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

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

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

Where We've Been Thus Far

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

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

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

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

Lessons Learned and Relearned

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

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

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

A Change in Direction is Required

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Way Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Wednesday, Nawaz Sharif made history by becoming a three-time prime minister of the embattled nation of Pakistan. His thumping 244-vote victory in the 342-seat house was a foregone conclusion following his party's runaway success during the May 11 general elections.

But the unprecedented success, followed by the oath of office that President Asif Ali Zardari administered, hardly brought any smiles for Sharif. His glum face during the parliamentary proceedings betrayed the enormity of critical challenges that stare him in the face: crippling power-outages, a stagnating economy, crushing inflation, massive unemployment, and the al-Qaeda-linked Taliban insurgency in the northwestern territories are but a few of the daunting issues Sharif would need to attend to on a war-footing.

During his acceptance speech after his election today, Sharif struck a conciliatory tone toward all friends and foes, promising to take them all on board in the "national interest." But he also chose to touch on an issue that has been a major source of friction with the United States: controversial drone strikes.

"The chapter of daily drone attacks should stop. We respect sovereignty of other countries but others should also respect our sovereignty," Sharif said to the thumping of desks by MPs. Sharif seemed to be repeating what is already the consensus among most of the political elite, which as of now -- at least publicly -- stands united in its opposition to the drone attacks.

With this, Sharif upped the ante, signaling that his government is ready to undertake a critical review of relations with the United States, including the thorny issue of the unmanned Predator drones that have been targeting al-Qaeda and its Pakistani auxiliaries in the rugged Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan. The new prime minister's statement not only raised expectations at home but also sent a clear message to the U.S. administration that both countries must find a way of conducting this warfare in a way that minimizes, if not eliminates altogether, the resentment and anger that such strikes fuel in Pakistan.

This should ring alarm bells within the Obama administration, especially as John Kerry, the secretary of state, is set to fly in this month for his maiden meetings with the Sharif government and the military.

U.S. officials are worried about the volatile conditions in the region being exacerbated by Afghanistan's impending presidential election -- set for April 2014 -- followed by the withdrawal of the bulk of U.S.-led NATO troops from that country in December.

For an extremely cost-effective and peaceful exit via Pakistan, the administration is anxious to draw on as much Pakistani support as possible, which will require rubbing off as many sources of friction -- drone strikes being one of them -- as possible.

Meanwhile, some of the headaches confronting Sharif and his team are servicing the whopping $60 billion in external debt, preventing further bleeding of some four dozen public sector enterprises, just eight of which cost the nation at least three billion dollars annually, containing the spiral of deficit financing (that the previous government set in motion) and the ensuing inflation.

Another worrisome specter facing Sharif is a tenacious new entrant to the parliament: Pakistan Tehreek-e- Insaf (PTI), the political party of the cricketer-turned politician Imran Khan. Khan ran his election campaign on a platform that challenges the status quo and is directed at almost all the parties who have alternated power in the last two decades. Sharif was his special target in the run-up to the elections.

The PTI not only won a respectable number of votes in the national parliament (roughly 8 million) but will also lead the government in the volatile northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (KP).

This province has seen massive bloodshed and destruction as a result of the vicious Taliban insurgency being waged primarily in the neighboring tribal regions, where al-Qaeda and allied militant groups have been sheltering.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a central PTI leader, says his party will serve as a real watchdog in the national parliament. "We will not allow any mischief in the name of public interest," he told the media after parliament's inaugural session. "The PTI will jealously guard the interests of those who have voted us all into this privileged position."

The heavy burden of responsibility and the fear of an extremely focused opposition -- particularly the PTI -- are not likely to allow Sharif any missteps.

Much now depends on how Sharif's government aligns the need for urgent structural reforms and the revision of foreign policy, with the agenda of the mighty military establishment. That will also be critical to Sharif's desire for improving relations with India, which remains wary of the militants who draw support from inside Pakistan for their militant campaign in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Imtiaz Gul heads the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies -- CRSS-Islamabad -- and is the author of The Most Dangerous Place.

A recently published jihadi Internet magazine, Azan: A Call to Jihad, produced by a group calling itself the "Taliban of Khurasan," has led to speculation about disappearing lines between Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Afghan Taliban, and other affiliated groups in the region.  The numerous "Taliban" groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, from the TTP umbrella movement to factions of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, pay allegiance to Mullah Muhammad Umar, the founder of the original Afghan Taliban movement.  However, the degree to which this rhetoric translates into active cooperation and coordination on the ground remains hotly debated.  Using available primary sources, it is possible to sketch out the complex militant milieu in Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal regions, and get a picture of the types of cooperation and inter-group dynamics at play among the different organizations. 

The TTP, for example, has forged a close alliance with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Uzbek militant group that has had a presence inside Pakistan's Pashtun tribal regions for over a decade.  Having previously been aligned with the Afghan Taliban, the IMU shifted many of its fighters and senior leadership to Pakistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.  In late 2003, the IMU's leader, Uzbek preacher Tahir Yuldashev, met with his followers in Waziristan and announced that he was dedicating himself to fight the Pakistani state due to its targeting of the IMU's local allies and protectors.  Since then, the IMU has integrated into segments of the local societies that have sheltered it for over a decade.  It has forged alliances with local militant outfits such as the TTP, with which it has carried out joint attacks on Pakistani state targets, though it also carries out independent operations. 

Most recently, the IMU claimed responsibility for the May 12 "martyrdom operation" that targeted Pakistani police in Quetta, which it said was carried out in retaliation for an attack by the Pakistani military on one of the IMU's "jihad schools." And one of the most successful joint operations was the April 2012 attack on Pakistan's Bannu prison, an operation which freed nearly 400 prisoners.  Among those freed was Adnan Rashid, a former member of the Pakistani military who had been imprisoned for his role in an assassination attempt on then-Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf.  Rashid has since been featured in media productions produced by both the TTP's Umar Media and the IMU's Jundullah Studio. 

Both the TTP and IMU have acknowledged the groups' integration, as well as some instances of intermarriage between non-Pashtun/non-Pakistani members of the IMU and local Pashtuns, including the daughters of one of the IMU's most important local patrons, Hajji Nur Islam. In addition to drawing upon a pool of foreign fighters from Central Asia, Europe, and the Arab world, the IMU recruits local Pashtuns in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

The two groups have shown ideological cross-fertilization, too. TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud has said that one of his earliest influences was Yuldashev, whose example played a significant role in his decision to join the "jihad in Pakistan."  The TTP and IMU also share the juridical voice of Abu Zarr al-Burmi, a militant Pakistani preacher and religious scholar.  Al-Burmi is a key jihadi religious scholar and has long been featured in TTP, IMU, and other regional jihadi audiovisual productions.  He starred in a widely discussed audio exchange with a Pakistan military spokesman, who fared rather poorly in the debate, and was at the forefront of attempting to delegitimize Malala Yousafzai, who was severely wounded in an attack carried out by the TTP's Swat faction earlier this year. 

With regard to the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Umar, the TTP continues to pledge at least rhetorical allegiance to him as the so-called "commander of the believers." In his 2011 message for the annual Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Hakimullah Mehsud stated that Mullah Umar was the TTP's "amir, guide, and leader," for whom he and other TTP leaders and fighters were "loyal soldiers." 

Yet, the TTP is first and foremost engaged in a war with the Pakistani state -- both its political leadership and military establishment -- the latter of which has historically been one of the primary patrons of Mullah Umar and the original Afghan Taliban, as well as affiliated groups such as the Haqqani Network. 

The TTP has, according to its own statements, participated in some joint military operations inside Afghanistan alongside the Afghan Taliban.  Most recently, the TTP issued a statement in late March about an operation against NATO and Afghan government forces in Paktia, claiming that over 200 of its fighters had participated.  Photographs purportedly showing captured weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment were released with the statement.  And according to a 2010 IMU statement, Bekkay Harrach, a senior al Qaeda media operative, was killed during a coordinated attack by the TTP, Afghan Taliban, al Qaeda Central (AQC), and IMU on the U.S. military base at Bagram Airfield.  However, the extent and frequency of this type of military cooperation remains debated. 

AQC, which has been primarily based in Pakistan since 2001, has tried to integrate itself more deeply into the Pakistani militant milieu, in part to counter the significant losses it has suffered over the past three years.  Between 2010 and 2012, the organization lost some of its key leaders and nearly all of its major ideological voices, including alleged AQC "chief financial officer" and Afghanistan commander Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (2010), founder Usama bin Laden and senior ideological and juridical voice Atiyyatullah al-Libi (2011), and unofficial AQC "mufti" Abu Yahya al-Libi and missionary preacher Khalid bin Abd al-Rahman Husaynan (2012).  Before their deaths, both Abu Yahya and Husaynan delivered religious lectures to members of other militant groups active in the region, such as the Islamic Jihad Union and the East Turkestan Islamic Party. 

These losses mean that the organization is increasingly reliant on its chief Pakistani ideologue, Ahmad Faruq, to attract new recruits from Pakistan and other South Asian countries. Faruq, a shadowy but prolific figure has written numerous tracts and recorded many audiovisual lectures supporting the organization, militancy in Pakistan, and global jihad.  AQC's leaders, including the late Abu Yahya al-Libi and the group's current leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have contributed to the Sunni jihadi discourse legitimizing the Pakistani state as a target of violence due to its ongoing alliance with the United States and other foreign powers seen as actively oppressing Muslims throughout the world.    

As for Azan, questions remain about whether it is actually a publication of the TTP, Afghan Taliban, or one of their affiliates or allies.  It does not feature the logo of known militant media departments and contact information given for the Azan "team" is a Yahoo e-mail address, not one known to be connected to any group.  As yet, no group has claimed responsibility for the magazine, and the TTP issued a statement in January saying any official media releases would be released by its Umar Media department. 

Azan's layout, graphic design, and writing style are very similar to two previous English-language Internet magazines, Jihad Recollections and Inspire, brainstormed and stewarded by the late Samir Khan, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki.  Jihad Recollections was an independent magazine produced by Khan for four issues in 2009, before he left the United States for Yemen.  Inspire emerged the next year as a production of AQAP's Al-Malahem Media Foundation. 

Like Jihad Recollections and Inspire, Azan includes original content and previously released material, as well as some translations and common features like a dedication to Muslim prisoners.  While some of these things are common in Sunni jihadi media, there are a few possible hints as to the background of the magazine's producers, including the bad phonetic spelling of "Khost" as "Koast," which is similar to how the Afghan province's name is often pronounced in English, as well as the preponderance of Pakistan-related content, particularly among the original articles.  There is also a lengthy "exclusive" interview with Rashid, who is now a member of the TTP, and a translation of an article by Pakistani jihadi religious scholar Maulana Asim Umar. 

Though the significance of Azan to the interactions between jihadi militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan remains unclear, it is likely that the main militant groups operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue to coordinate at least some of their military and media operations.  They share a common opposition to those they see as U.S. lackeys in the region, as well as to the continued NATO military presence inside Afghanistan.  But it also remains unclear whether these groups' long-term political goals are in sync, particularly with regard to the Afghan Taliban and more globally or "glocally" focused militant groups such as the TTP and IMU.

Christopher Anzalone is a Ph.D. student in the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University where he studies modern Muslim socio-political movements, contemporary jihadi movements, Shi'ite Islam, and Islamist visual cultures.  He blogs at Views from the Occident and Al-Wasat.  He is also an adjunct research fellow at the Ali Vural Ak Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University and the managing editor for the center's forthcoming web portal Islamium.org.

As the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) assumes greater control of its sovereignty, and the U.S. presence in Afghanistan diminishes, the enduring challenge of partnering with GIRoA as it fights the Taliban will continue.  While large Afghan army and police forces will play a crucial role in any long-term strategy to provide stability to Afghanistan, conventional forces are very expensive and, without an adequate local-level partner force, cannot alone provide sustained rural security to Afghanistan's countryside. 

An unconventional problem requires an unconventional approach.  Beginning in 2010, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) in Afghanistan began a new and innovative program to fight the Taliban insurgency using the movement's structure and strategy against it.  Instead of utilizing a top-down heavily military approach where security was often something done to a village and not with it, SOF inverted the strategy by replicating the Taliban's methods of leveraging the population by using a bottom-up initiative that was de-centralized and village-based.  This new method of war fundamentally changed the terms of the conflict with the Taliban all across Afghanistan and yet, even though its successes have been significant, it is little known in the United States.  Rooted as much in the traditions of U.S. Army Special Forces as much as an outgrowth of the lessons learned in the broader SOF community from its years of counterinsurgency work in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Village Stability Operations (VSO) program defeats the Taliban insurgency by utilizing a holistic approach.

The VSO program consists of small Special Operations Forces teams living in key villages and districts throughout rural Afghanistan where they partner with the villagers to fight the Taliban insurgency.  Each SOF team assesses the dynamics of the local community looking both for opportunities to partner with villagers as well as determining those issues (e.g. tribal, economic, and political) which separate the people from the government and prompt them to side with the insurgency.  The SOF team then seeks to address these grievances through community engagement work and the empowerment of village elders through local governance initiatives.  As this local partnership develops, the elders begin to volunteer their young men for service in the Afghan Local Police program, which is a defensively-oriented and part-time security force focused solely on protecting the community from which it is drawn against the insurgency.  These forces are registered with GIRoA, trained by the SOF team, and receive logistical support (e.g. pay, weapons, uniforms, etc) from the Afghan National Police to which they report. 

As more villagers join the ALP, the Taliban are not just physically pushed out from the village but a psychological distance from the insurgency is created for the population -- Afghans can travel more freely, attend school without fear, engage in greater commerce, and use traditional justice systems to address disputes.  By blending civil-military methods relatively seamlessly -- community engagement with security -- while enlisting the population in its own defense through locally-recruited Afghan Local Police, VSO prevents the insurgency from intimidating the population, appealing to their grievances to separate them from the government, or enticing them to fight through economic incentives.  Instead of using approaches that often have temporary effects, such as clearing operations by outside security forces, VSO seeks to defeat the Taliban insurgency by harnessing the villagers against it, and in so doing freeing them from the oppression of insurgent violence in a sustainable manner.

The Village Stability Operations program and its ALP initiative is a fiscally sustainable way to provide enduring security for Afghanistan in a manner that fights the Taliban holistically.  Afghan Local Police forces serve a useful role as an enduring rural security force and a local partner to Afghan army and police forces working to provide stability within Afghanistan.  The costs of the program are a fraction of both Afghan army and police forces and may provide a fiscally supportable initiative for a light, lean, and long-term program of continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan following the 2014 withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.  As with most Afghan security forces there have been concerns about potential human rights abuses by Afghan Local Police members.  One mitigating factor in this respect is that since the ALP answer to local elders and protect their home villages, abuses are limited since some local accountability exists.  Additionally, efforts are continuously made by Special Operations Forces to prevent abuses from taking place through effective recruiting and training as well as fostering a culture of the rule of law.  All ALP members are registered with the Ministry of Interior and also receive ethical training in how to work with community residents.  If abuses take place, it is relatively easy to identify those responsible.

As with any new security force in Afghanistan, concerns about fostering militias and empowering warlords were active concerns as the Village Stability Operations program was being created.  In this respect, Special Operations Forces adopted several safeguards to prevent this from taking place.  Afghan Local Police forces are drawn from the communities they protect in a way that balances tribal affiliations and village clusters which prevents one group from dominating others.  All logistical support including pay, weapons, vehicles, uniforms, etc. is controlled by the Afghan National Police to which the ALP report.  This arrangement mitigates the growth of militias by allowing the state to retain control of its resources.  Additionally, the ALP are organized as defensive forces which means they receive weapons consistent with a local protective force such as AK-47s which most Afghans already possess.  In some limited instances machine guns are also included at select check points but only in areas where the presence of the Taliban is quite strong and never to individual ALP members as personal weapons.

As a program that confronts the insurgency both militarily, politically, and economically, VSO harnesses the Afghan people against the Taliban in a manner that is more sustainable than alternative approaches since the people are successfully enlisted in their own defense in a manner they support. 

[This introductory piece is based on a new report co-written by this author that aims to both familiarize the broader public with the tenets of the VSO program and prompt a conversation about the requirements for success in Afghanistan. The authors seek to fight "a better war" whose goal is to defeat the Taliban by supporting a light, lean, and long-term presence in Afghanistan that is fiscally sustainable and partners with the Afghan people. The views expressed are their own and do not represent the U.S. Department of Defense.]

Dr. Daniel R. Green is the Ira Weiner fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy focusing on Yemen, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, counterinsurgency, and stability operations.  He is the author of The Valley's Edge: A Year with the Pashtuns in the Heartland of the Taliban published by Potomac Books in 2011.  Green served in southern Afghanistan with the U.S. Department of State at a Provincial Reconstruction Team (2005-2006) and as a mobilized reservist with the U.S. Navy (2012).  He also served in Kabul as a mobilized reservist at ISAF Joint Command (2009-2010), and in Fallujah, Iraq (2007).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There seems to be some disagreement between Pakistan's extremists over participation in the May 11 elections. Pakistani Taliban spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan recently told Pakistanis to boycott the elections because democracy is un-Islamic, while Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a conservative cleric who runs a religious seminary that trained many Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, said in a follow-up statement that voting is a religious obligation.   

Could it be that the Taliban's brutal attacks on politicians belonging to the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) coalition have actually been detrimental to the wider extremist movement in Pakistan? The attacks definitely handicap religious parties, who often share sympathies and ideologies with the Taliban, at a time when they could potentially capitalize on staunch public disappointment with the outgoing government's performance.

While religious parties lost big in the 2008 elections, they probably anticipated some role for themselves in the next government, which is likely to be led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, a conservative political party known for its own "special relationship" with extremists. Religious parties were further bolstered by a survey conducted by the British Council earlier this year revealing that 38 percent of Pakistani youth surveyed believed Islamic law is better suited for Pakistan than democracy.

Instead, Taliban attacks have likely increased chances of a high sympathy vote for the secular parties, a dynamic that helped usher in the PPP coalition in 2008 following the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto.

Why is it, though, that the extremists are not speaking with one voice? The commonsense - and most likely - argument is that they are just plain unorganized. Even though many of Haq's students joined the Taliban movement, it's doubtful that he has direct influence over the Taliban command and control structure - hence the very public statements contradicting the official Taliban position.

Let's not forget that Haq is a politician who leads his own political party and previously served in the Senate. His statements are more a warning for his former students than anyone else to not ruin his chances or those of the others who have been sitting on the sidelines for several years. A return to politics means a chance to advance the ideological agenda of the religious right, but it also allows individuals like Haq and his friends to benefit from state resources, foreign aid flows, and other "perks" of being in power.   

No one expects the religious right to take over...yet. Religious parties never have much success in Pakistani elections. Furthermore, the likelihood of a General Zia ul-Haq figure emerging on the scene is low. Zia, the military dictator who introduced a conservative interpretation of shariah law in several areas of Pakistani culture and law, began the trend of mixing religion with politics as a tool of state power. The approach engendered a vast network of militants that fought mostly Pakistan's battles while invoking the name of Islam; some were also used by the United States in pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, while others advanced their own sectarian agendas. 

While no one can compete with Zia's quasi-theocratic feat at the moment, religion and politics still mix - and badly. Pakistan's long relationship with militants and its cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001 have engendered a new breed of religious right - those against the state, namely the Pakistani Taliban in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

It is because of this shift in the state's relationship with militants that the Pakistani military has a clear interest in strengthening the religious right's political chances. Could the likes of Sami ul-Haq and other religious political parties convince the Pakistani Taliban to stop attacking the Pakistani military, secular politicians, and ordinary citizens? Don't bet money on it, but in February the Taliban did say they would participate in talks with the military if they would be mediated by one of the following individuals: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Nawaz Sharif, Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Munawar Hasan, or Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

The talks did not happen. Instead, the Pakistani military began an operation in the Tirah Valley where numerous security officials and militants have died. It is becoming harder and harder for the Pakistani military to respond to battlefield challenges by militants who now want access to the ballot box too. In addition to militant leader Hafeez Saeed's new "political career," dozens of individuals with alleged links to militant organizations have filed papers for the elections.

The entrée of such unsavory characters into Pakistani politics would not be a first, but it would be the wrong direction for a country that is still testing a rapidly evolving democratic culture and also trying to clarify the role of religion in politics. Islam, after all, is inextricable from Pakistan's history. The country was formed in 1947 as part of a political push by Muhammad Ali Jinnah to establish a homeland for the Indian subcontinent's impoverished Muslims. General Kayani, Chief of Army Staff, reiterated this point last week when he told the country's premier military academy that "Pakistan was created in the name of Islam and Islam can never be taken out of Pakistan."

Many believed Kayani's remarks justified religious extremism. This can hardly be the whole truth given the losses the military has suffered fighting the Pakistani Taliban. But the skepticism provoked by his remarks illustrates just how damaged religion and politics has become in Pakistan.

If extremists can take advantage of this characterization of Pakistan to advance their violent agendas, then surely the country's secular parties and government institutions can strengthen themselves against the militant threat in the name of Islam as well. But with extremists such as the members of the banned sectarian group, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, fielding candidates in this week's elections, such progress does not appear imminent.

Shamila N. Chaudhary is a South Asia analyst at the Eurasia Group and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. She served as director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the White House National Security Council from 2010-2011.

Almost twelve years have passed since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but peace remains elusive. Four interlocking challenges with internal, regional, transnational, and international dimensions impede Afghanistan's stabilization and reconstruction. Each challenge facing Afghanistan feeds off the others, and together they have engendered a vicious circle that is destabilizing the country.

First, Afghanistan is an underdeveloped country and much of its infrastructure has been destroyed by conflict. Its new state institutions lack the basic capacity and resources to administer their mandates. These structural problems are compounded by the country's expanding population, 70% of which is illiterate and demand jobs that do not exist. Taken together, abject poverty, a lack of basic services, and a demographic explosion significantly contribute to instability in Afghanistan.

Second, it is clear that the Taliban leadership continues to receive protection from the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments. It stands to reason that without an external sanctuary, sustainable funding, weapons supplies, and intelligence support in Pakistan, the Taliban would be unable to reconsolidate its control over Afghanistan. Since 2003, the Taliban and its affiliated networks have gradually expanded their influence in the ungoverned southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan, launching daily terrorist attacks that have injured and killed thousands of innocent civilians.

Third, Afghanistan is vulnerable to transnational security threats, stemming in particular from the narcotics trade and terrorism stand. These security threats feed into and are fed by Afghanistan's internal and regional challenges.  Rife poverty and weak governance, for example, are as much responsible for mass drug production in Afghanistan as is the global demand for narcotics; this is not to mention the alliance between the Taliban and drug traffickers, who exploit Afghanistan's vulnerable population to destabilize the country.

Fourth, although the diversity of nations present in Afghanistan demonstrates international goodwill and consensus for supporting the country, each contributing nation has pursued its own aid strategies, effectively bypassing coordination with each other and the Afghan government. Hence, a lack of strategic coordination across international military and civilian efforts to ensure aid effectiveness has so far crippled the Afghan state and left it with no capacity or resources to deliver basic services to its people.

It is important to note, however, that in the face of the aforementioned complex challenges, Afghanistan and its international partners have a number of significant advantages, which must be fully harnessed to regain the momentum necessary to achieve peace in the country.

Foremost among these is Afghanistan's key, untapped asset: its people, who make up one of the youngest, most energetic, and most forward-looking nations in the world. They should be supported in acquiring higher education in technical fields, and their energy and skills must be harnessed to exploit Afghanistan's vast natural resources, worth more than one trillion dollars, to help the country develop a productive economy.

Secondly, Afghanistan's vital location should help it serve as a regional trade and transit hub for easy movement of goods and natural resources to meet the rising energy demands of India and China. Indeed, without this realization and utilization of Afghanistan as the heart of the New Silk Road, achieving regional economic integration will remain impossible. The recent India-China dialogue on how to protect their shared long-term interests in Afghanistan is a welcome development. The more these key regional players, including Russia and Turkey, get constructively involved in Afghanistan through investment in the country's virgin markets, the less space for the region's peace spoilers, whether state or non-state actors, to destabilize the country.    

Finally, Afghanistan's friends and allies have gone through the learning curve, and gained invaluable experience in assisting Afghanistan effectively. Together, they have made many mistakes and learned many lessons over the past 12 years, which should be used as a strategic opportunity to avoid more of the same, and to do the right thing henceforth. 

In line with the agreed-upon objectives of the 2010 Kabul Conference, which were re-affirmed in the Tokyo Conference last year, Afghanistan's nation-partners should align 80% of their aid with the goals of the country's national priority programs, while channeling at least 50% of their assistance through the Afghan national budget. This is the best way to prevent further waste of taxpayers' financial assistance, which have largely bypassed the targeted beneficiaries.

This means a firm re-commitment to bottom-up and top-down institutional capacity building in the Afghan state so that Afghans increasingly initiate, design, and implement reconstruction projects on their own. Meanwhile, the Afghan national security forces must be equipped with the necessary capabilities -- including capacity for logistics and equipment maintenance as well as adequate ground and air firepower -- to execute independent operations against conventional and unconventional enemies. This way, they will gradually relieve international forces of the duty Afghans consider to be theirs - to defend Afghanistan now and beyond 2014.  On the whole, these vital efforts will help ensure the irreversibility of the transition process currently underway.

The Afghan people have placed much hope and trust in the strategic partnership agreements the Afghan government has signed with the United States, India, and other allies to help address the above security challenges confronting Afghanistan. But this long-term and necessary task cannot be accomplished by any one party alone. Every state in the region and beyond has a stake in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan, knowing that the effects of terrorism and insecurity in one country can easily spill over to affect the rest in a globalized world. Thus, with Afghans leading the way forward, the burden of securing Afghanistan must be shared by the whole international community, both to ensure durable stability in the country and to maintain global peace and security.

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

Pakistan's security and economic woes are frequently discussed in policy circles in Washington, D.C. and Islamabad.  Little attention, however, is given to the country's youth population which, at a staggering 50 million, comprises more than 25 percent of Pakistan's population (in the United States, youth account for only 13 percent).

When practitioners and pundits speak about Pakistani youth -- defined by the Ministry of Youth Affairs as the population within the age bracket of 15-29 years -- they often depict the demographic as a potential security threat or as a misguided group that is unable to move the country forward.

For instance, when talking about Pakistan's youth population to a global news agency, the United Nations Population Fund Country Representative warned that "If young people do not find their expectations met, their energies may be directed towards undesirable activities, like radicalization."  This is a view held by most development practitioners and analysts.  However, the declaration of the "International Year of Youth" in 2010-2011, and the October 2012 release of the U.S Agency for International Development's first Policy on Youth in Development reveal a growing international consensus on the importance of youth integration in development initiatives.  As a result, the time to pivot the conversation from Pakistani youth as a security threat to them as viable partners is now.

To help prepare the youth in Pakistan to be better leaders, there must be a concentrated effort to create channels that go beyond simply providing a platform to voice concerns.  Programs must enable youth leaders to shape and contribute to national development efforts.  The United States AmeriCorps program, which offers youth of all backgrounds to serve communities through partnerships with local and national nonprofit groups, is one such example.

If analysts and practitioners continue to adhere to the ongoing negative narrative about youth, which assumes that young Pakistanis are prone to violence, radicalization, or simply disinterest, they block youth's access to positions in political parties, government institutions, and private and public decision-making bodies that build their capacity to effectively lead national development efforts. 

This is unfortunate given that close to half of Pakistan's voters are considered youth by Pakistan's government standards.  Local youth feel disengaged with the national and provincial policymaking process, as revealed by a recent roundtable on youth participation organized by the Jinnah Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank.  The roundtable further noted that when youth--particularly those from rural constituencies--do vote, it is largely along the lines of traditional allegiances and biradari (tribal) affiliations.  This is a reality check for pundits who feel that youth as a demographic entity in and of itself will affect change.  It will take well-defined policy measures and serious resource allocation to transform the country's youth into a demographic dividend.

One obvious step is greater investment in education and job training for Pakistan's youth.  The World Bank's 2007 World Development Report suggested that developing countries which invest in better education, healthcare, and job training for their young people are better equipped to take advantage of their demographic dividend to accelerate economic growth. This is corroborated by a recent report by the Population Reference Bureau, a data-focused international non-profit organization, which states that large numbers of young people can represent great economic potential, but only if families and governments invest in their health and education, and provide them with economic opportunities. 

Macro-economic benefits aside, investment in education and job training provide both urban and rural youth with greater options, such as moving to another town, finding alternate and better sources of livelihood, and setting their own values and priorities, which will ultimately influence voting patterns.

A recent United States Institute of Peace paper, "Prospects of Youth Radicalization in Pakistan" highlighted how growing inequality in Pakistan has manifested itself in the high level of underemployment among youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.  Although the labor market has expanded, its growth is not commensurate with the size of the youth cohort.  Therefore, a majority of non-elite young graduates can only find relatively blue-collar jobs.  Graduates from a vast majority of Pakistan's public sector institutions are simply not considered competitive by Pakistan's private sector firms that seek English-speaking individuals with diverse exposure, a broad knowledge base, and robust analytical ability.

Sobia Nusrat, Manager of Academics and Admission at the Institute for Career and Personal Development, a new organization that specifically aims to equip middle-class university graduates with the skills needed to succeed professionally, states that one of the major challenges faced by the students she and her team work with is their inability to communicate in English, both written and verbal.  "Their thinking and problem solving skills are quite weak due to Pakistan's academic institutions' focus on rote learning."   She adds that in order to help address this challenge, in addition to greater investment in education and job training, "There is need for more collaboration between the industry and education providers in terms of not only increasing the skills of youth but also linking them to Pakistan's economic needs."

Some government agencies are making an effort to address this issue.  The Punjab Government-through its Youth Affairs, Sports, Tourism and Archaeology Department-announced the establishment of the Job Bank-Online under its first-ever youth policy.  The portal aims to conduct job market surveys, build a database to inform Punjab's youth about potential openings, and guide educational and vocational training institutes regarding industry trends.  Under the new policy, the Department also announced the establishment of the Youth Venture Capital Fund, which will support new business ideas and entrepreneurship amongst young men and women.

Local-level initiatives like this are a welcome approach to a complex, widespread issue.  That said, close monitoring and evaluation must be done to measure the Punjab Government's progress in meeting its goals.  If effective, there is potential for scaling and replication elsewhere in Pakistan.

And while providing Pakistani youth with meaningful livelihood opportunities is important to national economic growth, parallel efforts must be pursued to develop their  soft skills and competencies such as effective communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, and critical thinking, all which will make them more workplace ready and equip them to lead Pakistan's local and national institutions in the future.

Young Pakistani leaders have already launched a large number of promising local programs that work to create social and political awareness among youth, and encourage youth participation in development efforts.  That said, many of these organizations are centered around a vague notion of ‘change' and general disillusionment with Pakistani politics, and are largely disconnected from Pakistan's mainstream political parties and government bodies.  While the passions of dedicated citizens instill hope in the future of Pakistan, the isolation from policymaking and disconnect from implementing institutions impede their ability to expand and scale.  They also hinder the youth leaders' abilities to sustainably build capacity later as policy professionals working within Pakistan's institutional system. 

To that end, efforts such as the Youth Parliament Pakistan-established by the local non-profit Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency to educate and train youth in the norms of politics and democracy in the country-are critical and deserve national government and international donor support.  Haider A. H. Mullick, a former adjunct fellow at Spearhead Pakistan, a non-partisan think tank, has put forth a few thoughtful recommendations including expanding the voting rights of political parties' youth-wing members and introducing leadership and civic education courses on campuses.

With Pakistan's general election taking place this May, the time for the country's civil society organizations and political parties to begin constructively engaging youth in the campaigning and election process is now.  One hopes that the Pakistani youth's professional and civic growth will not be held hostage by the adult populace's failure to recognize their value and role in Pakistan's development. 

Maryam Jillani is a youth development specialist at an international non-profit organization in Washington D.C. She received her MPA from Cornell University, and can be reached at maryam.jillani@gmail.com. 

The looming drawdown of U.S. and NATO troops from Afghanistan in 2014 has raised a multitude of concerns, among them fear that the al-Qaeda organization in Pakistan [hereafter AQC] will return to set up camp. This is overwrought. Any residual U.S. force should contain a heavy concentration of Special Forces operators whose top priority will be hunting al-Qaeda remnants who move back across the border into Afghanistan. AQC may be able to carve out small pieces of territory, but even a small number of U.S. troops in tandem with unmanned aerial vehicles should ensure it enjoys little more freedom of movement than at present in Pakistan's Tribal Areas.

Pakistani militants are likely to receive less attention. This is understandable. Yet their access to territory in Afghanistan, alongside the sanctuaries they already enjoy in Pakistan, is cause for significant concern, as it may amplify the threats they pose to India, to Pakistan, and to U.S. interests in the region. Moreover, as Secretary of State John Kerry seeks to jumpstart stalled peace negotiations, it is worth noting that their presence in Afghanistan further complicates the already tortuous search for a settlement.

Home Away from Home

Most of the major Pakistani militant groups and a host of minor ones are active in Afghanistan. They fight alongside the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network, both of which enjoy sanctuary in and support from Pakistan. Some Pakistani organizations are also engaged in a revolutionary jihad against their own government, with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan leading that charge. Organizationally, whether to wage war against the state is the greatest dividing line among militant groups endogenous to and based in Pakistan. Operationally, it does not preclude collaboration on either side of the Durand Line.

Anti-state militants displaced by Pakistani military incursions into FATA and the Swat Valley in 2009-2010 have regrouped across the border in Afghanistan. From there, they launch cross-border raids into Pakistan. The two countries have been waging a low-level border war since the late 2000s, fueling suspicions in Pakistan that Afghan forces are providing sanctuary and support to these militants. Even if true, such assistance would pale in comparison to Pakistan's well-documented support for insurgents fighting in Afghanistan.

Militants fighting against the Pakistani state are sometimes co-located in Northeastern Afghanistan with those from Pakistan's proxy organizations, most notably members of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) who have been active there since the mid-2000s. Though still small in number, LeT's presence in Afghanistan has grown since 2010. This likely owes to an increased need for a safety release valve following pressure on the group to reduce its India-centric activities after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, as well as the appeal of the Afghan front for those motivated to fight America or simply to join the biggest jihad in town. Pakistan's intelligence services also may have endorsed this expansion as a means of gathering information about those anti-state militants pushed across the border. The past several years have witnessed attempts by LeT to solidify its presence in the Salafi-strongholds of northern Afghanistan where the group has longstanding roots.

In short, though militants overwhelmingly remain based across the border in Pakistan, Northeastern Afghanistan has become a sanctuary not only for Pakistani militants arrayed against the state, but also those aligned with it.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

No one knows with certainty how the conflict in Afghanistan will evolve once U.S. and NATO troops draw down or what the cascading impacts will be on Pakistan, India or the region. But several broad pathways are easy to envision. The worst-case scenario is a conflagration that draws in regional actors, most notably India. The more likely outcome is an ongoing insurgency that does not lead to the overthrow of the state, but also does not escalate into a full-blown proxy war involving countries other than Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hopes for a political settlement between the Afghan government and the insurgents don't look good at present, but even this best-case result wouldn't come without challenges. In all cases, the drawdown of U.S. and NATO forces brings with it the opportunity for Pakistani militants - pro- and anti-state - to take greater advantage of cross-border sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

In the absence of a negotiated settlement and amidst an ongoing insurgency, relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan could deteriorate further, leading Kabul to provide the TTP and associated anti-Pakistan militants the type of support Islamabad already suspects they are receiving. As a result, Pakistan could face not only a domestic jihadist insurgency, but also the sort of durable threat of cross-border jihadist violence that it has long supported against its neighbors. Moreover, an escalating proxy war could create conditions for a greater instability along both sides of the border. A conflict that draws in regional actors, particularly India, would exacerbate this dynamic. But even increased bilateral tensions, fueling and fueled by a cross-border proxy war, would have a destabilizing impact. For U.S. officials, this would further complicate an already labyrinthine regional environment and could impact the operations of any residual force.

Regardless of the outcome in Afghanistan, LeT is likely to keep a small presence in the Northeast where its members have worked to carve out territory. The group is also likely to agitate for regenerating the jihad directly against India, both in the form of terrorist attacks against the mainland and increased activity in Kashmir. The latter has been torpid since the late 2000s. Several incidents there this year may augur the rumblings of renewed jihadist activity, though it is too early to know whether they will amount to much. Important here is that access to safe haven in Afghanistan for LeT and other Pakistani proxy groups conceivably reduces ISI situational awareness of what their members there are doing. This would increase plausible deniability for militant leaders under some form of Pakistani state control and, thus, for the Pakistani state itself. Each could conceivably claim they did not sanction plots orchestrated from across the border, with the result being to heighten the likelihood of such attacks occurring. This is of most concern to New Delhi. Given LeT's past readiness to include Westerners in its target set for attacks in India, this rightly concerns U.S. policymakers and practitioners too.

In the event of a settlement that enabled the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network to migrate back across the border into Afghanistan, it is possible that elements from among them would provide at least a modicum of assistance to India-centric groups with factions operating there. More troubling, it is far from certain that all Afghan-centric militants would buy into any settlement. Questions exist regarding how much control the Quetta Shura (leaders of the Afghan Taliban currently or previously based in Quetta, Balochistan) has over its own foot soldiers, much less those operating under the banner of the Haqqani Network or the Pakistani Taliban. Some could be expected to fight on and, depending on the posture of the Pakistani state, to assist the TTP in launching cross-border attacks as well. Once again, the result could be a durable threat of cross-border jihadist violence. As a result, accounting for Islamabad's compulsions vis-à-vis those militant groups straddling the Durand Line and waging a domestic insurgency against Pakistan also adds another wrinkle to any peace negotiations.

One Factor Among Many

Multiple variables including host nation preferences, domestic political and budgetary constraints and broader U.S. defense policy objects will (and should) determine the size, composition, and focus of any residual U.S. force in Afghanistan post-2014. It is unrealistic to imagine that the main focus of any residual force will not remain on supporting the Afghan National Army and targeting al-Qaeda along with other actors that have the intent and capabilities to launch transnational attacks. However, the presence of anti-Pakistan militants and possibility for escalating cross-border jihadist violence means U.S. and NATO officials will need to contend with whether to target them too.

Doing so could help serve a political purpose, reducing the threat to Pakistan's internal stability and in so doing possibly helping to defuse regional tensions. However, there is no guarantee such a payoff would accrue. More tangibly, it might provide a means for transactional targeting, i.e. the U.S. removes anti-Pakistani militants from the Afghan battlefield in exchange for assistance capturing, killing or otherwise curtailing militants of significant concern in Pakistan. Yet even this would mean sparing sparse resources and require buy-in from a host government in Kabul that has very different priorities.

Hunting India-centric militants hiding in Afghanistan, though likely to engender less animosity in Kabul, would come with its own set of hurdles. To begin with, debates persist about the costs and benefits of aggressively pursuing the small number of LeT militants in Afghanistan if the group is not actively targeting the U.S. homeland. The direct threat consists primarily in the form of terrorist attacks against India that could include Western interests. Indirectly, of course, are concerns another Indo-Pak crisis might eventuate. Either way, it is unclear what role, if any, the small number of LeT militants in Afghanistan would play in generating such attacks. As already noted, the more relevant issue is one of plausible deniability. This suggests the need to realign intelligence officers and analysts whose expertise will be essential for identifying emerging and evolving jihadist threats in the region, thus making it more difficult for militants to carry forward plots or plausibly claim no involvement in them.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan and re-forged its relationship with Pakistan in order to destroy al-Qaeda Central. Finishing that job is important. However, with the drawdown looming and AQC's capability to strike the homeland severely degraded, Washington must begin reorienting its South Asian counterterrorism architecture in line with the decreasing threat from al-Qaeda and growing potential for regional attacks against U.S. interests and regional instability post-2014. Although it is but one component among many, the availability of sanctuary for Pakistani militants in Afghanistan should inform this process. It also must factor in broader U.S. foreign and defense policy planning for South Asia, including any strategy designed to reach a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan.

Stephen Tankel is an assistant professor at American University and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His next book, provisionally titled Peripheral Jihads, explores how jihadist groups in S. Asia, the Middle East and N. Africa adapted to the post-9/11 environment and will be published by Columbia University Press in 2014.

In Pakistani politics, electioneering and the show of power by organizing sizeable gatherings weeks ahead of polls is a matter of life and death for a political party. No party can hold ground without having a strong, persistent, and pushy election campaign, particularly when one's opponents are busy organizing impressive rallies. Unfortunately, Pakistan's three mainstream secular parties are faced with the unenviable challenge of trying to sway voters from their vocal right-wing rivals while having their campaigning efforts severely restricted as the country moves toward the landmark general elections scheduled next month.

Having borne the brunt of Taliban attacks over the past five years, the secular Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Peoples' Party (PPP), and Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM)-the major coalition parties in the previous government-also find themselves at the top of the emboldened Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's (TTP) hit list. In a video message last month, TTP spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan warned people to stay away from political gatherings organized by these parties. Wary of staging vulnerable, large-scale rallies, these parties are mostly busy with smaller corner meetings. A number of the secular parties, particularly the ANP and PPP, have watched leaders switch over to right-wing parties to evade Taliban attacks and ensure their victory in the general elections in May.

The TTP's first victim this election season was the ANP-backed candidate Adnan Wazir, whose election motorcade was targeted with a roadside bomb in northern Pakistan on March 30. While Wazir survived with serious injuries, TTP spokesman Ihsan stated: "We targeted Adnan Wazir for his support for the secular system and the secular party. It was the beginning of what we said earlier..." Then, on April 14, a local ANP leader was killed in Swat, and two supporters of another ANP candidate were killed in Dera Ismail Khan on April 15. The TTP claimed responsibility for both of those attacks as well.

As a result, the ANP has had to abandon its plans for big rallies and restrict its electioneering campaign to small corner meetings and door-to-door visits. Meanwhile, its right-wing rivals continue to stump all over the country, holding mammoth public gatherings and rallies, the hallmark of Pakistani politics, which are considered to be one of the key factors in converting public opinion.

"This is pre-poll rigging, which, if not bringing the armed Taliban in power, is certainly paving way for elevating their supporters, sympathizers, and well-wishers to the parliament," said ANP leader and former provincial information minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province Mian Iftikhar Hussain, whose young son Mian Rashid Ali Shah was shot dead by the Taliban in July 2010.

The ANP claims that the Taliban have killed more than 700 of its workers and leaders, including two provincial legislators and one senior minister, since the party came into power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in 2008.

The PPP has not received any major blows at the hands of the Pakistani Taliban during this election season, but it was forced to postpone its plan to hold a public gathering on April 4, the death anniversary of the party's founding father and former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto's government was overthrown by his handpicked general Ziaul Haq in July 1977. The April 4 gathering was intended to kick-start the PPP election drive from Larkana, the hometown of the Bhutto family in Sindh Province.

Despite avoiding much of the violence this time around, the greatest loss for Pakistan's secular political players struck at the core of the PPP in December 2007, when party chairperson Benazir Bhutto was killed during her election campaign. The then-government, led by former president Pervez Musharraf, said at the time that the TTP was responsible for Bhutto's assassination.

Pakistan's third secular party, the MQM, draws support primarily from the country's commercial capital, Karachi, and from urban Sindh. The MQM has also been forced to focus on corner meetings, door-to-door visits, media appearances, and social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube due to the perceived threats from the Taliban. 

"Unlike the past, our election drive is all door-to-door visits, corner meetings, telephonic speeches, and media statements," said deputy MQM convener Dr. Farooq Sattar. In their talks with this writer, both the ANP and MQM leaders said they will file formal complaints about the security threats with the Election Commission of Pakistan-the body responsible for organizing and overseeing the polls.

Although the MQM is believed to have an armed wing for protection-an allegation the party vehemently denies-one of its provincial parliamentarians, Syed Manzar Imam, was assassinated in Karachi this January. The TTP claimed responsibility for the murder and issued a warning that they would carry out more such attacks against the MQM. On April 10, an MQM election candidate was killed in Hyderabad, a city neighboring Karachi.

Religious parties, such as Jamat-e-Islami (JI) and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazal (JUI-F), claim they are also facing security threats. Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the hardline JI, who died of a heart attack in January, escaped a suicide attack on his convoy in the Mohmand tribal district in November 2012, while a bomb was detonated near the motorcade of
JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman in Charsadda in March 2011, killing 13 people.

However, the threat has never been as imminent to these religious parties, nor to Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI), the political party of former cricket celebrity Imran Khan, or the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party of former premier Nawaz Sharif. In most cases, their public rallies are spared by the militants.

Last year, PTI leader Khan led a massive march from Punjab through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to South Waziristan, the stronghold of the Hakimullah Mehsud-led TTP, to drum up support for PTI's anti-drone campaign. His followers were left unharmed even as they headed into a region of the country that is largely controlled by the Taliban. This year, the PTI managed to hold three massive election gatherings in Lahore, Peshawar, and Swat in the month of March alone. Similarly, PML-N leader Sharif held a public gathering in Mardan on March 8 and Hazara on March 25, while the JUI-F demonstrated its popularity with a large-scale rally at the historical Minar-e-Pakistan monument in Lahore on March 31.

Khan, who is calling his party's popularity among Pakistani youth a ‘tsunami,' is a staunch opponent of U.S. drone strikes and Pakistan military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He stopped short of condemning the Taliban by name when the militant group targeted 15-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in Swat last year.

Like Khan's PTI, the JI, JUI-F, and PML-N also shy away from openly challenging the Taliban. Nawaz Sharif's younger brother Shahbaz Sharif, who until last month was the chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, appealed to the Taliban to spare the province by pointing out that his government was not involved in operations against them.

Additionally, in a recent development, the PML-N entered into a secret electoral alliance (also called a seat-to-seat adjustment in Pakistan) with Ahle-e-Sunna Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), meaning that the two parties agreed not to field candidates against one another in certain districts to ensure that each party wins the seats they are looking for. ASWJ was formerly called Sipah-e-Sahabah, which was the political forefather of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a sectarian group based in Punjab Province that has claimed responsibility for some of Pakistan's worst attacks against Shi'a Muslims. Many worry that the alliance means the PML-N will refrain from acting against the LeJ in the future.

In the adjacent FATA region, where the Taliban has a very strong presence, militants seem to be allowing these right-wing parties to campaign unmolested. In North Waziristan, however, a Taliban group known as the Mullah Nazeer Group-which has a peace treaty with the Pakistani government-has pledged not to interfere with elections but has laid out stringent guidelines for parties wishing to campaign in the area. Through the distribution of pamphlets across one constituency of South Waziristan, the group has reportedly asked candidates "with no popular vote banks" not to contest the elections. It also warned the ANP, PPP, and MQM candidates about the security threats they might face in the area.

For their part, right-wing parties accuse the ANP, PPP, and MQM of mismanagement, corruption, and failing to improve the living standard of the average Pakistani during their five-year rule, which they believe will be the main reason for the secular parties' defeat in the upcoming polls. Since the PPP and MQM have strong support in Sindh Province, the ANP will lose the most to religious and right-wing parties like the JI, JUI-F, and PTI in the Pashtun-dominated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and in the adjacent tribal areas.

In the 2002 general elections, it was Pervez Musharraf's government that kept the leadership of the mainstream PPP and PML-N out of the political arena-the leaders of both parties were in exile-leaving an open space for the religious alliance of Muttahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) to come into power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At the time, the MMA had strong representation in the Pakistani parliament. Now, Taliban threats are performing the same function.

Even if the right-wing parties fail to win enough votes to form a coalition government at the national level, they are going to be a strong voice in what will likely be a divided parliament at a critical moment, as NATO and U.S. troops withdraw from Afghanistan and the security situation in the tribal areas of Pakistan worsens. A divided parliament is also going to better serve the interests of Pakistan's security establishment, a euphemism for Pakistan's historically strong army that has apparently lost its grip over policy matters during the past five years.

For many political observers, it is heartening that after regular interruption and tightly controlled ‘democracy,' the first elected government has completed its full five-year term and is on the way to a peaceful transfer of authority to the next elected one. However it is unlikely that the next government will have as smooth sailing as its predecessor, mainly because of the hard road taken to get there and the likely presence of uneasy bedfellows in the future parliament.

Daud Khattak is a Pashtun journalist currently working for the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Pashto-language station Radio Mashaal. 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s latest vague and controversial anti-U.S. remarks were puzzling to many people both inside and outside Afghanistan, as they implied that the United States is inadvertently colluding with the Taliban.  Despite the fact that he later accused the media of misinterpreting his comments and tried to clarify his remarks during a press conference with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Kabul, his comments generated a lot of noise, confusion, and varied interpretations by political commentators.

The most popular interpretations explained that Karzai’s bizarre remarks were likely aimed at cementing his patriotic image.  Others believed his comments were attempts to rebuild his legacy as he nears the end of his term in office.  Some speculated that they were a result of “bad advice” from his political cronies.

All of these interpretations may have shades of truth to them, yet there is another unnoticed nuance to Karzai’s remarks.  Karzai is displaying his influence over the U.S. because of two important matters: peace talks with the Taliban and the 2014 presidential elections.

With regard to the peace talks, Karzai wants to take the lead on the process, undermine any existing secret negotiation channels that have excluded him, and at a minimum, reduce Kabul’s dependence on Pakistan’s cooperation for the success of any future peace talks.  Having felt excluded from the “secret channels” allegedly opened by the United States to hold negotiations with the Taliban, Karzai also wants the Taliban to know that approaching the Americans for peace talks will end up nowhere if his government is not involved.  

To be able to dominate the political landscape, Karzai needed to showcase his power and authority to the Taliban and counter the militants’ long-running accusations that he is a “powerless” “puppet” of the Americans and that he does not have authority over major decisions in the country  So he staged the recent political drama by ratcheting up his demands on the transfer of the Parwan Detention Facility from the U.S. military to the Afghan government and the expulsion of U.S. Special Forces from parts of Wardak province.  He also stepped up his anti-U.S. rhetoric to ensure his demands were met despite widespread opposition from influential political and social groups in the country.  To add weight to his demands, he even involved the Council of Religious Scholars, a body widely considered to be a tool for advancing Karzai’s personal political goals.  While he achieved both demands, it was a political gamble that brought Afghan-U.S. relations to their lowest point in the last decade.  Yet for Karzai, the end result was that he managed to display his authority and influence over a major international player, though it has yet to produce any breakthroughs in terms of holding direct talks with the Taliban.

The second issue on Karzai’s mind is the 2014 presidential election.  He is constitutionally barred from running for another term, and the Afghan president knows well that his survival and his family’s and clan’s statuses in post-2014 Afghanistan depend on whomever becomes the next leader of the country.  Karzai’s anti-U.S. rhetoric and what it achieved will reinforce his position as a “Kingmaker” in the upcoming elections.  This is likely to mobilize powerbrokers around him and make it easier for his handpicked candidate to win the election because in Afghanistan, the perception of power is more important than actual power.

For Karzai, having a handpicked successor who ensures the continuation of his and his family’s interest and political survival is more a matter of necessity than choice.  This is because, in the incredible tale of Afghan history, many rulers of the country and their families have either been brutally killed or have faced permanent exile in foreign lands.  This unfortunate historical precedent has become even more prominent as five out of nine Afghan leaders and their immediate families have been murdered since the Communist revolution in 1978.  For Karzai, the stakes are even higher if he loses power or if he becomes politically irrelevant.  After all, members of the Karzai family and tribe have enjoyed incredible riches and political domination of southern Afghanistan over the last 12 years, sometimes at the cost of other tribes and political rivals.  Since 2001, his relatives and tribe have ruled the south of the country–where Afghan kings have historically hailed from–more like the Sopranos of Kandahar than the Kennedys of Afghanistan.  

With the Afghan election date fast approaching, the United States should expect more such erratic statements from Karzai.  But they should also understand that Karzai’s anti-U.S. statements neither reflect nor speak for the wider Afghan public view of the United States.  In fact, Karzai was taken aback by the harsh criticism he faced from majority in the country, including members of his own government.  This backlash stemmed from the anxiety that has gripped the country over the widespread belief that a premature withdrawal of the U.S.-led NATO troops will mark the beginning of a civil war in the country.  Many Afghans see their leader’s frantic and bizarre statements as not only damaging to the national interests of the country, but also further throwing the country into the arms of Afghanistan’s two rapacious neighbors: Pakistan and Iran. 

Najib Sharifi is the Director of Afghanistan New Generation Organization—a youth empowerment body based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Ahmad Shafi is an Afghan journalist and a former NPR producer.

On Sunday, former military dictator Pervez Musharraf was at last given permission to run in the parliamentary elections scheduled for May 11, but only in the northern district of Chitral. Two other districts rejected his nomination papers, and his application in Islamabad is still pending. Elections officials in Pakistan, acting under directives of the country's Supreme Court, have excluded several candidates -- among them Musharraf -- from running in the elections. This pre-selection of candidates is based on controversial Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, decreed by military ruler General Zia ul-Haq in 1985 as part of his Islamization agenda. These articles forbid anyone who does not meet the test of being a good Muslim or patriotic Pakistani from becoming members of Pakistan's parliament. Until now, the highly subjective criteria of these provisions have never been implemented in practice.

This time around, the Election Commission of Pakistan has allowed officials in each parliamentary district to vet candidates. The result is a mish-mash of arbitrary decisions. Almost 100 members of the out-going legislatures, many of them deemed popular enough to win re-election, have been disqualified for producing fake college degrees at the last poll, when the generals mandated the possession of one as a pre-condition for membership in parliament. The law was changed by parliament in 2008 and it is questionable why, after serving for five years, these politicians are being challenged now.

Former Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf was disqualified on grounds of unproven corruption allegations. Musharraf was barred from running in two districts while being found sufficiently sagacious in another. The leader of the opposition in the outgoing parliament, Chaudhry Nisar Ali, was similarly found to be lacking in the criteria in one district where he filed his nomination papers, while being allowed to run in another.

The last few days have witnessed the spectacle of Election Officers asking candidates to recite specific verses from the Quran, prove that they pray five times a day, and in the case of a female candidate, even respond to the question "How can you be a good mother if you serve in parliament and are too busy to be fulfill your religious duties as a wife and mother?"

The pre-qualification conditions have adversely affected liberal candidates while favoring Islamist ones. Columnist Ayaz Amir, who is part of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League, has been disqualified from running as a candidate because he wrote articles that were "disparaging" about the ‘ideology' of Pakistan. Militant and terrorist leaders have had no problem in meeting the litmus test of religiosity and commitment to Pakistan's ideology. Nomination papers for Maulana Mohammad Ahmad Ludhianvi, who heads Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, a reincarnation of a banned terrorist organization, were cleared even though he has publicly acknowledged his role in the killing of Shias in the country.

In addition to facing discrimination from election officials, liberal politicians must also contend with threats from terrorists - threats that have not persuaded the judiciary or the permanent state apparatus to enhance security for these politicians. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has warned that candidates and rallies of ‘secular' parties like the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), Muttahida Qaumi Movement, and Awami National Party (ANP) would be targeted, and the targeting has already begun. The ANP lost one of its finest leaders, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a few months ago. The TTP took credit for the murder.

The elimination of liberal political figures must be seen as part of the process of creeping Islamization, as well as the permanent militarization of Pakistan, which began during Zia ul-Haq's military dictatorship. Using Islam and a narrow definition of patriotism to limit the options available to voters is nothing new. It is a direct outcome of Pakistan's long history of dominance by unelected institutions of state, euphemistically referred to as the ‘establishment.' In addition to existing under direct military rule for half its life as an independent country, Pakistan has always lived in the shadow of the ubiquitous influence of generals, judges, and civil servants.

No elected parliament was ever allowed to complete its full term until this year. But instead of allowing voters to choose the new government in a free and fair election, the establishment wants to make sure that the voters have only limited choice at the polls. A direct military coup is no longer feasible. The politicians, led by President Asif Zardari, have foiled bids by the judiciary to virtually become the executive. The battle between elected leaders and unelected judges has come at great cost to several outspoken individuals in the country's politics. Now, an election with pre-qualification could ensure the establishment's supremacy without overtly pulling back the democratic façade.

From the establishment's perspective, Pakistan's politicians cannot be trusted to lead or run the country even if they manage to get elected by popular vote. The political system must somehow be controlled, guided, or managed by the unelected institutions who deem themselves morally superior and even more patriotic than those supported by the electorate. This patrician approach is reflected in the assertions of Generals Ayub Khan (1958-69), Yahya Khan (1969-71), Zia ul-Haq (1977-1988) and Musharraf (1999-2008) at the time they took power in coups d'état. It can also be found in the constant efforts by Supreme Court judges and civil servants to second-guess the people by deciding who is and who is not eligible to run in elections.

General Zia ul-Haq created structures for limiting democracy that would outlast him. He drastically changed the constitution and legal regime in ways that have proved difficult to reverse, even a quarter century after his death. The outgoing Pakistani parliament completed its term and amended the constitution to make it closer to what it was originally intended to be. But the Islamic provisions introduced by Zia ul-Haq persist, enabling the establishment to use Islam as an instrument of control and influence over the body politic.

Article 62 demands that a candidate for parliament demonstrate that "he is of good character and is not commonly known as one who violates Islamic Injunctions; he has adequate knowledge of Islamic teachings and practices obligatory duties prescribed by Islam as well as abstains from major sins; he is sagacious, righteous and non-profligate, honest and ameen, there being no declaration to the contrary by a court of law; and that he has not, after the establishment of Pakistan, worked against the integrity of the country or opposed the ideology of Pakistan."

Article 63 disqualifies a Pakistani from becoming an MP if "he has been convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction for propagating any opinion, or acting in any manner, prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan, or the sovereignty, integrity or security of Pakistan, or morality, or the maintenance of public order, or the integrity or independence of the judiciary of Pakistan, or which defames or brings into ridicule the judiciary or the Armed Forces of Pakistan."

Both constitutional provisions provide considerable leeway to an ideological judiciary to influence the electoral process and exclude critics of the establishment from the next legislature. The recent celebration and positive commentary over parliament completing its term should not distract us from an ugly reality. Pakistan's establishment may have refrained from another direct coup, but it is still far from accepting the basic premise of democracy - the supremacy of parliament among institutions and the right of the people to vote for whomever they choose.

Farahnaz Ispahani is a former member of the Pakistani parliament and former Media Advisor to President Asif Ali Zardari, as well as a writer and minority rights advocate.

Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)

Roderic Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979-89 (London: Profile Books, 2011)

Artemy M. Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011)

The idea that history offers lessons for the present is uncontroversial and common to the point of cliché.  Yet, American foreign policy decisions often proceed with barely a look to the past.  And so we were informed in 2009 by then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy, likely to return as a fixture in future Democratic administrations, "[T]here's absolutely no valid comparison between the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan" and the U.S.-led campaign to enable the Afghan people to "reclaim their country."  Is that so? 

In her award-winning book about the Vietnam War, Fire in the Lake, Frances FitzGerald states:

Americans ignore history, for them everything has always seemed new under the sun....Americans see history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge of it as representatives for all mankind.  They believe in the future as if it were a religion; they believe that there is nothing they cannot accomplish, that solutions wait somewhere for all problems like brides.

Just as history's lessons were dismissed as advisers begat brigades in the jungles of Southeast Asia, the Soviet experience in Afghanistan has been discarded as irrelevant to our own war by American policymakers, commanders, and commentators.  This has left us, in the words of Lord Butler of Brockwell, "like a driver who commits to some manoeuvre in the road without looking into the rear mirror."  Indeed, American leaders believe we are on a different road entirely.  While there are significant differences between the two interventions, the road winds through the same mountains.

Two books released as the latest incarnation of foreign intervention winds down - one by Rodric Braithwaite and the other by Artemy Kalinovsky - tell the troubled tale of the Soviet intervention and withdrawal.  In doing so, they shatter mischaracterizations that prevent the West from looking to this decade as a source of lessons.   The only major flaws of these books, Afgantsy and The Long Goodbye, is that they were published years too late to serve as rejoinders to Undersecretary Flournoy and others who came before her who insisted that Afghanistan, in the words of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, stood "at the dawn of a new day." 

Yet, while Braithwaite and especially Kalinovksy draw on previously unpublished Soviet records and interviews, they were not the first to strike at the myths of the Soviet intervention rooted in the Cold War.  Almost twenty years ago, Diego Cordovez, the U.N.'s point man on Afghanistan in the 1980s, and journalist Selig S. Harrison produced the insightful Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal.  These three books demand to be read and revisited in combination.   They very much complement each other.  Braithwaite's Afgantsy provides a vivid, novelistic account of the war in its entirety.  Kalinovsky's more scholarly text provides the oft-missing Soviet perspective based on Politburo records, now housed at the Wilson Center thanks to Kalinovsky himself.  Cordovez and Harrison give us the ultimate insider's account, bringing readers along for the ride as the U.N. emissary shuttles back and forth between Moscow, Washington, Kabul, and Islamabad, furiously working to get deadly foes to sit down at a table and talk.

The common Western narrative holds that once Soviet forces crossed their southern border into Afghanistan in December 1979, they were modern-day Cossacks waging a war of unmitigated brutality.  With U.S. support, the noble mujahideen prevailed.  This narrative, rooted in the hostile spirit of the Cold War, tells us we have nothing to learn from the Soviets in Afghanistan because our mission is so different in its purpose, aims and methods.   Our very nature is so different that comparisons are useless.   Or so we tell ourselves, and in doing so ignore the nuances of history. 

The Soviets also had trouble reconciling their mission with Afghan history.  In one memorable exchange captured by Kalinovsky, Soviet Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Mikhail Kapista cited the British experience in Afghanistan in the 19^th Century.  Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko responded, "Do you mean to compare our internationalist troops with imperialist troops?"  Kapitsa retorted, "No, our troops are different - but the mountains are the same!"

There are many aspects of the Soviet experience relevant to the current U.S.-led campaign, but none are more relevant to the present day than the Soviet efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement and withdraw their military forces.  On these aspects of the war before the war, these three books have a great deal to say, primarily by way of three key lessons:  Even a "reconciliation" that promises substantial government concessions may not succeed. Timing is everything. Pakistan is not to be trusted.  

Reconciliation

By the time Mikhail Gorbachev ascended to power in 1985, the view that the Soviet war in Afghanistan was a quagmire was commonly held in the Politburo and in the military. Frustration with Afghan partners - particularly General Secretary Babrak Karmal - was at an all-time high, leading to his replacement with Mohammad Najibullah in 1986.  Gorbachev came to accept that the Soviets would not leave a socialist government in their wake, but he was not ready to abandon their client regime entirely. He pushed a second, internal track on Najibullah: the policy of "National Reconciliation," which was far reaching in its concessions to the mujahideen.

The reconciliation program sought to reach out to biddable elements in the armed opposition, as well as non-Communist political and religious leaders not involved in the rebellion. In doing so, they sought to strengthen the position of the Afghan armed forces.  Through a re-tooled aid package, more emphasis on outreach to tribes, efforts to make Afghan officials more independent, and dialogue with insurgent commanders, the Soviets hoped to set the conditions for a durable state as they planned to withdraw. Attempts to make the Afghan government more representative, rather than dominated by the ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), were key.  The new policy was announced in December 1986. That same month, Gorbachev called Najibullah to Moscow and informed him that a military withdrawal from Afghanistan was now official Soviet policy. The government, with Soviet advisers over their shoulders, drew up a new constitution that established "an Islamic legal system run by an independent judiciary, greater freedom of speech, and the election of a president by a loya jirga assembly consisting of parliament and tribal and religious leaders."

While sensible, the National Reconciliation program arrived too late.  All sides were too entrenched.  The Khalq and Parcham factions of the PDPA were still at loggerheads.  The "Peshawar Seven" and "Tehran Eight" mujahideen parties were strong and confident in the countryside and the mountains, dripping with a desire for revenge and a hatred of the Kabul-based government.  The Pakistanis and the Americans doubted the Soviets and the Afghan government were serious about a negotiated settlement.  And they understood that, regardless of Soviet intentions, a compromise on their parts was not necessary.  One independent-minded Soviet colonel wrote in a letter: "[O]ne has to keep in mind that the counter-revolution is aware of the strategic decision of the Soviet leadership to withdraw the Soviet troops from the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] ...The counter-revolution will not be satisfied with partial power today, knowing that tomorrow it can have it all."

Timing

Gorbachev also fumbled the timing of announcing troop withdrawals. In February 1988, against the advice of the Soviet negotiating team in Geneva, Gorbachev announced a full withdrawal would begin on May 15, assuming an agreement was reached in Geneva.  He hoped that his announcement and the signing of the accords would induce the United States and Pakistan to cease arming the mujahideen.  According to Harrison, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had warned Gorbachev that "a formal commitment to a specific target date would give the impression of an urgent need to withdraw." Gorbachev was wrong and Shevardnadze was right.  The withdrawal timeline was one of the few cards the Soviets had left in their deck and Gorbachev gave it away.   Subsequent Soviet efforts to negotiate directly with the Peshawar Seven and Tehran Eight were futile.

In response to Gorbachev's announcement, U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz demanded that the the two superpowers take a symmetrical approach to the withdrawal of military aid to their respective proxies. In other words, American aid to the mujahideen and Soviet aid to the government would be withdrawn simultaneously. Early drafts of the accords had not envisioned symmetry. Gorbachev was apoplectic, but it was too late.  

Moscow had greater concerns linked to a successful withdrawal from Afghanistan - namely negotiations over American nuclear-tipped missiles in Europe. Success in these negotiations depended on improving relations with the United States.  And so, on April 14, 1988, the Geneva Accords were signed.  They committed the Soviets to execute a "front-loaded" withdrawal within nine months. The United States and the USSR agreed to "positive symmetry," meaning that aid continued to the mujahideen and the Afghan government alike, rather than negative symmetry, which would have withdrawn aid to both.  Besides, the Soviet leadership believed that the Accords, which prohibited Pakistani interference and intervention in Afghan affairs, would mitigate the problem of aid to the mujahideen. At any rate, Gorbachev assured Najibullah that, "Even in the harshest, most difficult circumstances, even under conditions of strict control - in any situation, we will provide you with arms."  Like the rest of the world, neither of them anticipated the dissolution of the Soviet Union less than four years later.

Pakistan

Pakistan has three interests vis-à-vis Afghanistan that endure to the present day: blunting Pashtun nationalism, preventing strategic encirclement by India, and maintaining strategic depth against India.  Support for violent Islamist non-state actors, from the Taliban of the present to the Peshawar Seven of the 1980s, has allowed them to accomplish all three.  With Pakistan under the leadership of pro-Islamist Zia ul Haq, the idea of a socialist state and Soviet forces on Pakistan's border was intolerable.

As early as 1980, the Central Committee of the Politburo in Moscow understood Pakistan was the key, and envisioned, according to Politburo records, "a complex of bilateral agreements between Afghanistan and its neighbors, above all Pakistan, and systems of corresponding guarantees from the USSR, USA."  As such, the USSR and the Republic of Afghanistan signed the Geneva Accords, which committed Afghanistan and Pakistan to mutual relations, non-interference and non-intervention as well as to "interrelationships for the settlement of the situation." The Geneva Accords committed Pakistan to cease support for the mujahideen.  As Cordovez explains, the whole negotiations process was premised on "international disengagement" that would "allow the Afghans themselves to sort out their differences." 

Anyone hoping for Pakistani "disengagement" was disappointed.  According to Shultz, when President Reagan asked Zia how he would counter Soviet accusations that aid to the mujahideen continued, Zia responded, "We will deny that there is any aid going through our territory.  After all, that's what we have been doing for eight years."  The UN monitoring mission - the key enforcement mechanism of the Accords - was an embarrassing failure.  Before the ink on the Accords was dry, the Soviets and Afghan government began lodging legitimate complaints against Pakistani violations of the agreements.   At one point, President Zia told the Soviet ambassador to Kabul that he would support a coalition that was divided in three between the former PDPA, "moderates," and the mujahideen.  We do not know if he was serious, however, because the offer ended with the Pakistani leader's own life when his plane crashed later that summer.  What we do know is that Pakistan has always sought to be kingmaker in Afghanistan, regardless of what outside powers do. 

In the face of these treaty violations, the Soviet leadership hinted they might keep their military forces in Afghanistan beyond the withdrawal deadline if the accords were not strictly adhered to.  The bluff failed.  The Soviets continued to withdraw their forces.  The last of them crossed back into the Soviet Union on February 15, 1989.  

The Nuances of History

History has not repeated itself in Afghanistan, but it has rhymed.  There are important differences between the Soviet and U.S.-led campaigns that are worth keeping in mind.  Brutal Soviet tactics, particularly early in the war, targeted entire communities.  This had a direct effect on how the international community, Pakistan, and the mujahideen responded, particularly in terms of their recalcitrance to negotiate in good faith. The Soviet campaign was more deadly and indiscriminant in its violence, resulting in the deaths of up to a million Afghans - about 9% of the Afghan population at the time (admittedly, this figure is debatable). By the time of the Soviet withdrawal, there were millions of Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan.  Since the U.S.-led intervention began in 2001, most of these refugees have returned.

The scholar Louis Dupree described the Soviet strategy as "migratory genocide."  In other words, the Soviets sought, in some provinces, to depopulate the countryside, the powerbase of the rebels.  Joseph Collins, a longtime observer of Afghanistan, argued that for the Soviets, "[t]here was no talk about protecting the population; Soviet operations were all about protecting the regime and furthering Soviet control."  Later in the war, the Soviets became obsessed with connecting the government and the population - but still, the Soviet campaign stands in contrast to that waged by ISAF, which has focused on controlling key rural areas and protecting rural communities.  There has been operational success on this front.  While there is reason to doubt these gains will endure, in this respect, the West has learned from the Soviet experience.  Now, it is time for the West, and America in particular, to learn from how they negotiated their withdrawal so as not to repeat their mistakes.