Afghanistan and Beyond

In late June this year, after announcing the US troop drawdown plan, President Obama described what success in Afghanistan looks like: Afghanistan able to independently provide security and al Qaeda unable to launch attacks on the US, its allies, or its overseas interests. Essentially, what Obama wants is a more or less stable country, no longer a lawless territory that can serve as breeding ground for terrorism.
While President Obama stated that both goals were being met successfully, reports on the quality of the Afghan National Army (ANA) give reason for doubt. Numerous problems with the ANA have been highlighted, such as literacy, leadership, drug use, and a significantly high turnover rate of 25% (that is, one out of every four soldiers quits). The next three years will have to see improvements in training, coupled with military progress in the north and east, where insurgent activity has been increasing, for Obama’s words to actually come to fruition. However, even if the security situation and the quality of the ANA do improve, long-term “success” in Afghanistan requires that more work be done on the political front, both locally and regionally.
Domestically, as the recent spate of assassinations and hostile executive-legislative relations reveal, Afghanistan needs to shift its focus from individual leaders, who often become corrupt or easy targets of violence, to institutions, if it hopes to clean up its politics. Regionally, U.S. counterterrorism strategies must take a more long-term perspective on managing US-Pakistani relations and Pakistani security concerns in order to diminish the influence of global terrorist networks. 

Effective counterinsurgency, as military experts have recognized in the past decade, means placing the populace at center. When time and troops on the ground are limited, building a friendly governing structure able to independently resist insurgency is vital. Such a government must be capable and legitimate–two qualities that are in short supply in the current Afghan government. Of course, there is no government without security, and civilian and military leaders have done well to focus their efforts on fighting the insurgency over the past decade. However, if military gains are to be made meaningful and lasting, the Afghan government needs to be held accountable to its citizens.
For one, state institutions are failing to provide for Afghans. The Afghan Analysts Network (AAN) reported last year that the Afghan government has not been providing basic services.  By contrast, the Taliban, which from 2008–2010 increased territory in the north, followed up its military successes with governance, including education and health services.
The recent spate of assassinations of top Karzai allies in the south is testimony to the country’s reliance on individuals and relationships over institutions. Among others, Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of Kandahar’s provincial council and Hamid Karzai’s half-brother, and Jan Mohammad Khan, Karzai’s adviser and former governor of Uruzgan have been killed; Matiullah Khan, a local strongman and Mohammad Khan’s nephew, has also been targeted. These were each men who conducted affairs often outside the government, were charged with corruption, back-room dealing, and abuses of power (including exacerbating tribal feuds), but who nevertheless helped maintain Karzai’s influence and were useful to US forces in some way. Despite tensions in the relationship, the US relied on “AWK” to force Taliban insurgents out of their Kandahar strongholds; Jan Mohammad Khan lent his militias to the anti-Taliban effort, and Matiullah Khan played an important role in securing Oruzgan Province and safeguarding NATO convoys on their dangerous highway rides.
The worry is, of course, what happens when such point people are removed from power by violence and corruption. When individuals, rather than institutions, are critical to maintaining order and keeping things running smoothly, the risk of a reversal of security gains is high.
Political legitimacy, similarly, is also yet to be formed in Afghanistan. Karzai will be leaving office in 2014, and whether Afghanistan will be able to maintain itself as a legitimate nation-state will depend in large part on its system of political competition. As of yet, Afghanistan’s political parties are still weak and non-programmatic. The political process has done much to alienate Afghans: electoral fraudulence leading to Karzai’s re-election in 2009, controversial parliamentary elections, and a special tribunal set up by Karzai to remove Ministers of Parliament in areas of voting irregularity. Karzai and parliament are currently butting heads as the parliament refuses to remove the MPs Karzai’s electoral tribunal has designated as fraudulently elected.
Moreover, for the US counterterrorism strategy to be effective, a more long-term perspective on managing relations with Pakistan and addressing its security concerns is necessary. A particularly fuzzy piece of the puzzle is the Haqqani network, an insurgent group based in south-east Afghanistan and Waziristan (northern Pakistan) whose influence dates back to the Afghan-Soviet war and which, as a recent West Point study has highlighted, significantly aided the Taliban by spreading its influence throughout Afghanistan and helped foster al Qaeda’s growth through the provision of a local territorial and ideological support base. Its role in fostering the global jihad has been severely underestimated. The Haqqani network is thought to be responsible for the majority of suicide attacks in Kabul, and it has been particularly useful in winning the southeast’s support for the Taliban. The bottom line is, the Haqqani network is a formidable player in both local and global terror, and the insurgency in the AfPak border regions and in Waziristan will not cease to be a threat without tackling it.
The problem is that the Haqqani network has long benefited from close ties to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), and even now, while Pakistan denies supporting the network in public, Admiral Mullen has pointed to its continued “relationship” with the network. The US has been right to refuse negotiations with the Haqqani network, as Pakistan has offered recently, given the network’s unpromising history of failed negotiations. But contention persists as the US insists that the Pakistanis go after the network, and Pakistan reluctantly holds back.  Part of this reluctance comes from its insecurity over its ability to survive an all out war against the insurgents, and the other large part speaks to its security concerns. The Haqqani network serves as a conduit for influence into other militant groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), of which some are anti-government, influence into post-NATO Afghanistan, and in the past, have operated Pakistan’s Kashmir proxies. Therefore, dealing with militants in Pakistan is closely linked to Pakistan’s own deep security anxieties, both over its national territory as well as its regional influence.
The challenge then, is whether the US can address Pakistan’s security concerns enough for Pakistan to take a harder line against the network. This will involve inclusive dialogues on the future of Afghanistan and on the constantly fraught Pakistani-Indian relationship. This is no simple undertaking and one that will perhaps take a new generation of Pakistani leaders to make happen. It is indeed time for transition, not only from US to Afghan provision of security, but also from a military offensive to a political consolidation of gains in Afghanistan, and a broader, more holistic framework for counterterrorism.
 
Photo credit: http://mydailyclarity.com/2009/07/is-afghanistan-obamas-waterloo/