance towards the Pakistani military border post known as Post 41. The white trails of smoke from the rocket launches were coming from the base of the outpost on a small hill several kilometers in the distance. I noticed the launch site for the rockets was within spitting distance of the Pakistani post. The Border Police had established ambushes the night before on several of the typical launch sites, but the Taliban had learned to set up their sites very near Pakistani border positions, as the Afghans wouldn't come near them for fear of being attacked by the Pakistanis.

Read on

A decade after the first international conference on Afghanistan at Bonn, Germany is hosting a follow-up conference on Monday, widely known as Bonn II. The first Bonn Conference prepared a framework for the newly established Afghan administration and picked Hamid Karzai to lead the interim administration. In 2004 and again in 2009, Karzai was elected President of the country.

As always with this war-torn region, there are voices expressing optimism and others expressing pessimism regarding what can be expected of the conference. The recent NATO air strike along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has certainly contributed to the voices of pessimism. Islamabad has declared that it will boycott the conference as a protest to what they're calling the "unprovoked" NATO bombing that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Although there's been no change in that official decision, sources have said that Pakistan's Ambassador in Germany will likely attend.

Pakistan's rigid stance against participating in the Bonn conference conveys a clear, but dangerous message -- that it has no desire to bring stability to Afghanistan.

The conference is expected to focus on three main areas: the transfer of security responsibilities to the Afghan government by 2014, the long-term commitment by the international community to Afghanistan beyond the 2014, and the future political stability of the country.

Ashraf Haidari, Deputy Assistant National Security Advisor for Afghanistan was also eager to remind me, "Ten years have passed since the first historic Bonn Conference that helped chart a political road-map for creating the institutions of a permanent democratic government [in Afghanistan]. That central objective of the first Bonn Conference, along with its other major goals, has been achieved. But our collective efforts to secure the future of Afghanistan are still a work in progress."

Haidari then drove his point home. "The main objective of this second Bonn Conference is for the international community and the government of Afghanistan to re-affirm our shared commitment to a solid, long-term partnership beyond 2014. Such partnership must credibly assure the Afghan people that our country will not be abandoned again. Afghanistan's enemies must understand that our nation-partners will continue their solidarity and support with and for the Afghan people, until Afghanistan is no longer vulnerable to security threats from the same state and non-state actors which once undermined international peace and security -- as we experienced in the unchecked events of the 1990s that led to the tragedy of 9/11."

Afghan women's rights activist Najla Ayubi has a decidedly more negative view of what the upcoming conference can accomplish. "It is one of several unproductive, symbolic conferences to be held on Afghanistan. Decisions have already been made. Several international conferences were held in the past ten years, none had tangible and effective outcomes for Afghans -- this one is not an exception. The Afghan people at large are the victim of regional and international politics. The current Afghan government could not effectively use the previous opportunities opened for Afghanistan and will not be able to appropriately use the new opportunity."

She went on to say, "Afghans suffer from unconstitutional acts, systemic corruption, human rights violations, increasing insecurity, poppy boom, extreme poverty, and more." To address these issues, Ayubi suggests, "If the current Afghan administration has any wish to be honest with its people -- which I doubt -- it is time for the Afghan authorities to admit their past mistakes and open the door for a holistic approach to overcome the contemporary challenges facing the country, which include increasing insecurity and systemic corruption."

Like Ayubi, Vahid Mojdeh, political analyst and former member of the Taliban's foreign ministry staff, also voiced pessimism about what the conference can achieve. But Mojdeh is pessimistic for different reasons.  He argues that the first Bonn Conference, lacking the presence of the Taliban and not well represented ethnically, triggered the current chaos and insecurity in the country. And he insists that, "the Second Bonn Conference suffers from similar shortcomings." In addition, Pakistan has boycotted the conference, which will potentially prevent the outcomes of the meeting from being implemented.

Asadullah Walwalji, an Afghan writer and analyst told me that the "absence of Pakistan in such a conference means that decisions made there, will not be implemented; i.e. Islamabad will continue to play its destructive and sabotaging role in Afghanistan."

Sayed Zaman Hashemi, an Afghan political analyst, has a different view about the conference. "I think the first Bonn Conference was to fight terrorism, establish a democratic system, and rebuild Afghanistan. Considering the recession and pressure from the public in those countries, the sSecond Bonn Conference, indeed, is an exit conference and end point to an active presence of the West in Afghanistan. The reasons behind such an exit are clear: systemic corruption within the Afghan administration and the (fact that the) Afghan government has practically changed democracy to demagogy - both of which are unacceptable for the West."

The sSecond Bonn Conference is taking place at a time when the Afghan government is seeking to sign a binding strategic partnership agreement with the United States, while -- according to the Afghan government -- the United States insists on signing a nonbinding declaration. Before signing the strategic agreement, the Afghan government has set a precondition that U.S. forces stop carrying out night raids on Afghan homes. The U.S. and NATO have long considered night raids one of the most effective ways to fight insurgency in Afghanistan. The Afghan government is also insisting that the U.S. hand over those prisoners dwelling under the custody of the U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Some Afghan analysts, however, believe that the Afghan government should be more cautious in this regard. "The Afghan people are in need of cooperation by a superpower like the U.S. The Afghan government should not be so insistent regarding its conditions to the U.S. They both had better come to a mutually acceptable agreement that will potentially benefit both countries." states Ayubi.

Helaluddin Helal, a former Afghanistan Deputy Interior Minister, also believes that the Afghan government should not insist on its position. "At this stage, the Afghan security forces are not acquainted with modern military tools. Considering the effectiveness of night raids and the inabilities of the Afghan security forces, how can the government take a leading role in night raids?" Helal asks, arguing that Afghan troops need more time to be trained in order to lead the assaults. In addition, Helal argues that most Afghan security forces are affiliated with different ethnic allegiances and that in the near term, it will be impossible for them to rise above those allegiances in order to align themselves with the national interest.

Equally important, Helal says, the Afghan security forces are unable to take over responsibility for detainees being held at U.S. facilities in Afghanistan. Two prison breaks in Kandahar, in which hundreds of mostly Taliban prisoners managed to escape, exemplify the incompetence of Afghan forces. Helal predicts that a strategic partnership between the two countries will be signed, but that it will take time.

Considering the acute political, security, and economic situation in Afghanistan and proven incompetence of the Afghan government to use international aid effectively, systematically fight corruption, ensure security, prevent poppy cultivation, provide a better living standard for Afghans, and establish an administration based on the values of good governance, it seems likely that the second Bonn Conference will fail to establish a more durable order. Unless the international community puts increasing pressure on the Afghan government to fight corruption and provide better services for the Afghan people, the insurgents will gain strength, more people will join hands with the Taliban, security will deteriorate, and both the Afghan people and the international community will suffer the consequences.

However, something the conference can accomplish is providing the international community with the opportunity to convey its clear message that Afghanistan will not be abandoned again, and that Pakistan will not be given another chance to set Afghanistan's course, as it did during the Taliban's time in power.

Khalid Mafton is an Afghan writer and analyst.

On the tenth anniversary of thehistoric Bonn Agreement that laid the foundation for the post- Talibandemocracy in Afghanistan, the Afghan Government and the international communitywill once again gather in the same venue today to assess the achievements andchallenges of a decade-long joint journey and to reiterate theirmutual commitment to working together on the path forward.

Read on

I arrived in Kabul in October 2002 to research a rumoured expansion in civil-military affairs by international forces. This turned out to be the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) plan, launched at the U.S. embassy the following month. The effects of the successive traumas that Afghans in Kabul had endured, prior to and under the Taliban, were then still visible in peoples' faces and eyes. Later, following my move to Kabul full-time in January 2003 ,international development professionals who had worked in Afghanistan during the Taliban period of power told me that Afghan colleagues looked ten years younger as the strain lifted from their faces. To understand why Afghans hate uncertainty so much, one must remember how often normal life has been swept aside in living Afghan memory and the psychological legacy this disruption has created. 

Finally, the "end state" that informed the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)'s planning matrices, which became ever more complex in configurations between 2002 and 2006, is apparently coming to pass as the West races to meet its politically set timetable for withdrawal by the end of 2014. The leading NATO member states believe they have a realistic plan for a "responsible" transition process that, it is becoming increasingly clear, is irreversibly proceeding on its agreed timeline, whatever the actual conditions on the ground. As one U.S. military expert put it at a recent conference on the transition, "whatever it looks like in Paktika or Badghis on 31 December 2014, that's what transition will look like."

The key difference between now and the planning matrices of ISAF's past is that the phased transition process is not dependent on the achievement of even minimal standards for governance and development conditions by the time the transition process takes place. Virtually all the Afghans (from a range of backgrounds and ethnicities) that I interviewed in July 2011 in Kabul were fully aware of the Afghan government's deficits in its institutional capacities to improve governance and deliver services.

In a context in which the overall security situation continues to deteriorate and the sense of crisis is intensifying, both domestically and regionally, the brief transition timeline merely confirms Afghan impressions of an international determination to get out as soon as possible. Nor did my Afghan interviewees express much confidence in NATO's twin-tracked approach for setting the security conditions for the transition: The reduction of the insurgency to proportions that can be managed by the Afghan government after 2014 and the building up of the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) that, since 2009, has been the focus of massively resourced U.S.-led efforts to increase its numbers and to develop its fighting capacity. The insurgency, where currently suppressed, can easily be revived. Questions of morale were linked to the absence of effective security sector reform, as well as initiatives that so far have failed to protect the Afghan army and police from factional and ethnic influences and to genuinely disband illegal armed groups. Many Afghans fear that the U.S.-led creation of the Afghan Local Police will ultimately lead to the nationalization of militias that will operate outside the flimsy command and control of the Interior Ministry.

Independent security analysts based in Afghanistan, as well as Afghans, also question the sustainability of security gains enabled by the U.S. military surge. Indeed, many Afghans expressed little confidence in the aftermath of the ‘transfer,' specifically in terms of the Afghan government and its security forces' ability to manage the insurgency, to prevent a widening civil war, and to protect the people. At the same time, Afghans, along with regional leaders, are waiting to see what withdrawal will actually mean in terms of a U.S. military presence in the country after 2014.

The timing of the international conference in Bonn is anything but fortunate, though it could not have been foreseen when it was planned that the global financial crisis would be escalating even further, nor that regional powers' attendance would be questioned or cancelled, as happened with Pakistan following the accidental bombardment recently of Pakistani border posts by NATO forces, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The World Bank has issued bleak warnings in the run up to Bonn of the destabilizing effects that sharp reductions in donor aid and the military-driven economy could produce in Afghanistan. Financial straits in the West and Afghanistan have as a result brought the question of the fiscal sustainability of the ANSF, the forces that will play a pivotal role in the future, sharply into focus.

As Afghanistan is handed back to theAfghans, many are straining to see around the next corner.  Whichever way you cut it the radical change of direction that transition represents is a high-risk strategy. It brings great economic and political pressures to bear on the fragile Afghan polity that has developed on the back of the first Bonn Conference in 2001. The strength of the medicine, some fear, may finally kill off the patient: Given the negative trend lines in security and difficulties facing the Afghan economy, it is hard to see how a transition to Afghan ownership can reverse this situation. The intense pressures and side effects of the transition will be felt at all levels of the country. The risk that declining aid flows will affect subnational governance service delivery by adversely affecting the ability of the Afghan government to attract and retain qualified staff is further increased by the intensifying Taliban assassination campaign targeting government officials.

The underlying strategic calculus may be that a collapse of the Afghan government would not necessarily prove catastrophic to the security concerns of the West. The same cannot be said with regard to Pakistan, Afghanistan's most influential neighbor. If the strategic focus of the United States has already moved on, as some believe, conceivably the consequences could lock the West further in to a country and region in a way that ultimately makes departure, from a Western viewpoint, an impossible option to take.

Barbara J. Stapleton was based in Afghanistan 2002-2010, first as a policy and strategy coordinator for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR). From 2006 to 2010 she was deputy and senior political advisor to the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan.

Prolonged conflicts are particularly difficult to resolve, often depending on the opening of a window of opportunity that must be seized before it closes again. Afghanistan has been mired in conflict for the past 32 years, and warring parties, foreign intervention, and imbalances of power among different groups have made finding a negotiated solution to this series of wars difficult to achieve. One opportunity was missed in 1989 when, following the Soviet withdrawal, the United States and Pakistan did not pursue the possibility of reaching a settlement between then-President Najibullah and the anti-Soviet mujahideen. When in early 2000 I was appointed the U.N. Secretary-General's Personal Representative for Afghanistan, the Taliban regime was in control of over 90 percent of the country and, despite their diplomatic isolation, had little incentive to seek a political accommodation with Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose Northern Alliance (NA) was confined to the country's extreme northeast.

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