This piece is based on a policy paper by Thomas F. Lynch III entitled "The 80 Percent Solution: The Strategic Defeat of bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Implications for South Asian Security," published on February 3, 2012 by the New America Foundation's National Security Studies Program. To read the entire 30-page paper, please click here.

With the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the United States and Western governments scored a major but still underappreciated victory in the nearly decade-and-a-half-old war against al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's death did not eliminate all of the features of al-Qaeda that make it dangerous as a factor in terrorism internationally. Its role in assisting regional jihadist groups in strikes against local governments and by inspiring "lone wolf" would-be martyrs in acts of violence will remain with us for many years.  Yet the manner in which U.S. intelligence and military operatives found and eliminated bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was devastating to three of the five most critical features of bin Laden's al-Qaeda:

• Its legitimacy as a core organization capable of choreographing catastrophic global terrorist events;
• Its brand name rights as the ultimate victor should any of its loosely affiliated Salafi jihadist regional movements ever achieve success in a local insurgency;
• Its ability to claim that it was the base for certain victory - much one able to less reestablish a credible unfettered training area for global jihad - in the area most critical to its own mystical lore: Afghanistan and western Pakistan;

Bin Laden's demise also degraded by half - but did not eliminate - the fourth and fifth elements of al-Qaeda's essence: its role as a "vanguard" of a wider network of Sunni Salafi groups and its ability to serve as a key point of inspiration for "lone wolf" terrorists around the globe. As a consequence, the death of Osama bin Laden has produced an 80 percent solution to the problems that this unique terrorist organization poses for Western policymakers.  

This 80 percent solution has multiple, important implications. Globally, it means that al-Qaeda's growing isolation from alternative, nonviolent approaches to political change in the Muslim world must be reinforced - and is best reinforced - with a deliberate and visible reduction in the U.S. military footprint in Islamic countries worldwide. Washington can best isolate al-Qaeda and limit its ability to reclaim relevance in the struggle for reform in the Islamic world by quietly enabling security forces in Muslim states to counter al-Qaeda affiliates while simultaneously providing judicious and enduring support for Muslim voices for nonviolent political change.

Yet the most immediate implications of this historic development matter to the trajectory of U.S. policy in South Asia.  Bin Laden's demise fundamentally alters the current framework of U.S. and coalition strategy in Afghanistan, and challenges the underpinnings of U.S. policy toward Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda's earliest conception of itself - developed in the late 1980s - included the bedrock function of serving as the base for continuing guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan. Its largely Arab and Egyptian core leadership shared a bond forged in the fight against the Soviet Union and felt the victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan to be of Allah's will and making.  Since late 2001, al-Qaeda has shared with the Afghan Taliban a view that Pakistan is the natural location for vital efforts to free Afghanistan from foreign rule - to validate the victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by another successful guerrilla war.      

At the same time, the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda's core leadership have long diverged in goals and aspirations. These differences were papered over by the personal history between bin Laden and key Afghan Taliban figures - especially the late Younis Khalis, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mullah Omar.  With bin Laden's death, the glue that papered over these fissures is gone. His personal oath (bay'a) to Mullah Omar has no analog with Ayman al-Zawahiri or the cohort of Egyptians and Libyans now at the helm of al-Qaeda's remaining core elements in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda may continue to drape itself in the Taliban flag and proclaim allegiance to Mullah Omar, but with bin Laden's death the Afghan Taliban faces one stark certainty. While it shares a loose but important Salafi jihadist credo with al-Qaeda, it remains dependent on all manner of support for its insurgency from elements within and beholden to the Pakistani security services.  Afghan Taliban leaders must calculate their futures based upon this dominant reality. As they do, al-Qaeda's ability to repeat its propaganda performance following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan - taking credit for any (unlikely) defeat of the United States or any important role in the (more likely) successes the Taliban may have in carving out political space in the country - will wither rapidly.

Absent bin Laden, the risks of al-Qaeda's return to unfettered sanctuary in Afghanistan or western Pakistan have dropped dramatically, while the risks of a devastating proxy war between India and Pakistan - nuclear armed nations that have fought three shooting wars and indulged in several other martial crises since 1947 -- over their relative positions in Afghanistan continue to grow.  Absent the onset of a stark proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan, Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership will have very little interest in seeing al-Qaeda again set up shop from which to wage a bloody campaign of international terrorism and will utilize the tools at their disposal to constrain this possibility.

American policy must wake up to the fact that the risks of devastating proxy war between India and Pakistan now dwarf the risks of al-Qaeda's return to unfettered sanctuary and recalibrate its diplomatic energies and military priorities accordingly.  The United States must reduce its present focus on killing off every last al-Qaeda affiliated leader or mid-level Haqqani Network operative in Pakistan and pay far more attention to the factors necessary to inhibit proxy war in Afghanistan: a tense but enduring U.S. diplomatic relationship with Pakistan designed to calm its fears that growing Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) will become an Indian-directed dagger aimed at Pakistan's back, and diplomatic engagement with Pakistan and India on an acceptable political and security framework for Afghanistan into the next decade.  NATO force planners then must devise processes to draw down to the residual  U.S./coalition military stabilization forces necessary to stay on for the rest of the decade, enforce this essential Indo-Pakistani framework agreement, and serve as a buttress against points of friction or violence in Afghanistan that could descend into the chaos of a proxy war conflict.   These vital outcomes will require earnest and difficult negotiations with the Pakistanis, Indians, Afghan Taliban, and northern ethnic groups in Afghanistan.   Negotiations focused on these outcomes have not even begun.   It is time that they do.

Dr. Thomas F. Lynch III is Distinguished Research Fellow for South Asia and the Near East at the Center for Strategic Research, part of the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies.  The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

In the January/February 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs, Stanford political scientist Stephen Krasner claims that "current U.S. policy toward Pakistan has failed" and recommends that the United States take a radically different approach: credibly threaten to sever all forms of cooperation, including all U.S. aid - military and civilian - to force Pakistan into cooperating with the United States on security matters. Center for Global Development President Nancy Birdsall responds.

Stephen Krasner ("Talk Tough to Pakistan: How to End Islamabad's Defiance," Jan/Feb 2012) wants to change the Pakistani government's behavior. He argues that its failure to cooperate with the United States on Afghanistan and on terrorism is not due to its weakness as a state. Instead, it is a rational response of Pakistan's military leadership, whose priority is to defend itself against India - with a nuclear deterrent and support for terrorists and the Afghan Taliban.  Therefore, the only way the United States can win cooperation from Pakistan is to threaten "malign neglect"- cut off military and civilian assistance, sever intelligence cooperation, maintain and possibly escalate drone strikes and initiate unilateral cross-border raids.  If that isn't enough, then the U.S. could move on to "active isolation" -- declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, making it a pariah, and impose sanctions.

If only it were this easy.  Krasner fails to mention that the U.S. has tried this approach before.  In the 1990s it cut off military and civilian assistance to Pakistan and imposed sanctions in an effort to dissuade Pakistan from developing a nuclear capability.  We all know how that story ended. But let's suppose this time the threats or the follow-through worked and brought the military and intelligence establishment to heel in Pakistan.  Let's suppose the United States got what it wanted on the security front - helping assure a timely U.S and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. Would that solve the problem Pakistan poses for America's security in the long run?  No.

What Krasner doesn't say is that the U.S. wants something more than compliance from Pakistan's military and intelligence communities with its immediate security needs. The U.S. wants a capable and stable civilian government that plays by the rules of the international community. It wants a democratic state that would not abuse and misuse its nuclear capability and that would find its way to peaceful relations with India. 

In other words the U.S. has a long-run vision for Pakistan, very much in its own interests, as well as a set of short-term demands. In the 2009 Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act (known as Kerry-Lugar Berman, or KLB) Congress recognized the resulting need for a two-track approach.  That legislation made U.S. security assistance (not actually authorized in the legislation) conditional on Pakistani cooperation on security matters. But its fundamental purpose, and the money it authorized for civilian aid, was the rebuilding of a serious partnership with the civilian government and the people of Pakistan. With KLB as the framework, since 2009 the Obama Administration has engaged fully with the civilian government and with civil society and private sector leaders in Pakistan on a range of issues -- energy,  water, agriculture, macroeconomic issues, private investment and trade. 

In short, the purpose of U.S. civilian aid to Pakistan is to help build a better state. It is not to bribe or reward the "government" (neither the military nor the civilian leadership).  Withholding military aid would likely not punish the military anyway. It would, however, reduce the resources available to the civilian government, since the evidence is that the military can get what it wants from the government's overall available resources.  And withholding civilian aid obviously would not punish the military. It would, however, take away a modest tool of America - investing to educate kids, create jobs, and strengthen civil society and representative institutions and thus give Pakistan a better shot at becoming a stable, prosperous and democratic country in the long term. 

There are of course real questions about the effectiveness of U.S engagement with the civilian government - with aid and dialogue - given the prevailing suspicion there of U.S. motives, the inherent difficulties of operating in a complex and insecure environment, and the bureaucratic shortcomings of the U.S. aid system itself. But then those are reasons to put relatively more emphasis on other forms of engagement: trade, investment, and encouraging the normalization of relations with India. They do not warrant bullying the weak civilian government that the U.S. wants to strengthen.

Krasner begins and ends his article by invoking the testimony of former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen during his last appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee.  Krasner is right in pointing out that Mullen was critical of Pakistan's role in supporting extremist organizations and the need to get tough with Pakistan.  Yet, Krasner fails to mention the conclusion Mullen reached in his statement.  Mullen recognized that the U.S. has a variety of objectives in Pakistan and the region, and that by focusing too intensely on short term interests, the U.S. will end up short-changing itself over the long haul: "We must also move beyond counter-terrorism to address long-term foundations of Pakistan's success - to help the Pakistanis find realistic and productive ways to achieve their aspirations of prosperity and security."  Mullen concludes, "Isolating the people of Pakistan from the world right now would be counter-productive."

Nancy Birdsall is the founding president of the Center for Global Development, a Washington, DC based think tank.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated that the United States would take a step back from its combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013.  Newspapers and news shows alike are reporting that this is a major milestone towards ending our decade long war in this troubled country.

This is a significant announcement - but not for the reasons that one might think.

At the strategic level (where heads of state, Foreign Ministers and 4-star generals play), Secretary Panetta's pronouncement will shock no one.  His statement gives voice to what the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is already doing, namely taking the steps needed to end their mission in Afghanistan on 31 December 2014.  To get from here to there, ISAF will transfer lead security responsibility to the Afghans at the Province and District level in a measured fashion - a process that is already underway.  In other words, NATO is already "pulling back" from combat operations.

Where this statement will have impact is - oddly - at the tactical level, where U.S. Combat Brigade Commanders will be compelled to stop taking the lead in fighting the enemy and instead support their Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) counterparts as they assume battlefield responsibility.

And this is important. It may mean the difference between winning and losing.

Left to their own devices, U.S. Army and Marine Colonels - Brigade Commanders in charge of 3,500 men and often given responsibility for one or more of Afghanistan's 34 Provinces - will relentlessly hunt down the Taliban (or Haqqani Network, etc), only nominally bringing their Afghan partners into the process. 

And why should they?  After all, their bosses usually made them responsible for security, governance, development, and rule of law - rating them on the progress that they make in their "battle space." 

To support the efforts of the ANSF instead would require a Brigade Commander to assume risk, as the ANSF:

- may not be there in great numbers;

- may be lead by corrupt or incompetent leaders;

- may not have the staff or battlefield processes to conduct full scale military, police, and civilian operations across the area of a province;

- may not be exceptionally proficient at military or police operations.

The list goes on and on.

So rather than risk failure (and soldiers hate to fail) many (not all) commanders take on the responsibility of fixing and doing everything themselves.

Don't get me wrong - the Afghans are there - but the weight of success or failure seemingly rests on the back of the U.S. commander.

The problem with this is that if the U.S. Brigade Commander succeeds, he also fails. 

Because in this counterinsurgency, the only way you ever really move towards a "win" is if you enable the Afghans in their efforts to foster security, governance, development and the rule of law in a way that makes their efforts sustainable - meaning that after we leave, the Afghans can secure their gains and hopefully make even more progress.

But to do that, you have to back away and put the ANSF and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) in the lead. You have to let them feel the weight of the responsibility of success or failure.  You cannot do it for them.

And that is why Secretary Panetta's statement is important.

In the coming year, field commanders will be told that their main responsibility is not to ensure that "they" make progress in "their" province, but rather that they support their ANSF and GIRoA counterparts' progress.  U.S. units will go from being supported by the Afghan military to supporting the Afghan military. 

Nuanced? Sort of.  But to a military commander, this results in a change of mission and a change in mindset.

As an example, it will affect how a commander prepares his forces for their mission in Afghanistan. Instead of conducting pre-deployment training that focuses on unilateral or even partnered combat and counterinsurgency operations, the commander will have to get serious about training for Security Force Assistance (SFA), a mission set that involves training, advising and assisting the military and police forces of a Host Nation.

We may even start to see units arrive in Afghanistan that have been cobbled together to conduct SFA.  These units might include officers and enlisted men who speak Dari or Pashtu and are experienced in training Host Nation forces and delivering critical enablers such as air support, medical evacuation and advanced communications.  (Sadly, the spadework necessary to determine what an effective Advisory and Assistance element will look like has not yet been done.  There are some models in practice that are less than optimal; and there are some rather good ideas floating around out there; but the SFA model that will best allow the coalition to manage the transition from combat to an advisory and assistance role has yet to be solidified.  Expect added pressure to the Department of Defense to figure this out in the wake of Secretary Panetta's proclamation.)

To be sure, there are commanders out there who get it.  At the strategic level, General Allen, the Commander of ISAF, and his team certainly do.  And at the tactical level, I can point to old hands like former Task Force Yukon's commander COL Mike Howard and newer ones like Task Force Duke's COL Chris Toner (both of whom patrolled the environs of Khost Province near the Afghan/Pakistan border) who have taken the steps needed to make sure that the Afghans in their area of operations are prepared to take the lead.  But not all have changed the cognitive gears necessary to ensure ANSF and GIRoA success.

So at the end of the day, the Secretary's announcement may not seem like news to a lot of people who live and breathe Afghanistan.  But his statement is welcomed in that it requires a needed change of mindset for those Brigade Commanders who will be tasked with making strategic statements work at the tactical level.

Roger D. Carstens is a retired Special Forces officer who served in Afghanistan from 2009 - 2011 as the Senior Civilian Advisor on the COMISAF Advisory and Assistance Team.

Insurgency and counterinsurgency have become topics of great debate recently. The end of our adventure in Iraq, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the hovering budget axe have created a perfect storm in the defense establishment as competing worldviews, ideologies, and interests jostle for position in the post-Global War on Terror years. The debate over counterinsurgency has become particularly heated, as various parties not only conduct a postmortem on the tactics and operational art of recent conflicts, but also seek to find closure (and perhaps fault for mistakes made and incredible losses of life and treasure over the last decade). The wounds, real and recent, inject vitriol to the debate.

More importantly, however, the tactical focus of the debate mirrors the incredible myopia of our conduct of these wars. The most astute participants in these debates understand that our errors start and end at the strategic level, but this is often lost in the fray. What are not discussed sufficiently, if at all, are the bureaucratic and political determinants of strategy and policy failure and success. Before arguing about counterinsurgency as a tactic or a strategy, we must first acknowledge a key point: America did not enter any of these wars (going back to Vietnam) as a counterinsurgent or a nation-builder. America entered these wars with ill-defined strategic goals, the result of lowest common denominator bureaucratic negotiations. These goals were not sufficiently thought out, clearly stated, or properly subscribed to by the government writ large, resulting in nearly immediate drift. This fact should point us toward the true roots of the problem.

When it comes to small wars, American national security decision-making institutions predispose the nation to failure. America tends to involve itself in conflicts with insufficient resources and ill-defined aims, expand its commitments based on continually changing policies, and run out of public support before these adventures have run their course. This familiar trajectory has played out most prominently, and tragically in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  But the model applies to many smaller interventions, such as those in Somalia in the 1990s and Lebanon in the 1980s, as well. This tragic arc results in large part from the interaction between the messy reality of bureaucratic and domestic political wrangling. And while the military professes detachment from politics, military leaders are charged with advocating policy in their role as military advisors to civilian leaders and public figures in an age of immediate, global media coverage. Thus, military plans are created without considering the political realities that will shape their implementation and are doomed to failure once churned through the sausage machine that is government. 

Adding to the confusion is that the barrier to entry in these "small wars" is relatively low.  Combat power stands ready in the form of an unparalleled, standing volunteer military with nearly instant global reach. As long as no significant reserve call-up or economic mobilization is needed, the commander-in-chief is relatively unhindered in committing this force to combat.  Despite the War Powers Act of 1973, the constitutional validity of which no President has ever acknowledged, Presidents have been relatively unhindered in initiating hostilities. At the same time, the widely accepted "end of history" worldview of policy elites of all stripes (here I refer not only to Fukuyama's work, but the much broader legacy reaching back to Hegel, Kant, and even St. Augustine) gives American policy a liberal interventionist bent. This narrative suggests that sovereignty can (and in some cases must) be abrogated in order to set states on the road to liberal democracy and thus a peaceful "end of history." While America's professional volunteer military is removed from politics, its narratives as a "Global Force for Good" and the nation's "Force in Readiness," for example, predispose leaders to liberal interventionist impulses. In any case, when policy-makers ask military advisors what can be done to deal with a given problem, these action-oriented people are loath to say there are no good military options.

Thus, for all the stock elites put in the democratic peace theory, the United States enters small wars by fiat, sidestepping the democratic peace theory's prediction that democracies will eschew war to solve their problems. The President is torn between the dictates of national security, the cautions of domestic politics, and the often expansive outlooks of policy advisors.  The imperative to "do something" is often strong, but so is the imperative to retain freedom of action by keeping the opening gambit low. While the military has an incentive to reduce operational risk by opening as decisively as possible (think "shock and awe"), military leaders are often quite optimistic about their ability to use technology and tactics, especially overwhelming air and missile capabilities, to offset the risk presented by low force levels. Faced with these competing imperatives, the negotiations of the President, the military, Congress, and the other elements of the national security decision-making apparatus result in a lowest common denominator solution.  Despite these constraints, once we cross the Rubicon, decision-makers' mindsets make a switch to a more aggressive, optimistic, and risk-accepting mode: if we are going to implement the plan, we must implement it aggressively and we will prevail.  This implemental mindset results in accepting minimalist options with optimistic assumptions. 

The effect of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 on the diversity of military advice plays into these negotiations, as well. In making the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the singular voice of military advice to the President, the act made dissent far more difficult. While the legislation specifies that service chiefs may register dissenting opinions, the reality of bureaucratic politics is such that dissent may be unwelcome, especially as people switch into an implemental mindset. Additionally, the act removes the chairman and the Joint Chiefs from the operational chain of command, which runs from the President, through the Secretary of Defense, to the combatant commander. These issues played out in the run-up to war in Iraq in 2003. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Central Command Commander General Tommy Franks were happy with a transformational, light-footprint invasion of Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Meyers, an Air Force officer, agreed with the "shock and awe" campaign design and its transformational light footprint. Only Gen Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the Army, publically disagreed during Congressional testimony, suggesting that a much larger footprint of several hundred thousand troops was required to deal with the aftermath of regime decapitation.  Shinseki's testimony was disavowed by the administration and he soon retired, but subsequent events would suggest that more attention should have been paid to this dissenting view.

Bureaucratic and political factors are driven well into the background when the gravity of the situation and the dictates of core national interest illuminate the way ahead. For example, the attack on Pearl Harbor turned skepticism about U.S. involvement in the Second World War into virtually universal agreement on decisive commitment and, ultimately, unconditional victory. In more peripheral cases, such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other small wars, bureaucratic and political factors are far more likely to be dominant.

What is more, the general public is less informed and aware of the issues surrounding these small wars, leading to passivity. These factors predispose a low level of commitment sold to the public by understating the likely costs and overstating the prospects for success. In small wars, the press transmits this overselling to foreign audiences, severely impairing the messaging required to "win hearts and minds." Almost inevitably, escalation is soon required. The state sheepishly returns to the populace again and again to explain the new way ahead and to ask for more time, more resources, and more patience. This sales method ensures that policies change frequently and desperately, with each shift in course seemingly based on a previous failure. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, said as much of perceptions of Vietnam policy. There should be little wonder in the fact that the populace begins to lose patience and register its discontent. This, after all, is what the democratic peace theory is all about. Democratic nations are not fond of protracted wars they can avoid.

Once the public begins to wake to the level of commitment being made without their informed consent (it is important here to note that this is not only due to the manipulations of the political class, but to the apathy of a public not invested materially or personally in the wars America has fought recently), the clamor for accountability and withdrawal is inevitable. This adds to the disparate forces pulling policy in different directions and is the root of the now-familiar strategic drift.  While the tactical, cultural, and historical circumstances of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are quite different, the policy muddle has been quite consistent.

The problem is that even if consensus could be reached regarding how to conduct small wars, these steps would likely not be faithfully implemented. The mistakes we make in these wars, after all, are not for a lack of knowledge, but an inability to produce coherent and logical strategy and policy due to the inherent defects and conflicts in our national security decision-making bureaucracy. In an ideal world, we would be able to use diplomatic and military instruments to predictably manage complex human interactions. Even with perfect institutions and unitary, enlightened decision-making, this would be a questionable prospect at best. Given the inherent tensions built into America's institutions, the ability to successfully wage small wars of peripheral interest is nil. It took months, if not years, for these institutions to admit that America was even facing an insurgency in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, much less begin to implement a strategy designed to counter the roots of these insurgencies.

Given this analysis, the most logical way to deal with this conundrum is to raise the bar for entry into conflict. If American leadership is forced to make a more honest accounting of the costs, it will enter fewer conflicts. While perceptions of natural interest can be manipulated, those conflicts entered after truly counting the costs are likelier to be of greater interest to the nation, and the nation will, in theory, provide something much closer to the ways and means required to meet the desired ends.

As George Kennan wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1985, "A first step along the path of morality would be the frank recognition of the immense gap between what we dream of doing and what we really have to offer, and a resolve, conceived in all humility, to take ourselves under control and to establish a better relationship between our undertakings and our real capabilities."

Politicians and the American public are today far more acutely sensitive to budgetary issues than they were a decade ago, which may make them more cautious about the propensity of mission creep in the future. However, while this mindset may circumscribe the ways and means, the ends sought are, if anything, more expansive than ever before. The liberal ideals of the postwar order, the quest for the end of history in a utopia of democratic peace, and the imperative of human rights and dignity have policymakers turning more frequently to military force to remake societies and politics. This abrogation of sovereignty in the pursuit of universal ideals harks back to the pre-Westphalian wars of religion, which explains some of the fervor behind conflict today. Strategic thinkers both inside and outside the military must give more consideration to the constraints laid out here, rather than assuming or wishing away their crippling effects. This is not an invitation for the military to become involved in politics, but only to understand and account for how politics will affect their freedom of action. Ignoring these effects is like ignoring the terrain or weather, marching thousands of miles into a barren plain while ignoring the reality that winter is soon to come.

Peter J. Munson is a Marine officer, Editor of Small Wars Journal, and the author of Iraq in Transition: The Legacy of Dictatorship and the Prospects for Democracy. The views here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Marine Corps or Department of Defense.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan is batting to strike out two major "conventional" political parties -- the leftist Pakistan People's Party and the conservative Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz -- simultaneously. He talks about eradicating corruption, handling the grievances of the Baloch and the tribal areas, "friendliness" as the ultimate foreign policy, and his plans to combat four of Pakistan's biggest "emergencies" in 90 days, should his party, Tehreek-e Insaf, win Pakistan's general elections planned for 2013.

Massive public turnout at his rallies -- what he calls a "tsunami" of support -- has inspired self-doubt among other politicians who claim to have captured the hearts of Pakistani people. But Khan's critics are unforgiving; some call his approach radical, and others believe he is backed by the establishment, although Khan dismisses such claims. Kiran Nazish talked with Khan about his meteoric rise and his plans to achieve what he calls "the New Pakistan."

Kiran Nazish: You have been talking a lot about leading a civil disobedience movement, but it hasn't happened yet. Will it happen at all?

Imran Khan: We have thought many times [that we might] go for it, but we have been reluctant to initiate because we do not want to exaggerate the chaos that has already shaken Pakistan. There was a point when we used to discuss amongst ourselves, that we should really commence the movement, but we refrained because we knew that it would only worsen the situation for the common man. However, if we do see the state of governance in the current regime getting out of hand, we would have no other choice but to go for it.

If the current government does anything unconstitutional, my party will boycott that and protest that. I am and will stand against anybody who goes against the judiciary or does not respect the judiciary. Anyone includes everyone. These few thieves [the politicians] have looted billions from the poor nation, and to save their own wealth they are now after the only sovereign institution [the Supreme Court].

KN: You keep calling the current government corrupt, making aggressive statements regarding the government-Supreme Court rift. But this government got elected democratically. Isn't that like saying you are against the people's choice?

IK: If you read Condoleezza Rice's books, she has exhaustively explained how the U.S. worked with Benazir Bhutto and General [Pervez] Musharraf to form their own type of puppet government. Now this government is responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and soldiers who have been killed in [the war on terror].

With the extent of corruption that this government has been indulging in, it was inevitable that they had this clash with the Supreme Court. The day the Supreme Court had called the NRO [National Reconciliation Ordinance] government unconstitutional, it was decided right then that this government couldn't have survived a good relation with [the Supreme Court]. Sadly, we have had no genuine opposition in this country. [There might have been] an opposition within parliamentary members who could have stood up and questioned the government, but that did not happen. The government did not resign, and everyone else was busy trying to save democracy -- while of course the government was trying to save their corruption.

The Supreme Court of any state [is the institution that should have] the highest reliance and authority. Such an institution in a democratic state has no [ground for] military intervention and has the highest power to launch a control system for the corrupt actions, or a corrupt state. If and when any other democratic institution fails to perform, the Supreme Court can control them and make them accountable. No one can challenge the Supreme Court. Our government, on the other hand, is a corrupt government. I reject calling it a democratic state, it having laid its foundations on the basis of a corrupt engagement called the NRO.

KN: So how do you plan to protect the Supreme Court?

IK: Now the Supreme Court is openly attacked and insulted, which I hope you agree is not a democratic act. Should we let the corrupt government spoil the first independent chief justice in the Supreme Court? I don't think so. We will decide in our party central executive committee meeting soon when we will draft a plan and later present it. This presentation will have guidelines on how to protect the system and the judiciary from an imposed failure.

KN: How do you think this idea of civil disobedience can save democracy?

IK: There is just one thing that I suggest, a singular solution, which is something the Supreme Court has also suggested. And that is: go to the people -- which means, we should have free and fair elections, and let the people decide their true, democratic leader.

KN: What would you say about the "Memogate" crisis?

IK: If at any point the government fears military takeover, it should act with maturity not impunity. A democratic government needs to go to the people, not to outsiders. This happened twice in our country. In 1999, according to [counterterrorism expert and former CIA analyst] Bruce Riedel, [former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz] Sharif went to him and asked him to save him from the military. And now we have this memogate [with Adm. Mike Mullen and former Pakistani Ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani].

A democratic government should never fear, and needs to take responsibility. I take responsibility! Whoever takes responsibility, it will be very difficult for them. When I take responsibility, I will need authority as well. If I don't get that authority, I will go back to the people. The people who elected me! I will never [put] a foreign agenda [ahead of] my own people. I will not go to the U.S. for help -- or anywhere else for that matter.

KN: Are you ready for the elections if they take place sooner?

IK: We are ready for elections anytime. Our entire party will be ready, whether the elections happen now or later. We have been talking about mid-term elections since the NRO cases came out in the open, and yet were dismissed in the Supreme Court by the government. But it seems that at that time the N-League [Nawaz Sharif's party] wanted to save the system. We have been ready, and now we think we should have early elections. We will reveal our action plan soon.

Whatever happens and whenever the elections take place, PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] will sweep the elections. We can't be confident enough.

KN: You have been making too many promises. What would you do if you are unable to handle things, if and when you come into power?

IK: I am completely confident; I will not fail at anything. My party will not fail. I will change the entire system in 90 days. If the system is not corrected in 90 days, it will never be corrected at all.

I believe there is a proper way to handle every institution. The only way to run a government appropriately is when the institutions are strong and work under a system of accountability and in synchrony. We need to restore the institutions.

I have a well-thought-out plan to change the system in 90 days. When a country loses its ethical leadership, that is when its physical leadership takes over. This means if your democratic government fails, your army will take over. We need to ensure that point doesn't come. And I take that responsibility.

KN: What role do you want to give to the army? How much intervention will you allow?

IK: In a democratic government, the power is held by the state head. Every policy is supposed to be made by the government and not the army. Foreign policy is the job of the democratic government and not the army. Why is the army controlling the war on terror? I will never understand.

I am against military takeover or any sort of military intervention, to any extent at all, in any capacity at all. Pakistan needs democracy and public political participation without any sort or form of authoritative control.

It's the responsibility of the civilian government to take control of state matters, especially those which have to do with state's sovereignty. I don't think I will be so lousy that the army would have to make my decision[s].

KN: And how would your civil military policy balance out?

IK: No aid, proper taxation, and proper division of resources are my major strategies to balance out the whole system. We can't free the people until we give them what they want. We need to identify the needs of this country and focus on that. Why would the military intervene if the democratic government is operating in harmony and giving the people what they want? My goal is to bring that harmony. Everything else will fall into place on its own.

KN: What's your policy on the U.S.?

IK: Friendly! Look, we don't want to make any enemies. My nation and my people is my priority. I will do whatever is my people's priority. The war on terror was fought for dollars, and do you see what lesson we learn from it? The lesson is, to not fight the war for dollars. The lesson is, to not disadvantage your own people, to feed your government. We don't want dollars if they will overshadow our people's interest.

KN: What's your policy on Israel?

IK: Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, wrote a letter to Harry S. Truman talking about the injustices done to the people. Every Pakistani stands by that letter. We stand by the one simple fact that Palestinians should be given their homeland. PTI is not against any people, we are with the people. We believe in human rights, and that is our ultimate stance.

KN: What's your policy on the India-Kashmir conflict?

IK: We will definitely try to work our way around our relationship with India. India is indeed our closest and most familiar neighbor. We would love to improve trade and other interactions.

The only problem with India is that there has to be a road map. Once we figure that out, we will know how to go about it too. We will try to work on the Kashmir issue with whatever mutuality allows us to. But it is very important to note that we cannot ignore Kashmir. Or else, if another Mumbai happens, we will be back to square one.

KN: How do you plan to deal with the militants or Jihadis?

IK: We have learned that proxy policies don't work. To keep militant groups is not the idea we should follow and is certainly not the strategy I support or will follow. In Karachi when the Supreme Court did the hearing, they found out the three major parties had hired militant groups to escalate their fights. We can't let such things happen. People get hurt.

We need to do a truth and reconciliation strategy in the tribal areas. Why should we keep fighting? Wars don't achieve anything. We are having a dialogue as we speak. Americans are having a dialogue, and we need to do this too. So far, since the dialogue has been initiated by the U.S. and ourselves, haven't you noticed how militancy and bombing has come down significantly?

KN: You have conducted dharnas (sit-in boycotts) against drone strikes, and protested against the government's act of carrying them out. But the U.S. and Pakistan governments say that they are efficient in targeting the Taliban.

IK: Drones can never be good. Like I said, war is never good for people. Give me one example of war that has reconciled a nation or brought peace. There is no possibility that drones can help these people. What kind of country or nation gives permission to another country to have drones attacks within their country. What kind of country takes money to kill their own wives and children? This is a corrupt government with greedy leadership, and drones for them is a mere barter for dollars and luxury. Therefore, it supports these drones. An honest government should think about the people. If this government had any honesty, it would have come up with alternative strategies.

KN: What's your vision for Pakistan?

IK: First, we need to understand what kind of country we want. Pakistan should be an Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which should follow the Objectives Resolution, something every political party of the country has endorsed, at all times: the ideology of the Quaid [Muhammad Ali Jinnah] -- who is my greatest inspiration -- and the ideology of Iqbal when he spoke about spiritual democracy. No one must bow down to anyone who speaks against the interest of the people.

We will declare four major emergencies. First and foremost, the education system.. There must be one core system of education, with a singular syllabus. A proper syllabus committee will be established. It will be ensured that there are equal opportunities for everyone and equal competition for everyone. Equip the people with a technical education.

Nothing can be done if there is [no] rule of law. We will also strengthen the judiciary and the police system. We will de-politicize the police, step out of the war on terror, and invest [our] time and resources on internal system cleansing. Revenue collection is next. We need to establish [a better] tax culture and eradicate contamination in tax distribution. And the most important agenda is to control corruption. Conflict of interest law will be established. This all needs to be done in 90 days. If you cannot do it in 90 days, the corrupt system will come back.

KN: How will you change Pakistan in 90 days, when the environment is conducive to the contrary of your agenda of filtration and cleansing?

IK: We need to create good governance and an enabling environment for good people who want to work. I will work towards attracting overseas Pakistanis and make it feasible for them to work here. Once that environment is created, recovery will automatically be on its way. 

We will support professional politicians who will be ready to make sacrifices and compromises to take politics seriously. There is no room for opportunity seekers and no room for corruption and the corrupt. I will support and invest in the process of strengthening the NAB [National Accountability Bureau]. I will ensure the judiciary is strong. 

KN: Your critics find it amusing that you talk about asset declaration while there is a bandwagon of politicians joining your party simultaneously -- many of whom you have criticized in the past. How do you justify that when you talk about accountability?

IK: I'm not going to be hijacked by a few people. When someone joins PTI, the first step for them is to declare their assets. If they default, they are held by our accountability committee. The corrupt system has to change. I believe that if you cannot do it in 90 days, you will never be able to do it. It's basically the question of who has the will. It's not what we have to do; it's who wants to do it.

KN: People of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA] and Balochistan have been secluded by the state for six decades. You say you plan to accommodate them. How would you do that, given their hostility?

IK: We will have a completely new relationship with the people of FATA and Balochistan and Gilgit. We will sit with them. We will mutually explore which laws they want to keep. We will try to develop mutual understanding on every matter that concerns them. A PTI government will execute massive development in FATA and Balochistan. We will try our best to ensure that the grievances of the people, of the common man, in any area, from any background, are not ignored. We will engage with every single Pakistani and ensure everyone gets their basic rights. Their right for food, employment, education, equity, and human rights. And we will do all this by good governance.

The way Pakistan is run should be changed, that's what I mean by a New Pakistan.

Kiran Nazish is a journalist, activist, and academic based in Pakistan. She can be followed on Twitter @kirannazish.

For a fallen figure -- one reduced to self-imposed exile in Dubai and London, and dismissed by many as apolitical has-been -- Pervez Musharraf sure is hogging an impressive share of the spotlight.

In late 2010, after announcing (from London) the formation of his new political party, the All Pakistan Muslim League (APML), and revealing his intention to return to Pakistan to contest the 2013 elections, the former president and army chief hit the lecture circuit. In Washington, he spoke to beyond-capacity and often supportive crowds. Watching him glad hand and back slap people outside the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington last July, after having delivered an address to hundreds of people, I was struck by his resemblance to a U.S. political candidate.

Read on

In this month's issue of FHM India, an international men's magazine, Pakistani actress Veena Malik made worldwide headlines with a risqué nude photo shoot. While much of the attention has been on what Malik wasn't wearing, one of the most powerful elements of her photo shoot was what she was sporting: a big, bold tattoo on her left arm, stating very simply, "ISI," for Pakistani's secretive Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

The cover headline: "Pakistani W.M.D. Veena Malik Shows You How to Throw a Grenade!" 

Indeed, the cover has been explosive; PakAlertPress.com, for instance splashed a headline on its blog: "India and Pakistan Are Going Nuclear Over Provocative Political Tattoo." And the photo has elicited a furious reaction in Pakistan's media and in its living rooms.[[Break]]

In one fell swoop, the enormous tattoo on a bare woman's body managed to demystify, emasculate and parody the ISI -- something most people have been afraid to do in public since the inception of the agency a year after the birth of the nation in 1947. Founded with a mission of coordinating intelligence in the country after Pakistan's loss to India in the 1947 war in Kashmir, the agency has become a feared, though privately mocked, enterprise, its hands allegedly in every back-room Pakistani deal; rigging elections, training militants for battle in India and Afghanistan, and monitoring its own citizens. The tattoo's location on Malik's body takes on special meaning in light of retired Adm. Mike Mullen's statement in September that the militant Haqqani Network, considered by most Western analysts and experts to be based in the tribal areas of Pakistan, is a "veritable arm" of the ISI. 

All the while, the ISI works in the cloak of darkness. In 2002, when I was trying to find my kidnapped Wall Street Journal colleague Daniel Pearl, I met an ISI officer in my living room in Karachi who acknowledged his employer, but introduced himself as "Major." "Major what?" I asked. "Major Major," he said. Nice. Really helpful.

***

To scholars on Pakistan, the ISI tattoo is emblematic of an important new civil discourse occurring in Pakistan over issues that were formerly taboo, such as the role of the ISI in society. Hassan Abbas, the author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America's War on Terror, about growing militancy in Pakistan, said new media freedoms are eliciting rich debate in the country on deep, contested issues "such as the role of religion in society and the interference of the military in political arena." He adds, "These issues are being openly debated in Pakistan, and that is, overall, a healthy development."

Kabeer Sharma, editor of FHM India, says the ISI tattoo was meant to be a sardonic reflection of India's own conspiracy theories about the intelligence agency. "In India, you say, 'The milk has gone bad. The ISI did it,' They blame all of their problems on ISI," says Sharma.

Sharma, the son of an Indian satirist and New Delhi bookstore owner, says that a dilemma on the subcontinent is that folks don't laugh enough over the absurdities of politics. "The problem," he says, "is that we all blame our problems on this imaginary force. Who is this ISI?" Meanwhile, on the Pakistan side, everything is blamed on RAW. "We collectively have no sense of humor. We have no sense of irony," he says.

As a media image, the Malik photo was a genius expression of a real counterculture movement taking root in Pakistan, taking a dig at the secretive "Major Major" culture of the ISI, by literally exposing the agency -- and by extension, the government -- to the light of day, if just in a simple tattoo. (Malik says that the photo was altered, and both Malik and FHM are engaged in a legal battle over the issue.)

While a Pakistani newspaper said the country "yawns"at the Malik photo, it chronicled columns, commentaries and jokes circulating in the nation, including one that goes like this: "Her arm says ISI but the picture is RAW," a reference to India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing.

But this isn't just a conspiracy hatched in India (though the magazine was produced there), feeding the siege mentality behind so much of the rhetoric in Pakistan. In a country where the "ghairat brigade," or honor squad, of talking heads takes regularly to the airwaves to defend Pakistan's honor against enemies -- perceived and imagined -- the photo shoot was a victory for a new movement that is emerging in Pakistan: the beghairat brigade, or the squad "without honor," or more aptly the "shameless brigade." 

To many, the beghairat brigade offers a counter to the conspiracy theories that so permeate debates in Pakistan. Josh White, a scholar on Pakistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace, says, "I think the significance of the small but interesting beghairat movement is that it is trying to forge a way of being genuinely nationalistic without accepting the narrative that all of Pakistan's problems are the result of someone else's meddling."

Malik and her generation in Pakistani society illustrate a deeper battle that is playing out in Pakistan and Muslim communities on issues of honor, or ghairat, and shame, called sharam. Flagging this evolution, the acerbic Pakistani columnist Nadeem Paracha wrote earlier this year, "Goodbye ghairat."

With a sense of wit, irony and humor, the beghairat brigade offers the nation an opportunity to expunge itself of the corrosive relationship with traditional honor-shame culture, by challenging the warped sense of honor and dishonor that has defined much of the country's ethos on issues from corruption to nuclear non-proliferation, "honor killings" of women and men, homegrown militant networks, and the ISI. And the beghairat's work is rooted in Pakistani tradition with sardonic 20^th century writers such as Saadat Hasan Manto, the author of the must-read book, Letters to Uncle Sam, and a favorite of Malik's.

The Pakistani military's public relations office reportedly sent a text message to local journalists from the Pakistani grousing that the photo was "the height of humiliation for Pakistan, done by a Pakistani on Indian soil." In a Pakistani socialists' listserv, one Pakistani writer, giving the ISI acronym new meaning, wrote, tongue-in-cheek,"Is this part of a grand conspiracy to implicate the great International Soldiers of Islam (ISI) in a controversy by the enemies of Islam...." If so, he joked, "every soldier of Islam would be eyeing to be part of the investigation team."

What is ironic is that while there have been calls to revoke Malik's Pakistani citizenship (rejected, fortunately, by the courts), there are some less-than-exemplary characters who have been lauded in the country by the "ghairat brigade." For instance, Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, is considered a victim by many in Pakistan, despite having confessed to the crime for which he has been imprisoned, the attempted murder of a number of innocents.

Then there is A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who signed a confession in 2004 that he gave nuclear secrets to the North Koreans, Iran and Libya, in violation of international nonproliferation agreements; he was pardoned, and today he is a hero in the country. Years ago, Pakistanis took to the streets when American agents caught and extradited Mir Amal Kansi, a Pakistani who shot and killed CIA employees in 1993 as they sat in their cars at a traffic light in Langley, Va. And, then, lest we forget, there is the serious homegrown militancy problem of a Punjabi Taliban and a Pakistani Taliban that includes tens of thousands of militant soldiers, based on many estimates, freely living in the country without much harassment.

Finally, there is Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani MIT graduate known as "Lady al-Qaeda." She was convicted last year in a U.S. court for attempting to shoot a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, but, in a country where the average income is about $450 a year, the government of Pakistan allocated some $2 million for her defense, and Pakistanis in the "Free Aafia" movement march regularly on the streets. 

Deborah Scroggins, a journalist and author of the provocative forthcoming book, Wanted Women: Faith, Lies and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui, says, "If Aafia Siddiqui is Pakistan's 'daughter of the nation,' Veena Malik is her perfect alter ego. The 'ghairat brigade' holds up Aafia as the symbol of Pakistan victimized by the West. Veena mocks their pretentions to purity and challenges their obsession with sex."

Scroggins lays out the contrast that is symbolic of the divide that has engulfed Pakistan: Born in 1972, Siddiqui comes from the rigid, puritantical, Deobandi interpretation of Islam, and came of age during the 1980s, when jihad was celebrated in Pakistan as the source of the great defeat over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. "She's revered by the 'ghairat brigade' because although she went to the U.S. to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brandeis University, she never 'went over to the other side,' so to speak" Scroggins adds. "She never stopped raising money for jihad. She continued to view the U.S. as the enemy of Pakistan and of Muslims. When she was captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan's right-wing pundits and politicians rushed to accuse the country's democratically elected government of selling her to the U.S. in exchange for money, even though there was no evidence that the government had anything to do with it."  

Born in 1984, "Veena is a symbol of another Pakistan, one that has existed since the founding of the state, but that we've seen less and less of with the rise of Islamization," says Scroggins. "It's an irreverrant, mocking, creative, secular Pakistan -- the voice of writers and poets like Ahmed Faiz," a biting 20th century intellectual. "Unfortunately it tends to be confined to the upper classes and is very much under threat these days," she says. 

Both Malik and Siddiqui "broke the rules about the way Pakistani women are supposed to behave," Scroggins says. Siddiqui was divorced from her doctor husband and remarried a younger man, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, another 9/11 facilitator. Her activities endangered her children; she was caught shooting at a U.S. soldier. "But she is forgiven for all of that because Pakistanis believe she did it for Pakistan and Islam," says Scroggins. "It's assumed that Veena, on the other hand, is only having her nude picture taken for money. And that's the way the ‘ghairat brigade' always portrays the motives of Pakistan's secularists."  

Aisha Chowdhry, a 24-year-old Pakistani-American journalist who produced a documentary, "Inside the Tinder Box," about Pakistan, says the Malik cover, whether nude as it appeared or topless, as Malik insists the photo was originally, "should not come as a surprise" to those watching the counterculture movement in Pakistan. "Art always has been a way for Pakistanis to showcase how they feel," she says. "Today, there are songs criticizing the government, paintings depicting terrorism in Pakistan, and now a racy photo of one of the country's most famous models with an ISI tattoo."

Chowdhry says, "In a country where journalists get killed if they dare to investigate sensitive issues, music videos and plays are one of the few ways to connect the young generation with what is going on in their country, and maybe even make a positive change someday."

In a piece on al-Jazeera before the Malik controversy, Syed Ali Abbas Zaida, founder of the Pakistan Youth Alliance, asked, "Can the youth of Pakistan inspire change and turn into pro-active citizens who agree to disagree peacefully?" The next month, the aptly-named band "Beghairat Brigade," uploaded its catchy new tune, "Aalu Anday" (or "Eggs and Potatoes"), calling out the politicians and military for their ineptitude in running the country. 

Pakistani singer Ali Azmat just put out a new song, "Bomb Phata," ("Bomb Exploded"), that chronicles the major actors that play a part in Pakistan's instability, from President Asif Ali Zardari to army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. It speaks to the daily worries about electricity and food shortages that vex Pakistanis while bombs explode in Lahore, Karachi, and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

And people regularly slam the government's inability to contain the domestic terrorism that is striking the country. This year, Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi won a prestigious award for his art installation, "Blessings upon the land of my love," describing his work as showing "the bloody aftermath of a bombing."

Malik's photo is a little more subtle, but in its nuance, it's likely to become an iconic symbol of a moment when one Pakistani decided to, quite literally and shamelessly, strip bare the truth of how institutions in Pakistan, are focused on the wrong priorities. "My dear patriots, there are far graver issues than this which need your serious consideration," wrote Pakistani economist and writer Raza Habib Raja, after the photo spread earned the rancor of the honor brigade. "The biggest issue is perhaps your screwed up mind set which gets riled up on these trivialities while completely ignoring much serious problems like rising extremism, sectarian killings and massive inequality."

Raja concluded: "...I loved that ISI tattoo. Now that was really liberating and bold!!!"

Asra Q. Nomani, a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal, is the author of Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam. She teaches journalism at Georgetown University.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the muchneeded conversation over counterinsurgency (COIN) has returned. Ryan Evans' COINis dead, long live the COIN attempts to addto this debate, but his efforts fall short, because he and other COINproponents refuse to understand the underlining flaws in counterinsurgency as astrategy. COIN as a strategy cannot work in today's world, given the currentlimitations in available resources, time, and national will.It was a collection of tactics and operational arts developed for twentiethcentury wars of nationalism and communism. Strategy, defined as the ends, ways,and means of American policy, must rise above a collection of disjointedtactics that have no proven cumulative effect.

Read on

When the U.S. Army and Marine Corps released their FieldManual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, in2006, key military leaders and civilian advisers promised a different kind ofwarfare. Written as Iraq crumbled, the manual institutionalized key tacticaland operational methods that were geared to fighting against irregular armedfoes, rather than the maneuver warfare most of the U.S. military had preferred.The new theory was based around several key principles, including proportionateand precise use of force to minimize civilian casualties, separating insurgentgroups from local populations, protecting populations from the insurgents, theimportance of intelligence-led operations, civil-military unity of effort, andsecurity under the rule of law.

Some of these methods had already been practiced in Iraq byinnovative commanders, but Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the process of writingFM 3-24 and later went on to command U.S. forces in the country, was key to theirinstitutionalization and broad implementation in the context of an overalltheater-level strategy.

As President Barack Obama decided to "surge" forces intoAfghanistan in late 2009, former Joint Special Operations Command head Gen.Stanley McChrystal was tasked to follow the Petraeus playbook in Afghanistan.When he was relieved, Petraeus, the man many saw as having helped bringstability to Iraq, was called upon to do it again in Afghanistan. However,success has eluded the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), whichhas been unableto translate operational progress into strategic success. A number oftriumphant obituaries for counterinsurgency have since emerged, as it becomesclear that the campaign in Afghanistan is failing to deliver on its promises.

There are five inter-related drivers of this cauldron ofdiscontent with COIN: First, the rise of counterinsurgency as a standardpractice in the U.S. military left skeptical American officers and institutionswho preferred emphasizing conventional capabilities (large-scale armoredwarfare, for instance) feeling disenfranchised. Second, the common narrative ofthe war in Iraq viewed (and somestill view) Gen. Petraeus as the hero who brought counterinsurgency (andsubsequently stability) to the country. This narrative alienated some officerswho had already been using some counterinsurgency methods effectively beforethe introduction of FM 3-24. Third, among the commentariat, the caustic domestic political divisions from thefirst phase of the Iraq War, divisions that were aggravated in the lead-up tothe Afghan "surge", remain unhealed. Fourth, the military officers and thinktank scholars who became most closely associated with COIN's rise developed apartially-deserved reputation for cliquishness, self-reference, and conceit.And finally, there has been a dearth of clarity on the goals of the Afghancampaign on the policy and strategy levels.

Col. Gian Gentile (who represents the first, second, andfinal strands of anti-counterinsurgency discontent) presents one of his standardarguments in "COINis Dead: U.S. Army Must Put Strategy Over Tactics." He argues the UnitedStates military has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq because it allowed afascination with the tactical and operational methods of COIN to supersedeimplementation of an actual strategy in those conflicts. In fact, looking atoperations in Iraq and Afghanistan for lessons is a fundamentally misguidedventure, he argues. Rather, we can only view our experiences of the lastdecade as lessons in failure and return to embracing our conventionalcapabilities.

Others are preoccupied with the political battles behind counterinsurgency.Michael Cohen, a vocal critic ofthe war in Afghanistan, refusesto acknowledge that counterinsurgency lessons are worth keeping andinstitutionalizing until advocates of the population-centric approach inAfghanistan "loudly acknowledge - indeed even shout to the hills - that everytime someone recommends fighting a counterinsurgency this is [a] really,really, really bad idea...." This seems akin to arguing that we cannot updateour doctrine on nuclear warfare, expeditionary warfare, and other capabilitiesthat are far more costly until we "shout to the hills" that to use these wouldbe a "really, really, really bad idea." Advocates of maintaining counterinsurgencycapabilities have been happyto acknowledgethese campaigns tendto be long, hard slogs, but Mr. Cohen's criticism does not address the military'sneed to be able to adapt to contingencies as ordered. We cannot wish away theagency of our enemies.

Still others see those who support counterinsurgency's place inthe toolbox of American power as being part of a new "military-industrialcomplex." Major Mike Few, an armor officer (like Colonel Gentile) and editor ofSmall Wars Journal, arguesthat some think tanks and defense contractors have formed a "cottage industry"that champions counterinsurgency for ego and profit at the cost of "trillionsof dollars, thousands of lives and abandoned security projects elsewhere thatcould have benefited our republic exponentially more..."

For one thing, the weaponssystems, equipment, and capabilities necessary for modern "conventional"campaigns are far more costly and more lucrative for defense contractors (the2009 defense industry-subsidized congressional debateabout the F-22 reminded the world that the original military-industrialcomplex is alive, well, and costing the U.S. taxpayer for over-budget,malfunctioning weapons systems of questionable utility). Further, the use ofconventional capabilities against a major power may well take more militarylives than those we have lost in Iraq andAfghanistan. But this aside, our abilities to conduct counterinsurgencyoperations and major combat operations are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, aspeople like Maj. Few understand, John Nagl's Centerfor a New American Security -- the unnamed bogeyman in his critique andothers -- did not decide to go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nagl was merely oneof many in the U.S. Armed Forces who sought to make the campaigns of twoconsecutive Commanders-in-Chief work.

Indeed, the debate surrounding counterinsurgency has becomehighly personal, emotional, and angry. This has been most recently demonstratedby the snideand personalrejoindersto a recent articleteasing out the lessons of Iraq by Dr.David Ucko of the National Defense University. Increasingly for somecritics of counterinsurgency, their opponents are not just wrong, but immoralliars. Yet for all of the heat this debate, it has produced little substantivediscussion of the future of counterinsurgency after the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, or more broadly the appropriate uses of limited funds andmanpower.

Before declaring the death of counterinsurgency and maligningthose who see value in some of its precepts, analysts should ask if insurgencyis dead. Indeed, the most significant failure of these anti-COIN arguments istheir shared focus on the response to a problem -- counterinsurgency tacticsand strategy -- at the expense of the problem itself. None of these articlesproclaim that "insurgency is dead" because to do so would be absurd. Insurgencylives, and has proven itself throughout history as the best means by which tooppose established political and military power. AsAndrew Exum recently observed, about 80 percent of all conflicts since theend of the Napoleonic Era have been insurgencies or civil wars. Futureinsurgencies are all-but-certain to challenge American interests to the pointthat our civilian political leadership will need to decide if our military willbecome involved in countering them. And if insurgency lives, then so must counterinsurgency.

Critics also make the mistake of particularizing a form of counterinsurgencydesigned during a specific historical period meant to counter a distinctiveform of insurgency known as popularprotracted warfare. If anything, the key failure of counterinsurgency inthe past decade has been the myopic view of the military and key counterinsurgencyproponents that counterinsurgency could only take the form advocated byscholar-practitioners like the French officer David Galula (who developed histheories in Asia before implementing them in Algeria) and the British officerSir Robert Thompson in Malaysia, who were both grappling with different, lessevolved forms of violent struggle than what we have seen in Iraq andAfghanistan. Thus, for critics to proclaim the death of counterinsurgencymakes them guilty of the same error that they often pin on their opponents: relyingon an expired intellectual framework.  

The real question is: what form will American counterinsurgencytake in the future? It seems reasonable to argue that "big footprint," "population-centric"counterinsurgency is dead, but "small footprint" counterinsurgency that focuseson security force assistance, Special Operations, and/or foreign internaldefense lives on (see Yemen,the Philippines,and Somalia).But is it really inconceivable that we will ever again conduct another large-scalepopulation-centric counterinsurgency campaign? Those who think it impossible mightconsider how the United States would respond to violence spilling over theborder from catastrophic state failure and humanitarian crisis in Mexico, forinstance.

As always, our choices will be structured by the agency ofour competitors. Therefore, we would be foolish to avoid learning the tacticaland operational as well as the policyand strategic lessons of the last ten years. We must maintain our capabilities and competencies for counterinsurgency,if only because history has shown that they will come in handy again.

How we do this is what we mustdebate and discuss.

Ryan Evans is anassociate fellow at the International Centre for the Study ofRadicalisation and Political Violence and served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan as a Human Terrain TeamSocial Scientist. The views and opinions expressed here do not represent those of theDepartment of the Army, Training and Doctrine Command, or the Human TerrainSystem.

Two weeks ago, 24-year-old Pakistani-American Jubair Ahmad admittedthat he had been making videos for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) from his Woodbridge,Virginia home under the direction of LeT leader Hafiz Saeed's son Talha. Aroundthe same time, governments on both sides of the Atlantic published findingsinto the link between online activity and terrorism. In the United Kingdom, theHome Office publisheda paper that concluded "the internet does not appear to play a significantrole in AQIR [al Qaeda influenced radicalization]," while in the United States,at a hearing on the Hill, RAND terrorism guru BrianMichael Jenkins concluded that jihadist websites "may create virtualarmies, but these armies remain virtual." But while the link between turningindividuals from passive consumers into active terrorists may be weak, caseslike that of Jubair Ahmad show the important role this virtual army can play inmagnifying the message of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups.

Jubair Ahmed is not the first Western individual who has helpedestablish websites or created video content in support of radical groups. Oneof the earliest was U.K.-based www.azzam.com,established in 1996, which provided a point from which groups in Afghanistanand Chechnya could broadcast their message while also telling potentialrecruits how to contact the groups. In addition, www.azzam.com  (using the moniker Azzam Publications) helpedproduce a series of videos and cassette tapes about the fighting in Bosnia andChechnya that venerated fighters in the field.

By the mid-2000s, the Internet had become a more viablevehicle through which videos could not only be sold, but also streamed anddownloaded. Recognizing the value of getting footage from the field out asquickly as possible, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was at the forefront of a newpractice, turning videos into slick packages that could be uploaded ontoradical forums. But what was most interesting was the revelation in late 2005that British police in London had found a young Moroccan who turned out to be theinfamous online jihadist known as Irhabi007(terrorist007). Using this online handle, Younis Tsoulihad set himself up as a key webmaster and designer for AQI, and was notoriousfor being able to find the webspace needed to publish the grim video Americancontractor Nicholas Berg's beheading.

The novel aspect in Tsouli's case was the fact that AQIleaders noticed his online abilities and started to use him as a key outlet fortheir material. There have been numerous other Western webmasters for importantal-Qaeda linked websites - for example, in Belgium, Malikael-Aroud ran MinbarSoS, a website that provided a forum to recruitFrench-speaking Muslims to fight in Afghanistan. From the sunny Costa Blanca inSpain, FaicalErrai helped run ansaraljihad.net, and provided assistance for radicalsseeking to get to Afghanistan and Chechnya. But Tsouli appears to have been oneof the first Western residents to have been actively solicited by groups in thefield for his technical abilities.

And since Tsouli, we have seen al-Qaeda in the ArabianPeninsula (AQAP) use the skills of a young Pakistani-American radical blogger, SamirKhan, to help them produce Inspiremagazine - a publication that has repeatedly shown up in the hands of recently arrestedterroristplotters. Khan and hisAmerican-Yemeni mentor Anwar al-Awlaki are now both dead, but in a reflectionof the importance that AQAP placed upon al-Awlaki's capacity to reach a Westernaudience through new media, communicationsfound during the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden'sPakistani compound allegedly include an offer from AQAP leader Nasiral-Wuhayshi to put al-Awlaki in charge of the regional group. Bin Ladendeclined the request, possibly highlighting the different level of importancehe placed upon new media capabilities in comparison to his regional affiliateleader.

A particularly surprising aspect of the Jubair Ahmad case isthe volume of micromanagement that Talha Saeed put into creating the video. Hetells Ahmad what images to include (not ones from the group's infamous Mumbaiattack), where to insert images of his father, the LeT leader, and what musicto have over the video. Saeed is obliged to get someone in America to do thetechnical work for him - quite a long distance from which to direct theproduction of a short YouTube video using easily available technology - whichlikely reflects a greater facility with such technology had by people broughtup in the West.

Just how easy it is to create these videos was seen recentlyin a case in the United Kingdom in which a law student, Mohammad Gul,was convicted of producing YouTube videos that glorified terrorist violence.While clearly the technology to make such videos is something that isuniversal, it does seem as though it is aspirant jihadists in the West who findit easiest to use. There was no evidence that Gul was being directed by foreignterrorist organizations to produce his material, and his case shows the continuedexistence of young Westerners producing radical material on their own. It mayindeed be the case that the virtual armies have yet to fully emerge as activewarriors on the battlefield, but in the meantime they are doing a great deal tokeep the jihadist flame alive on the Web, either by themselves or at thedirection of organized parties.

RaffaelloPantucci is an Associate Fellow at the International Center for the Study ofRadicalisation (ICSR) and the author of the forthcoming "We Love Death AsYou Love Life: Britain's Suburban Mujahedeen" (Hurst/Columbia UniversityPress). His writing can be found at: http://www.raffaellopantucci.com.

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.

My article criticizing certain rituals in the Shi'a Muslimtradition in Pakistan's Express Tribune on December 8 spurred a firestorm ofcontroversy, as a number of commentators deemed it inappropriate or worse. Myargument was that religious adherents need to repudiate rituals that infringeon collective rights, and which can escalate sectarian conflict; these includethe rituals during the commemoration of Muharram, that can involve men and evenchildren flagellating  themselves withknives on chains, and processions of bleeding men as a display of adoration forthe martyred Imam Husain (this is byno means reflective of all Shi'a practice, but is widely practiced amongSouth Asian Shi'a).

The controversy grew more intense on Twitter, and evennotable commentators such as NasimZehra asked for an immediate apology from the Tribune on grounds that thearticle was "outrageously offensive."To her credit, Ms. Zehra later noted thatafter the apology the matter should be closed. However, hate mail from all over followed,including several messages to the president of the University of Vermont (whereI teach) asking for my dismissal, a surprising torrent against free speech evenfrom highly educated writers. The university noted that the article was wellwithin the confines of free speech and was in fact condemning violence. Insteadof admonishing me, the university offered me police protection.

Under pressure from sponsors and amid fears that other mediahouses would use this episode to spur a consumer boycott, Tribune decided tofirst edit and then completely remove the article, and noted that I was"banned" from writing in their pages again. My intention was never to rebukeShi'ism itself, but rather such rituals whose practice further leads toacrimony between Shi'a and Sunnis. Furthermore, a ritual with so much bloodbeing spilled in a procession can be a public health issue, and has been repeatedlyquestioned and curtailed in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.

Ireposted the article on my site with a clear apology for specificstatements which were, in retrospect, inflammatory for Pakistan's religioussensibilities. The newspaper's "ban" on my writing was later edited out of the apology statement posted onthe Internet, but this episode left me deeply troubled about the state ofjournalistic independence in Pakistan. The country has a vibrant civil societyand promising career track for journalists and independent writers, but therehas been a rapidrise in abductions and murders of journalists whose views were consideredantithetical to certain religious perspectives.

This episode highlighted for me a larger issue of mediafreedom in a country which often prides itself in having private TV channelswith fiery talk shows blasting politicians. Yet religious debate, often socontentious and even violent in Pakistan, remains off limits. Pakistan as asociety needs to understand that the right to offend in journalism is afundamental right. I don't mind getting hate mail despite the norms of freespeech, but what surprised me was that educated people questioned my right tocriticize a cultural practice by referring to it as "hate speech." I wasrepeatedly asked what my point was if criticism could further cause conflict. Stillanother asked, "could you criticize Jewish rituals the same way in America?" Thiskind of reaction could have taken place in many Muslim societies -- and Sunnisare equally culpable on such matters as Shi'a.

Pakistan's infamous blasphemylaws are a result of exactly this kind of oversensitivity and pattern ofraising ire following any hint of criticism about religious rituals or edicts.The valorization of extreme religious edicts by the State has unfortunatelybeen successful in co-opting the sensibilities of even many educated citizens. Thisin turn has strengthened the religious establishment's efforts toinstitutionalize a radical inertia within the political system.  Perhaps unwittingly, liberal commentators whowould rather avoid tougher issues of dissent scorned my article, and by doingso strengthened the same kinds of arguments that fanatics use to marginalizeminorities or their opponents.

Ironically, in my article, I clearly stated that lawsagainst hate speech must be enforced. Speech that directly urges violence towardsany particular person or group of people must be avoided at all costs. Yet tounderstand sectarian conflict, which is often compared to "cancer," we have tolook at both proximate and systemic causes. Just as one treats cancer withchemotherapy, groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi(LeJ) need to be hunted down for terrorist crimes. But we also need to searchfor systemic causes of sectarian strife, which in Pakistan can be traced totheology in both Shi'a and Sunni doctrines as well as political interventionand alleged statesupport for sectarian groups like LeJ or Sipah-e-Sihaba Pakistan (SSP).

In a pluralistic society, the limits of what is allowed insuch cases can be debated and questioned, and laws can be passed and changedthrough democratic processes. For example, there are laws in some Europeancountries against questioning the historical validity of the Holocaust, but inthe United States, such historical questioning is protected by the firstamendment to the U.S. constitution (despite the repeated accusations by many Pakistanisthat American law and politics reflect undue Jewish influence). While Idisagree with the limitations on free speech in Europe, there is at least aworkable legislative pathway for repeal of these laws. In Pakistan, the prospectof any legislative change to errant laws is stifled by precisely the kindof bullying about religious sensitivity exhibited in this episode.

The duty of any socially conscious writer is to push theenvelope and challenge people to question their assumptions. This will makepeople uncomfortable, but incremental social change always happens through sucha dialectical process. If people were always trying to stray from controversy socialchange would never take place. Cultural sensitivity is far too often used as anexcuse for maintaining the status quo in places like Pakistan, and this needsto change if the country is ever to overcome the polarization that continues toimpede communitarian peace.

Saleem H. Ali is professor ofenvironmental studies at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School ofEnvironment and Natural Resources and the director of the Institute forEnvironmental Diplomacy and Security at the James Jeffords Center for PolicyResearch. He can be followed @saleem_ali

Ten years ago, Afghanistan had one of the world's worsthealth care systems. Most trained health professionals had left the country,and there were few functioning medical facilities. The Taliban had effectivelybanned women from receiving health care. As a result, an estimated one in fourchildren died under the age of five, and maternal mortality was estimated to bethe highest in the world - data collected at that time suggests one in tenwomen died of pregnancy-related complications. Life expectancy was a meager 45 years,according to the United Nations. Afghans were dying from simple, preventableillnesses -- such as diarrhea and bronchitis -- that literally cost pennies to treat.

In 2002, the newly formed Afghan government began workingwith the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and otherinternational donors to restart a viable health care system. The effort wasbased on a few simple premises. First, focus on getting low-cost, low-tech,high-impact treatments to the largest number of Afghans possible, particularlyin rural areas. Second, bring together as many partners as possible -- governmentofficials, international donors, and non-governmental organizations -- tosupport a common ‘blueprint' for primary care delivery and guaranteed access tocare in all parts of the country. Third and most important, ensure Afghanscould develop their own health institutions, so that access to basic health carewould continue in the long term.

With this approach in mind, the Afghan government, withstrong support from the U.S. government and other donors, began to roll out abasic package of health services to millions of Afghans.  As a result, access to basic health serviceshas risen from 9 percent in 2001 to more than 60 percent today.

The results are of this effort are documented in the newlyreleased AfghanistanMortality Survey 2010 the first comprehensive, national survey of keyhealth and quality of life indicators. The findings released last week in Kabul paint a clear picture ofremarkable progress. 

Whereas maternal health care was effectively unavailableunder the Taliban, today six in ten women see a trained care provider duringpregnancy, family sizes are down from more than six children per mother toapproximately five, and skilled assistance during childbirth has more thandoubled.  As a result, significantly fewerwomen are dying from pregnancy-related causes than they did just a decade ago,and life expectancy has risen to about 62 years, up some 15-20 years fromprevious estimates.  

While donor contributions will remain critical to thesector's viability for years to come, Afghans themselves are increasinglyshouldering the financial costs of improving and expanding the healthsystem.  Government contributions to thehealth sector are growing and the Ministry of Public Health continues to seekways to increase revenues and reduce cost. This spirit of self-reliance is animportant reminder of the sustainable results that development partnerships candeliver, even in places haunted by conflict: longer lives, healthier familiesand the chance for children to live past their fifth birthdays.  It also develops faith in government, which iscritical for Afghanistan to overcome its struggle with violent extremism.

Both the Afghan government and the international communitymust build on these remarkable achievements and learn from this successfulpartnership.  During a time of continuedviolence and pessimism about Afghanistan's future in some quarters, tens ofthousands of men, women and children who would not have survived continued Talibanrule are alive today because of the partnership between the Afghan people,health care providers and the international community. 

Despite these gains, Afghans continue toface serious challenges and a long-term partnership between Afghanistan and theinternational community remains critical.  One in 13 children dies before their first birthday, one in 10 childrenin Afghanistan dies before age five, and one Afghan woman dies from pregnancy-relatedcauses every two hours.  As Afghansincreasingly assume responsibility for their own welfare, they build on theresults of generous investments from the American people and other allies,coupled with capable, dedicated Afghan leadership in the health sector.  The extraordinary gains in Afghanistan'shealth sector over the past decade show us what is possible.

Dr. Suraya Dalil isAfghanistan’s Acting Minister of Public Health. 

You would think that, after ten long and bloody years, there would be little new the Afghan war could offer in terms of brutality. But Tuesday's twin suicide strikes on Shi'a Muslim processions in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, leaving 58 dead and more than a hundred wounded, marks an unprecedented insurgent assault on civilians. Never before in the current war have Afghanistan's Shi'a been deliberately targeted, and rarely has an attack been so completely devoid of a military target.

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