Negotiating Afghanistan's future
By Caroline Wadhams and Colin Cookman, June 2, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011 - 3:36 PM
Share
The American raid last month that killed Osama bin Laden demands a reassessment of American strategic interests in Afghanistan and how we have been pursuing them over the past nine-and-a- half years. The most important aspect of the American relationship with Afghanistan today is the strategic partnership agreement currently under negotiation with Kabul. Despite the fact that this agreement will determine our military and economic assistance for years to come in Afghanistan, it remains out of the public debate. The administration hopes to sign this agreement before U.S. troops begin withdrawing next month, but the urge to sign a deal before then means the United States risks prematurely ceding what bargaining power it has with Kabul without receiving meaningful commitments in return.
A European diplomat recently cautioned that the Afghan government is "trying to extract from the West as much as they can now"; touting the first draft agreement in remarks to the press, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has suggested that "we have tied up [the United States] hands and feet with our conditions." In fact, Afghanistan's near-total reliance on continued international assistance and rising U.S. domestic political pressure for withdrawal - which has only strengthened following the operation against bin Laden - offer the Obama administration a unique opportunity to demand real action on political reforms from its partner.
For the Afghan government to survive a dramatically reduced U.S. military presence and reduced flows of financial assistance, it will need to address its fatal weaknesses -- political exclusivity, overconcentration of executive power, and dependency on external aid to hold the system together. If reforms do not occur that address these flaws in the system, then the United States will be signing up to support a state that will be simply unsustainable over the mid-to long-term.
Though details of the agreement remain murky, it appears to center around continued U.S. access rights for a handful of bases, in return for a U.S. commitment to continued assistance to the Afghan government. Some Afghan officials have suggested that as much as 80 percent of future U.S. assistance would go through the government, which would represent a major increase in the amount of U.S. funding allocated directly to government coffers. Most likely, it will also include billions of dollars in continued aid for Afghan National Security Forces.
Given Karzai's dependence on access to international military and nonmilitary assistance, the threat of reduced aid directly imperils his ability to keep his small and fragile coalition of supporters intact. The U.S. has an interest in both preventing the disintegration of Afghanistan and in maintaining some form of military access to Afghanistan and the region, as the Jalalabad-based strike team that carried out the bin Laden raid indicates. A strategic partnership is an appropriate framework for achieving these objectives, but only if it is used to push the Afghan government to take steps so that the United States has a partner to work with over the long term.
Karzai is not wrong when he complains that the United States and other international donors have to date frequently bypassed and weakened his government by relying more on contractors, NGOs, and local power brokers in their provision of assistance than our nominal partners in the Afghan government. But Karzai's preference for a strategic partnership that cements him as a strong man in Afghanistan is not realistic. Not only have other American allies around the world like Yemen, Bahrain, and Egypt shown this model's weakness, but it would require vast flows of U.S. support indefinitely to prop Karzai- unlikely in the present and future U.S. budget environment.
The international community is the only constituency currently capable of holding the Karzai government accountable. Therefore, the United States should commit to long-term security and financial assistance in a strategic partnership agreement only if the Afghan government makes mutual commitments related to oversight and political reform - including, among other priorities, election reform measures that can facilitate the emergence of organized political parties, a commitment by Karzai to abide by constitutionally-mandated term limits, and a greater oversight role for parliament and provincial bodies. These commitments should be matched with real consequences when gross mismanagement and corruption occurs and political exclusion continues. In cases where the international community has established clear priorities for reform, Karzai has been amenable to Western pressure - as seen most recently in the Kabul Bank scandal, where the IMF's withholding of an extension of its economic agreement with the country has forced some action, however grudging, on the part of the Afghan government.
In the aftermath of the successful raid on bin Laden, the United States needs to slow its rush to sign a deal and think much more carefully about how to structure a strategic partnership agreement so that it best serves American security interests in the region - and to leverage what influence we do have with the Afghan government to implement reforms that could set it on a path to sustainability, rather than continued and unstable rentier statehood.
Caroline Wadhams is Senior Fellow and Colin Cookman is a Research Assistant at the Center for American Progress.
U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Joshua Treadwell/ISAF Headquarters via Getty Images
EXPLORE:AFPAK, AFGHANISTAN, AFPAK CHANNEL, AL QAEDA, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, PAKISTAN, SECURITY, TALIBAN, TERRORISM, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
On the diplomatic realities of negotiating Afghanistan's future
Karzai knows that the 'international community' isn't just gonna pull out, and he certainly knows they're not going to stop shoveling money at his administration for fear of looking like a bunch of flip-floppin' assholes--the kind of assholes who promise the Afghan people they're gonna take care of'em, that they're not gonna abandon them like they did laaast time, only to find out that the will is not there politically, the support is not there domestically, and the funny-money used to pay the military tab won't be there in perpetuity. Karzai's sittin' pretty, because he knows he has everybody by the balls, and replacing him is not an option.
Anybody at State or the WH who thinks the strategic partnership agreement is a good place to start putting Afghanistan on a 'path to sustainability' needs to give themselves a kick in the ass and leave the premises immediately. I'll bet my allowance that the SPA will essentially boil down to 1) how best Washington can prop up Kabul in a city-state/protectorate-type arrangement; 2) an agreement on the specific number of bases and logistical routes the Americans can keep in whatever slivers of Afghan territory they can control (long-term); 3) how best to cede and divide the rest of the country amongst the various Taliban factions and the wonderfully motley crew of warlords that have kept Afghanistan brimming with fun and excitement since the Russkies took the Tajbeg.
My advice to the American diplomats and politicians and generals (anybody looking for 'career advancement' really) would be to secure an agreement that holds things together just long enough to be able to hand off the responsibility to the next dopes in line so as to not be left holding the proverbial bag and get blamed for the inescapable debacle that will be Shitsghanistan (or Assghanistan?)in the not too distant future.
Justifications are being built up to get out
Clearly on the que from State and Defense Department, foreign policy wonks have started to build up justifications for U. S. troops to get out of Afghanistan.
As far as the US is concerned, the war on terror is over after the death of Osama bin Laden; feeble clarifications by the State Department, that the larger war on Al Qaeda shall continue, are inconsequential.
Pakistan knows that by skillfully holding out till now, it is close to getting its proxy regime in place in Kabul. If it is able to sell the idea of an Islamabad-friendly Government as being of strategic utility to Washington, there’s no reason why the Americans should object to that. Pakistani and American interests, both short-term and medium-term, converge at this point; a broke America cannot afford to look at long-term interests, not at this moment.
And thereby hangs a tale — of Pakistani and American perfidy. The US has been, and shall remain, mindful of the “paranoia of Pakistan”; Islamabad’s sensitivities, its faux victimhood, will always take precedence over Afghanistan’s concerns in Washington.
Obama administration will reach an illusion of PEACE deal with Pakistan-controlled Afghan Taliban to begin its drawdown and finally exit the theater of a war it is desperate not to be seen as having lost, not so much to the Taliban and Al Qaeda as to the wily Generals of Rawalpindi who have proved to be smarter than the Americans.
VIETNAM-STYLE PEACE FAÇADE IS COMING!
Clueless Caroline as usual betrays her ignorance of matters Afghanistan. Like almost all American "experts" on matters Afghan, she does not speak or read Dari or Pashto, nor meet any Afghans outside a very small circle who are professional interlocutors. She merely recycles the gossip going around the expatriate ghettos.
She does not mention Pushtoon, Hazara, Uzbeq or Tajik. If you do not recognize their existence, and the dynamics therein, then you are an irrelevant. OK in Washington but not outside
Afghanistan is not one nation. Instead its a state whose boundaries were delineated by 3 Bbrits and one Russian. A conceit that encompasses bits of four nations, namely Pushtoon, (who dominate being 40% of population) Hazara, Uzbeq and Tajik. There are 15 million Pushtoon in Afghanistan i.e. west of the Durand Line, and 30 million east of it, in Pakistan. Talebs do not go to Pakistan when they flee across the Duran Line; they go to their lands of their fellow Pushtoon. Very few of the 45 million Puhstoon regard themselves ever as Pakiastani". Pakistanis are Punjabis. As any Baluch, Sindi or Mohajir also will tell you. If you ask and listen.
The Talebs are all Pushtoon, and although numbering at most 35,000, have considerable support both sides of the Durand Line. Among certain clans only. They want a) to impose their ideology on all Pushtoon, b) get all foreigners out ( as do most Pushtoon) and c) regain Pushtoon dominance of Afghanistan that they had for centuries. Dominance that let them treat the other nations badly, especially the Shia Isamail Hazaras, and steal their lands. Post 2002 the Taleb Pushtoon got licked so lost their hegemony, and the other nations have exacted their revenge. Still do, especially the Hazara with such ferocity that the Pushtoon feel they face an existential threat. Which explains their support of the Talebs/
Lumping the 4 nations as one people, Afghans, that Clueless does, implies a common DNA, culture, language, history, etc, will get you nowhere. The Taleban are an intra Pushtoon (all 45 milion of them) problem that no foreigner knows how it will work out; the Pushtoon need to arrive at modus vivendi with the other nations, The Afghanistan that existed pre the Soviet invasion is gone, a new confederation is emerging , and so new problems. The there is the Punjabi problem.
Undertstanding the intra Pushton dynamics and the Pushtoon relations with the other nations, within their historic contexts, is sine qua non for anybody to pontificate on the country. To quote General Lord Guthrie re Iraq, "Americans first invade a country and then fitfully try to know someting about it". Ain't so yet .
strtegic partnership Agreement.
I dont know about the kabul bank scandal but i informed the world bank reps in islamabad about the standard chartered bank scandal and the CDA scandal(Askai bank LTD (Branch0002)i have been going through these days.with pakistans huge budget deficit for new financial year the IMF board of directors must have been anticipating bail out requests from the pakis but when things are discussed at the state level an indivuals trials and tribulations with the establishment will be too much to expect the IMF to look into.chief justice of provincial high court told me hewas helpless.Anyway goodluck to us Strategi Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan where Ahmad Wali Karzai with his chesire smile is a familiar figure.
The white trash "South Asian Experts" from George Town
are a clueless bunch.
These lazy arses don't speak the languages or even understand the culture of that part of the world. They read some books and then they become "experts".
Experts my arse! What a sorry bunch of white trash scholors and pontificating about that region. Makes me puke!
This is not the 18th century for white trashes to spout BS about other people and not be exposed Y'all
The rest of us well travelled and who can speak their languages and are tuned to the culutrals of that part of the world can see through your sorry patheitc ingnormous arse spotung BS.
Bingo! Plus ca change plus c'est la memchose. Leran nothing and forget nothing. Americans invade the country, carpet bomb it then try to justify it without learning anything about it. As in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Iraq (twice). Proves that the Pentagon brass is a bunch of stupid white men.
May/June 2013
-
Profile
-
FP Power Map
-
Think Again
(6)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE