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Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy
A FGHANISTAN : US E XIT S TRATEGY

OPERATION MOSHTARAK, RECONCILIATION
AND
REINTEGRATION
EDITOR DR NOOR
UL
HAQ
ASSISTANT EDITOR MUHAMMAD NAWAZ KHAN
IPRI Factfile
C ONTENTS
Preface
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Timeline: Afghanistan in Crisis Text of the London Conference Communiqu The US Finding Itself on the Horns of a Dilemma Operation Moshtarak: At a Glance Battle for Marjah: The Taliban Stronghold Altering Afghanistan's Balance of Power The Mullah and the Marjah Campaign Making Peace with Taliban a Possibility Destination Kandahar: Marching Towards End-Game The Changing Face of Afghan Crisis The Next Battles for Marjah Its Time to Talk to Taliban: UN Envoy We Do Not Learn from History New Developments in Afghanistan Pakistan will be Privy to Talks with Taliban: Karzai Karzais Visit to Islamabad Five Myths About the War in Afghanistan India in Afghanistan Doesnt Serve US Interests Peace with the Taliban Pashtuns are Not Terrorists Talks Not an Option Yet Kandahar Offensive to Focus on Good Governance President Obama in Kabul Kabuls Move for Talks with Top Taliban Upsets US Obama Presses Karzai for Cooperation Solution for Afghanistan US Forces Set Sights on Taliban Bastion of Kandahar US Campaign to Reform Kandahar is Rife with Pitfalls Pakistan has Role in Afghan Reconciliation: US Churchills Choice for Afghanistan 31 34 36 38 40 43 44 47 48 51 55 58 61 64 67 68 71 74 76 81 83 85
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1 3 15 18 19 21 26 28
Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. A Flawed Strategy Pakistan Seen as a Key to Afghan Conundrum Using Afghan Culture to Devise an Exit A Hint of Victory How to Save Afghanistan from Karzai The Kandahar Gambit
87 90 93 95 100 103
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P REFACE
For the last over three decades (1979-2010) Afghanistan has been in a state of turmoil the fight against Soviet forces, the civil war and the present insurgency against the Karzai administration, NATO and the US forces. The US mission in Afghanistan is to disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al-Qaeda and its extremist allies.1 The Afghan strategy was discussed by the international community on January 28, 2010 in London. They re-affirmed the goals of greater Afghan Leadership, increased Regional Cooperation and more effective International Partnership. In pursuance of their mission and the strategy the US-led NATOs International Security Assistance Forces (Isaf) has launched Operation Moshtarak2, i.e., a joint counter insurgency operation in the stronghold of Taliban. The objective is reconciliation with the moderate Taliban and their reintegration in the administration to form a broadbased national government for peace and stability. This would require further induction, training, organizing and arming the Afghan forces to take over the security duties effectively before the withdrawal of the USled NATO forces from Afghanistan. The Factfile contains the text of the London Conference, followed by some relevant articles on Operation Moshtarak and the US exit strategy appearing in the national and international print and electronic media from February 8 till April 7, 2010.
April 30, 2010
Noor ul Haq
Joshua Partlow & Scott Wilson, Obama Presses Karzai for Cooperation, Washington Post, March 29, 2010. Moshtarak in the local language means together.
T IMELINE : A FGHANISTAN
IN
C RISIS
1979: The then Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. In the years that follow Moscow will rule Kabul by proxy while the US, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia extend their support to anti-communist Muslim fighters, the Mujahideen, who oppose the Soviets. 19881989: The Soviet Union withdraws. More than 15,000 Soviet soldiers have died in the conflict. 1992: Led by Ahmed Shah Massoud, Mujahideen forces remove the Soviet-backed government, but in the years that follow rivalry between different groups of fighters reduce Kabul to rubble and effectively plunge Afghanistan into civil conflict. 1994: Mullah Mohammed Omar, a Muslim cleric, sets up Taliban movement of Islamic students who take up arms to end the chaos in Afghanistan. They capture Kandahar and advance on Kabul. 1996: The Taliban takes Kabul and hangs Mohammad Najibullah, the then president. The year also sees the return to Afghanistan of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader who fought with Mujahideen groups against the Soviet occupation. 1998: The US launches missiles at suspected bin Laden bases in the country in retaliation for the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 1999: The UN imposes an air embargo and freezes Taliban assets in an attempt to force them to hand over bin Laden for trial. 2001: Taliban rule in Afghanistan, based on their strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, has become increasingly proscriptive, restricting women and religious minorities, banning satellite TV and destroying some 2,000-year-old Buddhist statues in the cliffs above Bamiyan. In September, the Taliban's rival Ahmed Shah Massoud, a senior commander of the so-called Northern Alliance, is wounded in a suicide attack and later dies of his wounds. Attacks on the United States on September 11 leads George Bush, then US president, to demand the Taliban hand over bin Laden. They refuse unless evidence of his involvement is presented. In October, US and British forces begin bombing Afghanistan and within weeks mount an invasion. Later Hamid Karzai, an Afghan tribal leader, will be chosen to head an interim administration. 2002: The first contingent of international peacekeeping forces
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takes up its duties. Months later Haji Abdul Qadir, the Afghan vicepresident, is assassinated in Kabul. Karzai escapes a separate assassination attempt in his hometown of Kandahar. 2003: Despite frequent incidents of violence, Donald Rumsfeld, then US defence secretary, claims that most of Afghanistan is secure and that US-led forces had moved from major combat operations to stabilisation and reconstruction projects. The year also sees Nato take control of security in Kabul. It is the organisations first security operation outside of Europe. 2004: Afghanistan adopts a new constitution and Karzai is elected president. Meanwhile, the Taliban begins to regroup and mounts a sustained campaign of attacks. 2005: Afghanistan holds it first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years, but Taliban attacks continue to grow in intensity. 2006: Western forces and their Afghan allies mount Operation Mountain Thrust against Taliban fighters. Scores die in the fighting. Later in the year, Nato takes over responsibility for security across the country. Meanwhile, civilian casualties have been mounting and when a US military vehicle crashes, killing several civilians, widespread anti-US protests erupt. 2007: Nato and Afghan forces launch Operation Achilles, reported as their largest offensive to date and in May Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's chief military commander, is killed. The UN reports opium production in Afghanistan, much of which is thought to fund the Taliban, has reached record levels. 2008: A Taliban operation frees hundreds of its fighters from Kandahar prison. Weeks later a suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul ramps up regional tensions as India accuses the Pakistani intelligence agency of involvement. Pakistan denies the allegations. Towards the end of the year, US President Bush sends and additional 4,500 US troops to Afghanistan. Germany also boosts its troop numbers and extends its mission in the country. 2009: The election of Barack Obama, the US president, had prompted hopes of a new approach to Afghanistan, but Taliban attacks make the year the bloodiest yet for international troops. Meanwhile, Afghans go to the polls to elect a new president and while the Taliban largely fails to act on its threats to attack voters, the election is beset by massive fraud. Karzai wins a runoff vote after Abdullah Abdullah, his main rival, withdraws.
In December, Obama agrees to a request by his generals to boost US troop levels in Afghanistan. He supplies 30,000 troops, bringing the total number of US troops in the country to 100,000, but he also announces that the US will begin withdrawing its forces by 2011. 2010: While Karzai struggles to get his cabinet nominees approved by parliament, Taliban fighters carry out co-ordinated attacks in the capital. Delegates gather in London for a conference on future strategy in Afghanistan, including a proposal to negotiate with Taliban supporters and persuade them to lay down their arms in return for money and jobs. In February, US-led Nato troops launch Operation Mushtarak on the biggest Taliban-held town in the south of the country.
Aljazeera, January 28, 2010. http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/01/201012855829544554.html
A FGHANISTAN : T HE L ONDON C ONFERENCE 28 J ANUARY 2010 C OMMUNIQU

Afghan Leadership, Partnership Regional Cooperation, International
1. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the international community met today in London to renew their mutual commitment towards helping Afghanistan emerge as a secure, prosperous, and democratic nation. Todays Conference represents a decisive step towards greater Afghan leadership to secure, stabilise and develop Afghanistan. The international community underlined its support for the Government of Afghanistan and its security, development and governance. 2. At the London Conference, President Hamid Karzai built on commitments set out in his inauguration speech, which articulated clear priorities for stabilising and developing Afghanistan. 3. The international community pledged to maintain its long-term commitment to Afghanistan, as previously set out in the 2001 Bonn Agreement, in the 2002 Tokyo Conference, the 2006 Afghanistan Compact, the 2008 Paris Declaration and the 2009 The Hague Conference Declaration. The international community re-affirmed its
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support for the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions upholding the security, stability and prosperity of Afghanistan and in particular the role of the UN itself in achieving this goal. 4. Conference Participants emphasised that the Afghan Government and the international community are entering into a new phase on the way to full Afghan ownership. Conference Participants re-affirmed the goals of greater Afghan Leadership, increased Regional Cooperation and more effective International Partnership. Together we are committed to make intensive efforts to ensure that the Afghan Government is increasingly able to meet the needs of its people through developing its own institutions and resources. 5. The London Conference will be followed by a conference in Kabul later this year, hosted by the Afghan Government, where it intends to take forward its programme with concrete plans for delivery for the Afghan people. These should be based on democratic accountability, equality, human rights, gender equality, good governance and more effective provision of government services, economic growth, as well as a common desire to live in peace under the Afghan Constitution. We remain convinced that together we will succeed. 6. The challenges in Afghanistan particularly in political, economic, development and security areas are significant and inter-related. It is in our shared interest to overcome them and we re-affirmed our commitment to doing so. The nature of international engagement in Afghanistan continues to evolve, in favour of increasingly supporting Afghan leadership in the areas of security, development, governance and economic assistance.
Security
7. Conference Participants expressed gratitude to Afghan citizens, Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and to those nations whose citizens and military personnel have served in Afghanistan. Conference Participants expressed their sorrow for all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for a secure and stable Afghanistan. Conference Participants also thanked those countries that have provided transit and related facilities to International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the ANSF. 8. Conference Participants reiterated their resolve to combat terrorism, in particular al-Qaeda, and commended Afghan efforts to this end. Conference Participants condemned in the strongest terms all attacks by
the Taliban and their extremist allies, including Improvised Explosive Devices, suicide attacks and abductions, targeting civilians, and Afghan and international forces. These attacks undermine stabilisation, reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan. 9. Conference Participants noted that most civilian casualties are caused by insurgent attacks. Conference Participants welcomed the determination by ISAF, in partnership with the Afghan Government and ANSF, to continue to do their utmost to protect and further reduce the risk to civilians and jointly to investigate civilian casualties. 10. Conference Participants welcomed the progress made by the Afghan security forces as they increasingly take responsibility for military operations. Conference Participants also welcomed the Government of Afghanistans stated goal of the ANSF taking the lead and conducting the majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years. To help realise this, the international community committed to continue to improve the capability and effectiveness of the ANSF. Conference Participants also committed to providing the necessary support to the phased growth and expansion of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) in order to reach 171,600 and 134,000 personnel by October 2011, as approved by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB) on 20 January 2010. The international community also showed its full support for the continued development and implementation of the National Police Strategy. Beyond this, the Government of Afghanistan and the international community will decide if this is sufficient, based on the prevailing security situation and long term sustainability. 11. Conference Participants welcomed the decision by the North Atlantic Council, in close consultation with non-North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ISAF partners, in full agreement with the Government of Afghanistan and in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1890, to develop, by the Kabul Conference, a plan for phased transition to Afghan security lead province by province, including the conditions on which transition will be based. Further to this, Conference Participants welcomed the shared commitment to create the conditions to allow for transition as rapidly as possible. This is with a view to a number of provinces transitioning to ANSF lead, providing conditions are met, by late 2010/early 2011, with ISAF moving to a supporting role within those provinces. Conference
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Participants welcomed the intention to establish a process among the Government of Afghanistan, ISAF and other key international partners to assess progress and monitor in areas other than security that influence transition. 12. Conference Participants welcomed: ISAFs increased focus on partnering ANSF and the principle that Afghan forces should progressively assume the leading role in all stages of operations; the Government of Afghanistans determination to assume greater responsibility for detentions, in keeping with the growth of Afghan capacity, in accordance with international standards and applicable national and international law; the contribution the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) is making towards the growth and expansion of the ANSF and urged the international community to meet outstanding requirements for trainers and mentoring teams, and to continue efforts in this respect; the contribution made by EUPOL to monitoring, mentoring and advising the Ministry of Interior and supporting national and provincial level Afghan-led police reform and urged partners to reinforce and provide logistical support to EUPOL, especially in the provinces; bilateral support to the ANSF from a range of countries and urged the international community to coordinate closely in this work with the NTM-A and EUPOL, including through the International Police Coordination Board (IPCB); the Government of Afghanistans commitment to continue development of a National Security Strategy with the support of the international community; and the Government of Afghanistans commitment to devise and implement a National Security Policy, which is to be presented at the Kabul Conference and which outlines the security infrastructure and roles and responsibilities of the different security agencies. 13. In the context of a comprehensive, Afghan-led approach, Conference Participants reinforced the need for an effective and enduring framework to create and consolidate a stable and secure environment in which Afghan men and women of all backgrounds and perspectives can contribute to the reconstruction of their country. In this context,
Conference Participants welcomed the plans of the Government of Afghanistan to offer an honourable place in society to those willing to renounce violence, participate in the free and open society and respect the principles that are enshrined in the Afghan constitution, cut ties with alQaeda and other terrorist groups, and pursue their political goals peacefully. 14. Conference Participants welcomed: the Government of Afghanistans commitment to reinvigorate Afghan-led reintegration efforts by developing and implementing an effective, inclusive, transparent and sustainable national Peace and Reintegration Programme; plans to convene a Grand Peace Jirga before the Kabul Conference; and the international communitys commitment to establish a Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund to finance the Afghan-led Peace and Reintegration Programme. Conference Participants welcomed pledges to the Trust Fund and encouraged all those who wish to support peace-building and stabilisation efforts in Afghanistan to contribute to this important initiative. 15. Conference Participants recognised the seriousness of the humanitarian situation in different areas of the country, particularly food insecurity. Conference Participants invited the international community to support the 2010 Humanitarian Action Plan.
Development and Governance

16. Afghanistan faces formidable development challenges, which require sustained, long-term support from the international community. A better coordinated and resourced civilian effort is critical to overcoming these challenges. Economic growth, respect for Rule of Law and human rights alongside creation of employment opportunities, and good governance for all Afghans are also critical to counter the appeal of the insurgency, as well as being vital to greater stability in Afghanistan. 17. The international community noted the progress that the Afghan Government has made on economic development, including reaching the completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, which will provide Afghanistan with up to $1.6 billion in debt relief from major creditors. This takes total debt relief to around $11 billion. Conference Participants agreed that the priority, as established by the Government of Afghanistan, is accelerated progress on agriculture,
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human resources development and infrastructure, and to ensure these are underpinned by expanded capacity and structural reforms. Conference Participants looked forward to the new economic development plan, and to the start of discussions on a new Afghan-led IMF programme and to continued IMF in-country engagement. 18. Conference Participants welcomed the Government of Afghanistans commitment to assume increasing financial responsibility for its own affairs, and underlined that critical reforms were needed to maximise domestic earnings, with a view to attaining fiscal sustainability over time, including: increasing tax and customs revenues; restructuring public enterprises in order to ensure greater accountability and efficiency; and pursuing the Road Map of the 2007 Enabling Environment Conference as reflected in the ANDS; continuing regulatory reforms including implementation of the new mining regulations and bearing in mind Afghanistans current commitments under the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. 19. Conference Participants welcomed: the Government of Afghanistans plans for more coherent and better coordinated development. This involves aligning key ministries into development and governance clusters and refining the Afghan National Development Strategy development priorities, in particular infrastructure, rural development, human resources development, agriculture and the main areas of governance. It also involves developing a work plan, which should be completed by the Kabul Conference; Conference Participants supported the ambition of the Government of Afghanistan whereby donors increase the proportion of development aid delivered through the Government of Afghanistan to 50% in the next two years, including through multi donor trust funds that support the Government budget e.g. the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund and the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan. But this support is conditional on the Governments progress in further strengthening public financial management systems, reducing corruption, improving budget execution, developing a financing strategy and Government capacity towards the goal.
Conference Participants confirmed their intention to establish a detailed roadmap with the Government of Afghanistan, before the Kabul Conference, and to provide technical assistance to help develop the Governments capacity to achieve its goal; The Government of Afghanistans plans to implement budgetary reforms, to increase budget execution rates and to take steps to improve domestic revenue collection in parallel with enhancing anti-corruption practices and institutions with the aim of achieving fiscal sustainability. 20. Conference Participants welcomed the Government of Afghanistans commitment to develop an overall plan for more effective and accountable national civilian institutions, including the civil service. They welcomed the Government of Afghanistans decision to approve the SubNational Governance Policy and prepare implementing legislation in advance of the Kabul Conference. Conference Participants committed to support the enhancement of sub-national governance through the Government of Afghanistans single framework of priority programmes. To facilitate its implementation, the Government of Afghanistan intends to publish the criteria for administrative boundaries. Conference Participants welcomed commitments made by the Government of Afghanistan and urged the international community to provide additional support to train 12,000 sub-national civil servants in core administrative functions in support of provincial and district governors by the end of 2011. 21. Conference Participants acknowledge the Government of Afghanistans increasing efforts to implement the National Justice Programme with a view to making more transparent, fair, and accessible provision of justice available to all Afghans equally. 22. Conference Participants commended the Government of Afghanistans commitment to improve access to justice and respect for human rights, including through its Justice and Human Rights Programme, political and financial support for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and the adoption and implementation of a new national policy as soon as possible on relations between the formal justice system and dispute resolution councils. The Government of Afghanistan reiterated its commitment to protect and promote the human rights of all Afghan citizens and to make Afghanistan a place where men and women enjoy security, equal rights, and equal opportunities in all spheres of life. Conference Participants also
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committed to strengthening the role of civil society. 23. Conference Participants welcomed the Government of Afghanistans whole-of-government approach to fighting corruption, and its ongoing work to mount a concerted effort to tackle the key drivers of corruption, through development of clear and objective benchmarks and implementation plans, in advance of the Kabul Conference, including but not limited to: empowering an independent High Office of Oversight to investigate and sanction corrupt officials, and lead the fight against corruption, through decree within one month; during 2010, establishing a statutory basis for related anticorruption bodies, including the Major Crimes Task Force and the Anti-Corruption Tribunal, guaranteeing their long-term independence; enhancing the effectiveness of the senior civil service appointments and vetting process and revising the civil service code. This will include, by the time of the Kabul Conference, identifying the top level civil service appointments; the intention of the President to issue a decree prohibiting close relatives of Ministers, Ministerial advisers, Members of Parliament, Governors and some Deputy Ministers from serving in customs and revenue collection departments throughout government; as a priority during 2010, adopting comprehensive legislation agenda to make Afghan laws consistent with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, including the Anti-Corruption Penal Code, to expand provisions related to asset declaration; and inviting Afghan and other eminent experts to participate in an independent Ad Hoc Monitoring and Evaluation Mission which will make its first monitoring visit to Afghanistan within three months, develop clear and objective benchmarks for progress and prepare periodic reports on national and international activity for the Afghan President, Parliament and people, as well as the international community. 24. Conference Participants committed to helping the Government of Afghanistans anti-corruption efforts by providing assistance to the new institutions and committed to increase the transparency and effectiveness of its own aid in line with the June 2008 Paris Conference Declaration and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. In particular,
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Conference Participants agreed to: work with the proposed anti-corruption bodies to review existing procedures and investigate instances of corruption that involve internationals; and work with the Government to improve procurement processes, including establishing additional measures to ensure due diligence in international contracting procedures. 25. Conference Participants noted the decision by the Afghan Independent Election Commission to postpone Parliamentary elections until 18 September in accordance with the Afghan Constitution and electoral law. In this regard, Conference Participants welcomed the Government of Afghanistans commitment to ensuring the integrity of the 2010 Parliamentary elections and to preventing any irregularities and misconduct. Conference Participants also welcomed the Government of Afghanistans commitment to work closely with the UN to build on the lessons learned from the 2009 elections to deliver improvements to the electoral process in 2010 and beyond. 26. The international community welcomed the Government of Afghanistans commitment to implement the National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan and to implement the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law. Conference Participants welcomed the Government of Afghanistans commitment to strengthen the participation of women in all Afghan governance institutions including elected and appointed bodies and the civil service. 27. Conference Participants emphasised the pernicious links between the narcotics trade, the insurgency and other criminal activity, including corruption and human trafficking. Conference Participants therefore welcomed: the recent progress the Government of Afghanistan has made including the 22% reduction in poppy cultivation last year and increase in the number of poppy free provinces from 6 in 2006 to 20 in 2009; the undertaking by the Government of Afghanistan to update the National Drugs Control Strategy during 2010, which will include targeted programmes of agricultural development and the reduction of poppy cultivation; the ongoing support of United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International community to support the Government of Afghanistan to counter this trade;
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the continuation of the Paris-Moscow process in counter-acting illegal production, consumption and trafficking of narcotics and the elimination of poppy crops, drug laboratories and stores. Also the interception of drug convoys as well as the continuation of consultations on the marking of pre-cursors and greater bilateral regional cooperation; and the contribution to multilateral anti-narcotics efforts by the Plan of Action of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Members, adopted in March 2009 by the Special Conference on Afghanistan in Moscow.
Regional Cooperation/International Architecture

28. Conference Participants reaffirmed their support for a stable, secure and democratic Afghanistan, acknowledged Afghanistans potential role as a land-bridge between South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Far East and renewed their pledge to work together actively to this end. Conference Participants underscored that regionally-owned and steered initiatives stood the best chance of success and welcomed a number of recent initiatives that showed the need for neighbouring and regional partners to work constructively together. In this context Conference Participants noted the recent Istanbul Regional Summit on Friendship and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia and its Statement. This regional co-operation includes reaffirming the principles of the Good Neighbourly Relations Declaration of 2002, and working actively for: Afghan sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity; Non-intervention in Afghanistans internal affairs and mutual non-interference; Afghan-led peace, reintegration and reconciliation efforts; Ending support wherever it occurs on each others territory for illegally-armed groups, parallel structures and illegal financing directed towards destabilising Afghanistan or individual neighbours; Combating terrorism including but not limited to increased intelligence- sharing, dismantling the logistical, financial and ideological support for terrorist networks and tackling the causes of radicalisation;
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Development of trans-regional trade and transit; including work on infrastructure and progress on energy, power transmission lines and transport infrastructure, including railway networks; Conducive conditions for the return of Afghan refugees; and Trans-regional co-operation against the narcotics trade. Supporting people-to-people contact, including interaction and exchanges between the civil society, academia, media and private sector. 29. Conference Participants welcomed the fact that Afghanistan and its regional partners would have opportunities in 2010 to develop and coordinate contributions to advance these principles. Conference Participants noted the value of a more coherent and structured approach to individual initiatives. In this respect, Conference Participants welcomed the fact that Afghanistan has invited the relevant regional bodies (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and Economic Cooperation Organisation in accordance with their respective mandates) and others including the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to develop as soon as possible a co-ordinated plan for Afghanistans regional engagement. Conference Participants invited the countries, regional organisations and fora concerned to offer regular updates, including at the Kabul Conference. 30. Emphasising the theme of enriching regional cooperation, Conference Participants welcomed the contribution made by specific bilateral and regional projects including that of the OIC on education and tackling radicalisation, the OSCE and the Afghanistan-Pakistan Cooperation Workshop (Dubai Process) on border management. Conference Participants were grateful for the information given by several countries on bilateral initiatives including the Afghanistan-Pakistan Trade and Transit Agreement, on which they welcomed progress achieved and looked forward to a timely conclusion, and the Indonesian programmes for capacity building including technical cooperation in the fields of education, health, agriculture, poverty reduction, renewable energy and small and medium enterprises. 31. Conference Participants recalled that the international community was engaged in Afghanistan in support of the Government of Afghanistan. Until such time as the Government of Afghanistan is able to assume the responsibility, Conference Participants noted with
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appreciation that UNAMA continues to be the primary international organisation for coordinating international support in line with the UNSCR 1868. Conference Participants welcomed: the Afghan Governments presentation of clear priorities; the international communitys commitment to more effective and properly resourced civilian engagement to support the Afghan Government in order to improve the impact of international civilian assistance; the international communitys commitment to align its assistance more closely with Afghan priorities, in keeping with Paris Principles on aid effectiveness, thereby increasing Afghan government capacity; the international communitys intention to work closely with UNAMA to reinvigorate civilian delivery; the appointment of a new NATO Senior Civilian Representative; and the decision of the EU to strengthen its presence in Kabul under one single representative. 32. Conference Participants welcomed the decision by the UN Secretary General to appoint Staffan di Mistura; the decision by the NATO Secretary General to appoint Mark Sedwill; and the forthcoming appointment from the European Union (EU) High Representative; and looked forward to their taking up their jobs in the first few months of 2010. Conference Participants invited them to work closely together to ensure closer coordination in Kabul. Furthermore while noting recent improvements in the functioning of the JCMB, Conference Participants invited the co-chairs of the JCMB to recommend to its members additional measures to make the JCMB ever more effective. 33. Conference Participants took the opportunity to thank the incumbents: UN SRSG Kai Eide, NATO SCR Fernando Gentilini and EUSR Ettore Sequi and EC Head of Delegation Hansjrg Kretschmer for their invaluable work and commitment to Afghanistan. 34. We look forward to reviewing mutual progress on commitments at the Kabul Conference later this year. Communiqu, UK & Afghanistan, http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference/communique/ (accessed January 30, 2010)
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T HE US F INDING I TSELF ON THE H ORNS A FGHANISTAN
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The new reintegration US plan hinges on winning over moderate Taliban which in their view form 70% of total fighters. Their supposed success with some of the former Taliban officials who had worked under Mullah Omar has led them to believe that with their help they would be able to wean away the majority and isolate hardcore Taliban. $1.5 billion has been pledged to woo the reconcilable. Only the reconcilable who will renounce militancy, surrender arms and cut off links with al-Qaeda and Mullah Omar led hardliners would stand qualified. This kind of effort was made in the past as well in which Saudi leadership was asked to play a role to bring the reconcilable closer to Karzai regime. Meeting of some of the Taliban leaders with Saudi officials, such as Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, M. Musa Hotal, Abdul Hakim Munib, Faiz M. Faizan and Shams-us-Safa, led to a misplaced belief that a breakthrough had been achieved. (The five have now been removed from the blacklist of UNSC). However, owing to impractical preconditions, Saudi initiative fizzled out. Saudis desired detachment of Taliban from al-Qaeda rather than dividing the Taliban. Karzai on several occasions expressed his eagerness to meet Omar and proposed a meeting at any venue suiting him or at Kabul assuring him full security. His overtures were brushed aside since he is seen by Taliban Shura as an American puppet whose writ doesnt extend beyond his palace and whose security is dependent upon American guards. During the recent London conference held on 28 January to find a solution to Afghan tangle, Karzai made an offer to negotiate with the Taliban and to re-integrate them. He once again sought Saudi mediation. In response to the preconditions put forth by the participants, Taliban Shura put forward its own points. These are: release of all Taliban prisoners languishing in different jails; clearance of all 144 Taliban officials from the blacklist of UNSC and canceling induction of additional troops. They have not addressed Karzai for they know he is powerless. The US is finding itself on the horns of a dilemma. It knows it will not be able to defeat Taliban and al-Qaeda comprehensively in the foreseeable future but is desperate to achieve some sort of moral if not physical victory and return home in next 2-3 years timeframe honorably. It also knows that Karzai led regime propped up by Washington through fraudulent election and Afghan security forces are not in a position to
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handle the situation independently after the withdrawal of coalition forces. It acknowledges that the Taliban are a force to reckon with; they can neither be wished away nor can their return to power blocked. Eight years of sustained efforts have failed to weaken their fighting ability, their resolve and unity. Taliban-al-Qaeda nexus remain intact. Afghan Shura led by Mullah Omar continues to hold undiminished sway over the Taliban movement. Mullah Omar and his Shura operate from unknown location (s) since November 2001. None has seen him or any of his top confidantes despite the man hunt. Unlike mixed reports about Osama bin Laden whether he is dead or alive, no news of his death have ever been circulated which implies he is functional. Afghans have seen the real faces of their rulers and none among them ever caught their imaginations and inspired them. Mullah Omar stands tall among the whole lot because of his personal conduct based on justice, honesty and piety, and the way he restored stability, security and social order during his five-year rule under trying conditions. The up righteous and principled stand that he took to protect his guest under the tradition of Pasthunwali upgraded his esteem and respect in the eyes of Afghans sky high. Even leaders of TTP have sworn allegiance to him and see him as Ameer-ul-Momineen. His resilience to withstand the onslaught of US led allied forces and his leadership qualities to recapture lost ground and restore the Taliban movement further boosted his image. He is now seen by the Afghan Pashtuns as the only hope to rid the country from foreign occupation and to once again regain stability. While the popularity of Mullah Omar has not dented, Americans have lost their image and credibility due to their barbaric and unjust practices. Casualties of occupation troops have begun to accelerate from 2009 onwards and territory is fast slipping out of their hands as more and more territory is coming under the influence of Taliban. Low morale, depression and homesickness among ISAF soldiers coupled with vociferous demands from USA and western countries to wind up the fruitless war are other factors which are haunting US leaders. Successes achieved by Pak Army suffering from paucity of resources as compared with US-NATO forces enjoying all tactical, operational, technical and logistical advantages also disturb them since it is now becoming increasingly difficult to hide their failures by blaming Pakistan. US eagerness to negotiate with the Taliban makes its position difficult to restrain Pakistan from maintaining contacts with them. In the face of
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belligerent and uncompromising attitude of Indian leaders towards Pakistan and exposure of its clandestine activities in Balochistan, FATA and Swat, US can no longer press Pakistan to render its eastern border naked and shift bulk of forces towards western border where Pak Army has stabilized the situation to quite an extent and the TTP is in disarray. Since the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been demonized so extensively, it has become difficult to negotiate with any of the two entities with an open and free mind. Neither the US can afford to abandon in haste as it had done in 1990 since it would open the gates for the Taliban to retake power without much ado, thereby rendering their massive investments and human losses end in smoke. This for sure would ignite furor in USA and western countries and demand for a probe and accountability would intensify. Anti-Americanism would peak in the western world as well. Return of Taliban to power would give heart to Islamic movements raging in several Muslim countries and future of secular governments supported by USA would become wobbly. The stakes being too high, the US would therefore not opt for the safest option of talking to Taliban without preconditions but would opt for next best to divide Taliban, isolate hardcore Taliban and al-Qaeda, launch ruthless operations against strongholds of Taliban in southern and southeastern Afghanistan to regain lost space and then negotiate from position of strength. Efforts to entice reconcilable Pashtuns and Taliban have already begun with the help of few former officials of Mullah Omar regime. Shinwari tribe in Nangahar province has been approached and some headway made. $500 million has been placed at the disposal of Karzai to buy off loyalties of moderates. US leadership must listen to the voice of American people who want US soldiers to return to their homes. It is regrettable that instead of respecting their sentiments, Gen McChrystal is feverishly planning a massive offensive in Helmand next week amidst snowfall forcing the unfortunate residents of the province to leave their homes and hearths in inclement weather. Having suffered big reverses in July offensive in Helmand, he is desperate to build up his badly bruised image at the cost of people of Afghanistan and his troops. It implies the US is refusing to learn from history and is bent upon winning over Afghan Pashtuns through policy of shock and awe. Taliban have not got over awed and have vowed to fight back with all their strength. It is however to be seen whether the Taliban would like to get involved in pitched battles against overwhelming numerical and technological superiority of coalition
18
IPRI Factfile
forces. Moreover, while the US is pushed for time the other side is not and would like to buy time. The US should strive to leave behind good memories and not scars by sheathing the stick and using carrots only. Asif Haroon Raja, February 8, 2010. http://www.markthetruth.com/afghanistan/333-the-us-finding-itself-onthe-horns-of-a-dilemma-in-afghanistan.html
O PERATION M OSHTARAK : A T
G LANCE
The joint command at Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) has launched what it calls an "Afghan-led counter-insurgency operation", sending 15,000 troops into key areas of Helmand province to fight the Taliban. The Taliban has a fraction of that number of forces, claiming 2,000 fighters are ready to fight back. Codenamed Operation Moshtarak (meaning "together" in the local Dari language), the latest offensive's first objective is to secure control of the town of Marjah, southwest of Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gah. Marjah is known to be the heart of the region's opium's cultivation and drug trade. To the north, troops are also fighting in the district of Nad Ali, the scene of recent, smaller clashes between Nato forces and Taliban fighters. The forces involved in Operation Moshtarak are: Afghans comprise about 60 per cent of the total force, although most are in support roles. This includes members of the Afghan National Army, border police and Afghan Gendarmerie. 1,500 Afghan army troops are fighting. 3,500 US marines are also being deployed. 2,000 British soldiers will be taking part as well, as are forces from Denmark, Estonia and Canada. The US is calling this assault a prototype for a new kind of military operation, in which the goal is to capture the area with a minimum amount of violence. And for the first time Nato and Afghan officials have readied a large number of Afghan administrators as well as an Afghan governor to run Marjah as soon as the fighting ends. More than 1,000 local police are also standing by.
Aljazeera, February 13, 2010. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201021343536129252.html
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B ATTLE
FOR
M ARJAH : T HE T ALIBAN S TRONGHOLD
A massive build-up is afoot for the battle of Marjah, which is the strong-hold of Taliban in the Helmand province of Afghanistan. About fifteen thousand ground troops, reinforced by twenty thousand Afghan Army and police force will launch the offensive, supported by the entire US-NATO air power in Afghanistan. The objective is to inflict a crushing defeat on the Taliban, at Marjah, which is considered a bastion of Taliban power, and set the momentum for their defeat in other areas, thus restoring government control over the territories of Afghanistan. Indeed, it is a very ambitious plan against the Taliban, who control thirty provinces, out of thirty four and rule the country-side. The surge of 30,000 American troops to be completed by August this year is expected to accomplish the task of restoring government control over Afghanistan. The Google picture of Marjah and the surrounding areas, gives a better explanation of the impending battle: Marjah which lies about 15 KM west of Lashkargah the provincial capital of Helmand is a plain sandy area with scattered mud huts, and a green belt to the south and the west, fed by the Helmand River. The green belt is sparsely populated with about 6-7000 people. The area is open, not at all suited for positional defence, nor for hit and run operations of the Taliban. In the vast open areas, the coalition air power and the mobile armoured troops would be able to drastically limit Taliban movement and their operational effectiveness. What kind of resistance, therefore the coalition forces are expecting for which the massive build-up, is taking place? Taliban are well-versed in this game of fighting in the desert regions of South and the rugged mountains, for the last thirty years. They are the die-hard freedom fighters, motivated, self-assured and confident of victory against the occupation forces. Time is on their side. Their strategy for the battle of Marjah therefore can be easily envisaged: They would rather hold Marjah lightly, with a maximum of 2-3000 die-hard fighters, who would fight to the last man, killing as many of coalition forces, as possible. The use of strong and dispersed defenses, reinforced by IEDs Omar Bombs and booby traps, would cause attrition on the attacking troops. Under-ground defensive net-work, on the pattern of Hezbollahs defenses against Israelis in the 2006 war, would add to the strength of the resistance. The bulk of the Taliban fighting force in Helmand area is estimated
20
IPRI Factfile
at 10-12000, which is likely to operate around the combat zone of Marjah, to carryout interdiction of supply lines, logistics, support bases and may engage the coalition forces from several directions. While the battle of Marjah rages, which will be long and bloody, the Taliban operating in other provinces, under their control will intensify their activities against the occupation forces, causing dispersion and greater attrition. The story of total defeat of the British Army of 1898, will not be repeated because, the air power of the coalition forces will save the day. A stalemate will occur. The result of this battle as well as the war in Afghanistan is the real contest between two opposing will. The coalition forces are demoralized and defeated, fighting a war which has no ideal and no moral justification. Whereas the Taliban are fighting for the freedom of their homeland, with faith in themselves and belief in the Divine Intervention, which has helped them defeat the mightiest of the mighty, during the last thirty years. In fact, the Asymmetric Warfare, waged by the Shadow Army of Taliban has determined the contours of the emerging global order, by putting limits to the expanding menace of global hegemony, primacy and pre-eminence. Maulana Jalaluddin Roomis prediction indeed has come true: The Giants come forward from Afghanistan and influence the world. In May 2003, when Afghanistan was occupied by the coalition forces, Jalaluddin Haqqani declared: We have decided to fight, till we are free. We will never submit to the demands of the occupation forces, because our national ethos and traditions do not allow that. Freedom is our goal and our destiny. Win we will, Insha Allah. A common friend, who has just returned from Afghanistan, told me: I found them, so much at ease with themselves. So cool, calm, perceptive and committed to their cause and total surrender to the will of Allah They say the time is on their side, whereas, it is running-out for the oppressors in Afghanistan. It is obvious that the outcome of the battle of Marjah would be a stalemate and the heavy casualties, the coalition forces are likely to suffer. In no way it would help the peace process in Afghanistan. Sagacity demands that the USA and their coalition partners show greater sincerity of purpose for peace and give up the idea of use of force for gains, at this belated stage, when the Taliban enjoy clear ascendancy over the occupation forces, and with each passing day, more and more tribals are joining them. Attempts are being made to separate the al-Qaeda from the Taliban who would not abandon them. If they could, they would have
21
handed-over Osama to the Americans nine years back and saved themselves from the ravages of war. There are no good and bad Taliban either. They are all the same, and follow Mullah Omar. No amount of money can buy-them-of either, because they are not a saleable commodity. Let us therefore accept the reality and initiate the peace process in real unrest. Special modalities, therefore, are needed for bringing peace in Afghanistan and to ensure an honourable way out, for USA and its allies, and a smooth transition to the civil order, without triggering bigger chaotic conditions. There are terrifying prospects of defeat in Afghanistan hence the need for a comprehensive strategy and an exit strategy, which is the only viable option, to be supported by an aggressive political and diplomatic policy for peace in Afghanistan. The steps, therefore, that needs to be taken are: The occupation forces must give a time-frame for withdrawal and declare a cease-fire. Start dialogue with the Taliban and Northern Alliance, to form the Loe Jirga, to decide the main issues, such as the formation of the Interim government, for a period of three years, which will be responsible for holding the Census to determine who is who, for the impending elections; framing of a new Constitution; rebuilding of Institutions; massive reconstruction of the infrastructure and re-creating ethnic balance, which remains disturbed since the Bonn Conference of 2001 and holding of general elections in the year 2013 and finally transfer power to the elected government. The centres of power Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban must be taken into cognizance, as the main arbiters of peace and the immediate neighbours Iran and China must also be on board.
Gen Mirza Aslam Beg, Pakistan Daily, February 15, 2010. http://www.daily.pk/battle-for-marjeh-the-taliban-strong-hold-16083/
A LTERING A FGHANISTAN ' S B ALANCE
OF
P OWER
Marines along with foreign and Afghan forces began a major offensive in the city of Marjah in Afghanistan's Helmand Province on Saturday, with the goal of regaining control from the Taliban and establishing a government there. CFR national security expert Max Boot, who was in the province in October as the offensive was being planned, says success in Marjah will mean being able to extend the area of control in "a kind of spreading ink stain, which is a classic aim of counterinsurgency warfare."
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IPRI Factfile
He also says Colombia's success in controlling its drug trade suggests it's possible to sharply reduce opium production in Helmand Province.
What is this major operation, the largest since President Obama took office, aiming to accomplish?
They are trying to take out probably the biggest remaining Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, which has been a safe haven not only for insurgents but also for drug dealers--and the two, of course, are connected. I was on the ground in Nawa, which is only five to ten miles south of Marjah. A couple of thousand Marines had gone into Nawa last summer and had established control by the time I arrived in October. It was actually safe to walk around the town without body armor, which is not something I'd recommend trying in most of Helmand Province. But the Marines in Nawa talked about Marjah being a sort of black hole that exerted a dark influence over Nawa and everything else in the vicinity. And as long as Marjah remained a Taliban stronghold, it would be hard to make progress in other parts of Helmand Province. The Marines were very aware that they needed to reach a critical mass of troops so that they not only would be able to go into Marjah but also to hold it once they were in there. That's the point of the whole operation-to have enough American and Afghan troops so that they can not only do the clearing but also the hold and build part of the operation. They needed some of the thirty thousand surge troops that President Obama authorized on December 1, as well as Afghan troops that have been sent from other parts of Afghanistan. They finally got to this critical mass and decided to go into Marjah. The goal of the operation is not primarily to kill a bunch of bad guys. If that had been the goal they would have disguised the operation so that it would have been more of a surprise. But what they did was to publicize it well in advance. That gave civilians a chance to get out of the line of fire, but it also let the Taliban escape if they wanted to. The attitude of the military planners was that they didn't care if the Taliban escaped. They wanted to grab hold of the populated area and keep it from being used as a Taliban stronghold in the future. The key now is to hold on to it. They did a lot in the planning process to make sure that not only the combat operation was successful. General Stanley McChrystal [U.S. commander in Afghanistan] got President Hamid Karzai to sign off on
23
the operation, which he has not done with a lot of military operations in the past. They have what they call a "government in a box" ready to come in to govern and not just fight. They have a district governor and a district government ready to come in; they have several thousand Afghan policemen ready to come in. That will be essential to turning around Marjah and expanding the area of control. Right now what we have in Helmand Province is a lot of insurgent activity in the countryside and a few areas of government control in places like Nawa or Lashkgar Gah, the provincial capital, and soon to be followed by Marjah, areas where substantial numbers of coalition troops will have gone in and held, and now the task will be to expand those areas of control into a kind of spreading ink stain, which is a classic aim of counterinsurgency warfare. The allies will be trying to bring the ink stains together. You will have quite a large area where hopefully the insurgents will be excluded in the future.
How does Helmand Province relate to the fight against alQaeda and the Taliban?
Helmand is one of the two critical provinces in southern Afghanistan along with Kandahar. Those two predominantly Pashtun provinces are traditionally the heart of the Taliban movement. Helmand is particularly important because it is the largest opium-producing region in the world, and that finances the Taliban insurgency. In the planning that General McChrystal and his staff have done, their main emphasis has been to take control of Helmand and Kandahar. This is going to be a major step towards accomplishing that in Helmand Province. There is still a lot of fighting to be done in Helmand and there is still the issue of Kandahar and Kandahar City, where coalition troops have been having a hard fight on the periphery trying to exclude the Taliban from the city itself. That is all part of the integrated campaign plan to take control of some of these areas where the Taliban insurgency has flourished--to deny them to the Taliban in the future. The enemy that our troops are fighting there is primarily Taliban, not alQaeda. There aren't that many al-Qaeda troops in Afghanistan, per se. But these groups are closely linked. You have the Pakistan Taliban and various other Islamist groups which have a refuge in Pakistan and all of which are cooperating to some degree to push foreign troops out and to overthrow the democratic government in Kabul.
24
IPRI Factfile
One critic I heard on television was concerned Marines would bring in Afghan forces and administrators who would not be from the local area, which would breed resentment. Whats your sense of that?
The allied commanders are pretty well aware of this. The people who are governing down south are Pashtuns, as is President Karzai. The fight in the south is really a fight among Pashtuns. There is no question that there are a number of other ethnic groups--Tajiks, Hazaris, Uzbeks, and others--who are represented in the Afghan army. Overall, the Afghan army is pretty well balanced ethnically. This hasn't been a huge issue. In fact, one of the interesting aspects of the fight in Afghanistan is that there hasn't been a lot of the sectarian fighting like you saw in Iraq where Sunnis and Shiites were at each other's throats. The bigger issue is not the ethnicity of the troops or the government officials involved. The bigger issue is corruption and the competence of those involved.
Is the goal of wiping out the narcotics traffic here a reasonable one?
"Wiping it out" isn't going to happen any time soon. But reducing it is reasonable. I've just been in Colombia, which is another area where you've got a flourishing narcotics economy and a flourishing insurgency, which is piggy-backing off the narcotics economy. Ten years ago, the situation in Colombia seemed hopeless. It looked like it was going to be a failed narco-state. There has been a rapid reduction in the amount of coca which is grown and exported out of Colombia. So the historical evidence suggests that it's not impossible to root out or dramatically and reduce local drug production. But it can't be done in isolation. What works is that you have to establish 24/7 control on the ground. If you do that, then you start to shift the incentives and all of a sudden the farmers find that it doesn't pay to grow poppies, that other crops might make more sense. And if you can get roads open again and prevent the insurgents from mining the roads, farmers will be able to get other crops to market. One of the big attractions to the farmers in growing poppies is that the Taliban will come and pick it up and deliver it for them so they don't have to worry about transportation, which is very difficult in southern Afghanistan. If you can make the transportation network safe and secure--if you can impose a baseline of security 24/7 in the villages--all of a sudden you will find a lot fewer
Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy people wanting to grow opium.
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Youve pointed out that President Obama has never called for a victory in this fight in Afghanistan. Will there be pressure on him to do so if the Marines clear this whole area?
I dont think hes going to change now. But the fact that hes not talking about winning but in fact he seems to hold out the withdrawal of our troops as being the highest goal of American strategy makes it harder for the troops to achieve their job. The only way theyre going to truly take out the Taliban is if they create the impression in the minds of ordinary Afghans that it is a better bet in the long term to side with the government and its NATO allies than it is to side with the Taliban. The only way to do that is to convince them in the long term that we and our Afghan allies will be there to protect them. If youre the president of the United States and youre talking about withdrawal in the summer of 2011 that undercuts the message that the troops on the ground are trying to convey of permanent and lasting security. It doesnt make the mission impossible but it makes it more difficult.
When you were in Nawa, did you find that after chasing out the Taliban, many of the Taliban came over to the government side? Is that a goal of this operation?
There hasn't been a huge amount of that. What tended to happen in Nawa was that the Taliban would just lie low. When you talk about the Taliban, there are many varieties of Taliban. There are some hardcore fighters, but many of them are just farmers who get paid for planting bombs and who go off and deal with their crops. At some point they may plant bombs or carry an AK-47 for a few weeks, but a lot of the Taliban are part-time fighters. What happens in places like Nawa is that a lot of the part-timers who might have been willing to go out and plant bombs for the Taliban a few months before, once they have two thousand U.S. Marines sitting on top of them, suddenly decide that's not a wise thing to do, and just go to ground. They don't necessarily join the government, and that's fine. You don't necessarily want them to join the government, but if they cease and desist from undertaking insurgent activities, that's perfectly acceptable. NATO and the Afghan government have announced an elaborate program, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to reintegrate former
26
IPRI Factfile
Taliban fighters into Afghan society. That's an important program to have, but it's not going to reap real benefits until you change the military balance on the ground. You have to create incentives for ordinary Taliban to say it's more dangerous to stay with the Taliban than it would be to go with the government. For an example of what you might see happen, go back to the fall of 2001 when we came in right after 9/11 and all of a sudden many, many fighters switched from the Taliban to the government because they thought that American intervention was this irresistible force and they had to get on the right side of it. A lot of that momentum has been dissipated in the last few years. The goal of the surge now is to regain that momentum and convince a lot of the ordinary foot soldier Taliban to give up the fight. Thats a realistic expectation but again, we haven't reached that tipping point yet.
In a way, this battle for Marjah will be a test case, right?

I don't think anybody imagines that we will win the war in Marjah. It's one step in a long road toward creating the kind of environment where you create security and change the balance of power on the ground. And once you do that, then you dont have to kill or lock up most of the Taliban. A lot of them will just give up or switch sides--and that's the ultimate goal.
Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatricks interview to Council on Forigen Relations, February 15, 2010. http://www.cfr.org/publication/21437/
T HE M ULLAH
AND THE
M ARJAH C AMPAIGN
Good news from Pakistan is rare. So it was a particular relief to hear of the capture in Karachi of the Talibans top military commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. The joint raid by American and Pakistani intelligence forces is a sign that President Obamas investment in better relations with Pakistan is bearing fruit. It is also a reminder of how much more could be done if the Pakistanis fully committed to the fight against the extremists. Like most Americans, we are also closely watching the news from Afghanistan, as United States, NATO and Afghan troops battle to gain control of Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province. The campaign is the first real test of Mr. Obamas top commander in
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Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and his ambitious counterinsurgency strategy. By Monday, three days into the assault, American commanders said at least half of the estimated 400 Taliban fighters in Marjah had been killed or had fled. But as General McChrystal has rightly made clear, what matters most is what happens after the fighting ends to win and keep the allegiance of Marjahs residents. Afghanistans government has failed to provide security and even the most basic services to the residents of Marjah and most of the rest of Afghanistan. That fact, more than any, has pushed Afghans back into the arms of the Taliban. Once the fighting ends, General McChrystals plan is to install a functioning government in Marjah. President Hamid Karzai has appointed a new district governor who is expected to move in soon. About 400 Afghan police officers will be brought in to patrol until a local force can be recruited and trained. Plans for projects to create jobs and provide services have been drawn up. American and British diplomats are ready to set up an office in Marjah to help them move forward. The goal is then to replicate the Marjah experience in Taliban strongholds across the country. It is an ambitious strategy that will need the sustained attention of Washington and other NATO allies and the solid backing of Mr. Karzai. Many important details of Mullah Baradars capture are still secret, including why Pakistan decided to cooperate now in seizing him. What is clear is that the Pakistani Army and intelligence service which helped create and nurture the Afghan Taliban can deliver bad guys when they want to. Neither Mullah Baradars capture nor the Marjah campaign is likely to break the Talibans will to fight. But we hope that the mounting pressure will make some members start questioning their allegiance. General McChrystal and Afghan leaders have been drafting a plan to offer jobs and other incentives to persuade insurgents to put down their weapons and renounce the Talibans brutality and medieval ideas. Guaranteeing their security from reprisals from their former comrades or their neighbors will be essential. It is also unlikely that the Talibans hard-core leaders will ever want to reconcile with Kabul. Or if they do, their price will be far too high. Frankly, we are concerned about President Karzais overly eager determination to hold a tribal council on reintegrating Taliban leaders,
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IPRI Factfile
including the chief, Mullah Muhammad Omar. As president, Mr. Karzai has the right to try. But for the sake of his own people, he must make clear that the government will not cede an inch, especially when it comes to education for women and girls.
Editorial, New York Times, February 17, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/opinion/18thur1.html
M AKING P EACE
WITH
T ALIBAN
P OSSIBILITY ?
Going by what transpired in the London Moot of January 28, 2010, the Afghan premiership and its western allies have commonly fathomed that negotiated settlement with the fanatically purist Talibs is indeed the cooperative path out of the morass after nine years of often directionless drift. Centrality of the message is that a concerted act may wave over Afghanistan, making the insurgents to wither away with pledges reintegrating them back in the social and political fabrics by offering security, vocational training, jobs and amnesty for past crimes. Among the high profile Talib cock-ups, the US, however, is in favour of engaging mid- and low-level militants, 70 percent of whom are believed to fight for money and reasons other than ideological and may lay down arms if given a viable alternative. Fragmenting the Taliban on good and bad standards, the good probably refers to a newer generation that might be more willing to cut deals with foreign forces than the older generation, which partnered with the likes of Osama bin Laden. It is being believed that the disenchanted folks can be accommodated in the political mainstream if they renounce violence and sever links with al-Qaeda. Then there is the perennial talk of wooing moderate Taliban over to the governments side. However, the hurdles lie ahead must be brought to light: How to identify the modes of reconciling the Pastun dissidents? Will the new Strategy work? Did the London summit on Afghanistan signal a bold new approach or offer a blueprint for the US-led coalitions exit strategy? It is also no secret that the west wants out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. The success is thus oscillatory and it is yet to be seen whether the US-led west could win by this process of discriminatory chicaneries, subtly fomenting discord among Pashtun Taliban in order to achieve the good objective. It is clear that neither the Taliban nor ISAF are currently in a position to win the war in Afghanistan. What is more significant though is that the militants enjoy the upper hand right now, not the Afghan
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government and its international allies. Obviously, the maxima has been factored out by realizations on part of both the US-led NATO forces and the combatants, leading the former cartographers to understand that success in untangling the Afghan knot is impossible at the crossroads, likewise the latter stewardship does not feel winning the global battleground that had already witnessed motleys of the Great Game played there in different eras. In this dual-tracked compromising path way, the west is relying solely on the past imperialistic game of dissecting the Pashtun Taliban by providing incentives package of politico-socio engineering and financial backing to war weary leaders and foot soldiers, assuming that concessionary modus-vivendi could win over the brawling ideological concord. Antithetically, the Taliban is waiting out for the cut and run channel, previously exercised by the mighty US in Vietnam. With the wests possible admission that the best it can get in Afghanistan is a stalemate followed by the foreign forces withdrawal, coercive violence may reappear at some later stage where the defected Afghan segments may join hands with the war-lords. If that happens, Afghanistan and the region as a whole could be back to square one. Washington formula is calculating on the possibility of talks with the battle fatigued sections of Taliban coupled by a surge in allied forces offensive against those unwilling to come to the negotiation table. But the question arises: can the Taliban be so shaky in a years time that can be dictated to from a position of strength? The London conference is the sixth in the series of the long-term commitments and pledges to Afghanistan, as previously set out in the 2001 Bonn Agreement, in the 2002 Tokyo Conference, the 2006 Afghanistan Compact, the 2008 Paris Declaration and the 2009 The Hague Conference Declaration. The London communiqu dangled the prospect of a longed-for peace. Once again the international community re-affirmed its support for the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions upholding the security, stability and prosperity of Afghanistan and in particular the role of the UN itself in achieving this goal. In the meantime, three strategic reviewed has been taken by President Obama. The solely reason behind is that 2009 had highly been a bad time for the US army causalities that increased even than the last year. The Afghan fraudulent election has also challenged the credibility of the UN and Washington. Then the US-European public pressure is also demanding social-civilian engineering rather than troop surge. Last week moot is
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IPRI Factfile
merely the continuity of previous pledges and hopes. Two new developments took place in this conference. Firstly, the Karzais sponsored reintegration plan and secondly the committed increase in donors proportion of development aid to 50 percent to be delivered through the government of Afghanistan in the next two years. But this support is conditional on the governments progress in further strengthening public financial management systems, reducing corruption, improving budgetary execution, developing a financing strategy and governments capacity towards the goal. The London meeting backed the Afghan President Hamid Karzais plan to reintegrate Taliban - willing to cut ties with al-Qaida, to eschew violence and other terrorist groups and pursue their political goals peacefully - and offer an honourable social status in a free and open society that respect the principles enshrined in the Afghan constitution. International allies will pledge at least $500 million for the reconciliation fund officially known as the Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, and dubbed as the Taliban Trust Fund by some. London confirmed the best, the allies now hope for is an orderly and honourable retreat, scattering alms as they leave. The strategic community realized that some political element is missing in their Afghan paradigm, therefore they include civilian surge as an important component of the Afghan strategy. US Secretary of state Hillary Clinton had also acknowledged that most modern conflicts didnt end with a victory on the field of battle and therefore political and development work was essential. Analyzing the shift in policy towards accommodation, critics predict if political and softer strategy initiatives are subject to the kinetic measures then durable peace in Afghanistan will be a remote dream. The decision makers have wrong perception that they can divide the Taliban through money. This reintegration plan excludes the core combatant leadership in the engagement of political reconciliation. Nothing could be clearer than the fact that there is an ever-widening divide in the perception, interests and understanding of the situation amongst the various stakeholders in Afghanistan. The regional states have their eyes on maximizing benefits as the US reviews cutting its losses and bailing out of Kabul. Despite the international backing to the Karzais sponsored reintegration plan, dichotomy is tangible between Kabul and Washington, where the latter assumes that it is up to the Afghan
31
government to decide which Taliban leaders could be integrated, but final decisions be chalked out in consultation with the US-multilateral architectures. This influential factor can undermine the true sprit of reintegration plan. There are some who believe that an agreement could have been reached only if the US was not in such a hurry to attack in the beginning. Afghanistan - the Heart of Asia and a land-bridge between the South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and the Far East - is in the sate of doldrums since nine years, facing the shock and awe approach that envisaged the US-led allies using military power against an essentially primitive enemy to obtain its submission. Now the legitimacy of the Afghan authorities and international community will depend on their ability to establish a truly representative government through full inclusion of all the Afghan stakeholders in the political process for the lasting peace and stability not only in Afghanistan but also in the region. Forming splinter coteries among the Taliban on good and bad lines can only further deepen the prevalent ethnic rifts, thus threatening the national integrity, solidarity and regional peace.
Mohammed Nawaz Khan, London Post, February 18, 2010. http://www.thelondonpost.net/mnk18FEB10.html
D ESTINATION K ANDAHAR : M ARCHING T OWARDS E ND -G AME ?

The largest US-led joint military offensive in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, code named Moshtarak is nearing its end. The assault was centered on the town of Marjah which comprise family compounds that are spread over miles of arid, deserted terrain. The unique aspect of this offensive has been the way that the civilians were taken into confidence. For nearly a month leading up to the operation, residents of Marjah were psychologically briefed to leave their homes for provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. One could see thousands and thousands of air dropped leaflets that littered around carrying the massage and warning that if they dont leave Marjah, then they must at least stay indoors after dark. A number of meetings were held wherein Afghan and NATO military Commanders briefed the village elders on what was to come and how best to stay safe. A number of spaces were earmarked also for the families in schools, camps and other public spaces in Lashkar Gah, should any family decide to vacate its home and shift in
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there for safety reasons. The Taliban were not observed to have offered much of the expected resistance except in pockets to the assault, probably the terrain defied the hit and run concept of the Taliban strategy. For the time being the Taliban might have changed their places or mixed with the population to avoid their capture. The fact that the allied forces did not face any strong resistance, except a few skirmishes that also took lives, the offensive proved to be a near walk over in Marjah. This, however, does not indicate that the Taliban are no more present in the area and as such, one is likely to see off and on attacks on the foreign forces in and around Marjah. A stalemate in the ground situation, therefore, is what we are going to see for some time. The Taliban are the diehard freedom fighters, motivated, self-assured and confident of victory against the occupation forces. Time is on their side and they remain in a defiant mood against the presence of foreigners in their homeland. While the efforts are afoot by the Karzai government to pacify the Taliban and bring them in the political mainstream, like the one reported in Maldives prior the London Conference, the Helmand offensive tantamount to a tangent with what had been decided in the London Conference. The offensive also runs contrary to the statement of US Defence Secretarys acceptance of Taliban as part of Afghan political spectrum. Why Helmands Marjah town was chosen for the assault? Was it that it is considered strategically important district? There are many theories that have come up on the same. Some opine that the provinces geographic location gives the province a strategic importance as the US and the allies want to establish a base there to over look the Iranian military activities and Chinese growing influence in the Indian ocean and their use of Pakistani port of Gwadar. As per one of the Taliban Commander Mullah Akhund, The British forces are bringing a large amount of equipment to the area and have started extracting Uranium there and British transport planes land and take off from this area several times every day. Then there are people who say that the real reason for the Helmand offensive was that the Taliban present here were considered more vulnerable as compared to the ones in the areas bordering North Waziristan. Then there is a school of thought that says that it tantamount to ethnic cleansing of Pashtuns from Helmand. The Afghan National Army comprise 3 to 5 percent of the people from south, mostly Dari speakers, rather than Pashtuns. Though 42 percent of Afghan population is of Pashtuns yet less than 30 percent of them form part of the ANA.
33
Compared with the Tajiks who form 25 percent of the population in Afghanistan, 41 percent of them form part of the Afghan National Army. So there are apprehensions amongst Afghans that Operation Moshtarak and beyond would sow the seeds of civil war once the foreign troops are pulled out. Once Marjah is cleared of Taliban, the western strategy would be to hold it out and start the rebuilding process. There is likely hood [likelihood] that many of the Taliban would cross over into Pakistans Baluchistan province from the porous borders linking Dalbandin and Chaghi. Though on more than one occasion assurances have been given to the Pakistani authorities by the NATO and ISAF commanders that measures would be taken to ensure that no cross over movement into Pakistani areas takes place. It is imperative that Pakistans western borders remain peaceful and friendly during the fresh offences and afterwards and as such the Afghan occupational forces must trust and provide it space to maneuver to ensure that Pakistan is not destabilized in any way as a fall out of these offensives. Pakistan has already suffered from the Afghan fiasco tremendously as compared to any other country in the world. Its economy has suffered a massive set back up to the tune of around 35 billion dollars. It deployed up to 147000 soldiers in the FATA areas and elsewhere to arrest the situation as a repurcussion [repercussion] of Afghan fall out. It has suffered 8785 casualties, eight times more than that suffered by the coalition of 43 countries in Afghanistan. The deployment of its own forces to this magnitude despite a real and challenging threat from its eastern neighbour based on its capabilities and not intentions, its history, the outstanding issues including Kashmir, the outrageous squeeze on water flows into Pakistan and lately its Pakistan-centric Cold Start Strategy, speaks of the resilience that the Pakistan Army enjoys without taking the eyes off the eastern borders. Operation Moshtarak is the start of the end game. The end game is to create conditions in Afghanistan that would afford the United States and its allies to quit Afghanistan in a manner that may not be categorized in history as shameful. The Marjah offensive is the first one of many more to come soon. Much of the trumpeted US surge is yet to materialize and would likely take three to four months more. The interim period may be utilized in holding on to Helmand with concurrent development of infrastructure therein the province. The next stop after Helmand will most likely be Kandahar, a province that is considered strong-hold of
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Taliban. It will be that critical time for Pakistan as around 25 million Pashtuns live on this side of Pakistani border and have family relationships with Pashtuns on the other side of the border. That will probably be the blow back time for Pakistan which must be taken care of in advance by closely monitoring the developments in that area.
Bassam Javed, Pakistan Daily, February 23, 2010. http://www.daily.pk/destination-qandahar-marching-towards-end-game-16609/
T HE C HANGING F ACE
OF
A FGHAN C RISIS
International Conference on Afghanistan in London has proved to be highly effective in winning over the global community to ensure that the new strategy succeeds. The world is fully aware that failure in Afghanistan will lead to revival of Talibanisation in the country. That will also provide safe haven to al-Qaeda for its re-establishment. Use of military force for last nine years has only complicated the issue. Major portion of the country is still controlled by Taliban and there has been gradual increase in their support. At last, the international community has come to realize that you cant subjugate nations by the use of brute force. The strategy of Shock and Awe, display of military might at Tora Bora and even the loss of lives cant break the will of a determined nation. Americans and the international community have to prove that they really want to improve the quality of lives of Afghan people and want to sincerely contribute toward their national development. It is important that political, economic development and security issues of Afghanistan are tackled at priority. These can only be undertaken effectively by Afghan security Forces and government functionaries. To be able to win back the confidence of the people they will have to assume a leading role in developmental works and have to prove themselves as the protectors of the rights of the people. The process is going to be slow as the masses will be skeptical of the US trained Afghan forces. The initiatives where UN and Afghan forces undertake joint operations can prove to be totally counterproductive. As the same will project Afghan soldiers as an extension of occupation forces those who are in tandem with the infidels. UN high command needs to be highly perceptive of Afghan sensitivities and must tailor their developmental as well as military operations with the same in mind. During his opening remarks at the London Conference on Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai aptly said that, To make the programme a success we hope that His Majesty
35
King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia will kindly play a prominent role to guide and assist the peace process. We ask all our neighbours, particularly Pakistan, to support our peace and reconciliation. We are looking forward to the international community supporting this plan of action. It clearly reflects on the religious predisposition of Afghan society. The respect they have for the guardians of the two holy mosques and for their Pakistani brothers who supported them during thick and thin. Probably this is one of the reasons that Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in NATO commanders conference in Brussels said Pakistan was prepared to train the Afghan National Army. The success in Afghanistan is critical to American interests. They have tentatively set July 2011 as target date to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. This is not without reason. The war is costing huge amount to the American exchequer. So far Congress has approved $1.075 trillion dollars for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and war-related activities since 2001. For Fiscal Year 2010 defense spending bill of about $130 billion has been approved which will cover expenses till Sept. 30, 2010. It is likely to be increased by $33 billion to pay for the cost of the troop surge in fiscal 2010. Such huge expenses are a definite burden on American economy, which has an estimated budget deficit of $1.17 trillion in 2010 and its projected debt is expected to double to $20 trillion by 2015. American economy already affected by recession can ill afford war expenses. If US economy fails to recover, China will become the biggest economy of the world earlier than later. With military as well as economic constraints at hand it is absolutely practical to adopt a strategy that will save cost and bring about a lasting peace in the region. The best course of action under the circumstance is gradual reduction of American troops and capacity building of Afghan Government as well as its Armed Forces and Police. They should have the ability to undertake developmental works and provide security to its population. The role of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan prominently figurers out as the two Muslim countries enjoy the trust of the people of Afghanistan. They can play prominent role in bridging the gap between Afghan Government and prominent Afghan groups those who are fighting for the independence of their motherland. Their role in restructuring Afghan Governmental institutions, developmental works and training of their armed forces and police will be happily accepted by the people. Exit is always an important event having lasting impact on the future developments in the region. In a world where economic
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strength is more important than military might it is better to build future markets than to sow the seeds of dissent that may develop into lasting confide as was done by Lord Mountbatten. The region is already a nuclear flash point due to Kashmir dispute and presently emerging IndoPak water crisis. Any further disturbances in balance of power in the region will be highly detrimental to its peace and stability. Such an exercise will be self defeating as it will encourage terrorism rather than harnessing the same. Now its the responsibility of sole superpower of the world, while they respectably leave Afghanistan they ensure that it doesnt add to the friction between Pakistan and India.
Alam Rind, March 2, 2010. http://www.markthetruth.com/afghanistan/372-the-changing-face-of-afghancrisis.html
T HE N EXT B ATTLES
FOR
M ARJAH
This year will be the third in a row that tens of thousands of new United States troops have arrived in Afghanistan with plans to clear, hold and build areas controlled by the Taliban. Those previous surges have achieved little success at holding or building, as the international coalition and Afghan government have inevitably failed to come up with realistic plans for what happens after the fighting is done. Is the campaign in Marjah destined for the same fate? The international coalitions strategic goal for Afghanistan is to build an enduring stable, secure, prosperous and democratic state. Only by focusing on the messy medium-term stages of reconstruction those months, and possibly years, after the fighting dies down do we have any chance of achieving such a goal. In this regard, Marjah presents us with four distinct hurdles. (Disclosure: I work as an analyst for a military contractor, but these views are my own.) The most pressing problem is displaced civilians. During the weeks leading up to the offensive, Afghan and American authorities asked residents to leave their homes. Many obliged: according to the United Nations, several thousand families, representing upward of 25,000 people, have fled the area. But accurate reporting is always an issue in Afghanistan, and the Western coalition put the number of families that fled in advance of the fighting at about 200. In either case, aid workers say that the families cannot find temporary housing or medical assistance either in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, or Kabul. Many hundreds of other
37
residents have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed in the fighting. Then there is the question of how Marjah will be governed. Unfortunately, Western leadership is undecided about the nature of the place itself. Depending on which official is speaking, Marjah is either a teeming population center of 85,000 residents or an isolated farming town of about 50,000 or a district with about 125,000 people. But if Marjah is a district, it is unrecognized by the Afghan Interior Ministry. And if Marjah is a town, then it needs to hold a constitutionally mandated election to choose a mayor, and not face a governor forced upon it by Kabul. Regardless of Marjahs status, the choice of new district governor, Haji Abdul Zahir, does not make sense. Mr. Zahir has lived in Germany for the last 15 years and had never set foot in Marjah until two weeks ago. He is also widely seen as an unassertive crony of Gulab Mangal, the provincial governor. Mr. Zahirs main power rival in the area is Abdul Rahman Jan, a fearsome former police chief whose forces had such a nasty reputation that people in Marjah reached out to the Taliban for protection. The international force needs to either find more appropriate candidates or hold an election. Good government will matter little, though, if the local economy is in a shambles. Marjahs agricultural base relies primarily on opium, and any new counternarcotics policies will wreak havoc; arresting or killing the drug traffickers will ultimately be the same as attacking local farmers. The timing of the offensive could not be more damaging: opium is planted in the winter and harvested in the spring, which means those who planted last year cannot recoup their investment. In Helmand, opium is the only way farmers can acquire credit: they take out small loans, called salaam, from narcotics smugglers or Taliban officials, often in units of poppy seed, and pay back that loan in opium paste after harvest. If they cannot harvest their opium, they are in danger of defaulting on their loan a very dangerous proposition. Western aid groups distributed wheat seeds last fall, but there was little follow-up and it seems few farmers used them. This year, the aid workers should be prepared to pay farmers compensation for any opium crops they are unable to harvest as a result of the fighting, and the Western coalition should help the groups develop a microcredit system. Last, progress on these other fronts will do nothing if the Taliban return, which means a significant number of troops must stay for at least a year. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the Central Command, has said that Marjah was merely an initial salvo in an 18-month campaign to also
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retake neighboring Kandahar Province, the birthplace of the Taliban. Kandahar is Afghanistans second-largest city, so it is reasonable to assume that many troops will be pulled out of Marjah for that campaign. This looks like part of a familiar pattern: troops move into an area, kill anyone firing a machine gun, then move on to the next, bigger target hoping they have left behind a functioning government. Its why many communities in central Helmand have experienced three influxes of NATO forces in three years. At a minimum, at least two battalions should stay in Marjah permanently, to undergird the new government. They shouldnt build a new base outside the town for this, or commute to the area from strongholds in Helmand like Camp Leatherneck. They should live right inside the town, providing security and guidance from within. You cant have a population-centric counterinsurgency unless you take care of the people.
Joshua Foust, Pakistan Observer (Islamabad), March 4, 2010. http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=18387
I T S T IME
TO
T ALK
TO
T ALIBAN : UN E NVOY
The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan said on Thursday that its high time a political solution is found with the Taliban to resolve the more than 8-year-old conflict. Its time to talk, Kai Eide said. In his last news conference as the UN representative, Eide said he hoped a spring peace jirga or conference that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is organising would result in a national consensus for peace that the entire nation could rally around. In a wide-ranging news conference at the heavily secured UN compound, Eide said he has always been behind a policy of engagement, but has no allusions about the complexities of negotiating peace with Taliban leaders. He also said he would continue his push for electoral reform following Karzais decree last week giving the Afghan the authority to appoint members of a formerly independent Electoral Complaints Commission. The panel, which monitors election fraud, was previously dominated by UN appointees, who uncovered massive fraud in last years presidential election. Eide said he met with Karzai on Thursday morning to ensure a fairer ballot during parliamentary elections this fall.
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We have made some progress, for instance with regard to international participation in the Electoral Complaints Commission, Eide said. He sounded optimistic about the ongoing negotiations but did not provide further details. Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, is stepping down after a two-year tenure marked by a deadly Taliban attack that killed five U.N. workers at a small hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul. His stewardship also was tarnished by allegations from his American deputy, Peter Galbraith, that he was not bullish enough in curbing the fraud in the August presidential election. Karzai was declared the winner three months later after his last remaining challenger dropped out of a scheduled runoff. Eide has denied that the election controversy was linked to his decision not to renew his two-year contract. Eide acknowledged that he fell short of what he had hoped to achieve during his tenure but stressed that all parties working in Afghanistan face the same problem, including military forces that are driving a massive offensive to oust the Taliban from the southern town of Marjah. We all have to admit that we could have achieved more, Eide said. He said decisive success within a year or two in a nation marred in conflict was unachievable, but that progress was needed this year to show the Afghan people and the international community that a solution to the conflict is within reach. He said the London conference on Afghanistan in January marked the start of a transition phase one thats dependent on a change of mindset by both the Afghan government and donor nations. Afghanistan is sometimes, I must say, seen as and treated as a no mans land, and not as a sovereign state, he said. That has to come to an end because it has fuelled suspicion of unacceptable foreign interference, a sense of humiliation and a feeling that Afghans do not have control of their future. On the Afghan side, the government must do more to assume responsibility for cleaning up corruption, respond to its peoples needs and take responsibility for its future. There is today, still a tendency to push responsibility for difficult decisions on the international community and avoid the main political challenges that faces the society, he said. That also has to come to an end. Eide reiterated his fear that the flood of more than 30,000 U.S.
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troops and thousands more Nato forces into Afghanistan will increase pressure for quick results from civilian aid projects just to satisfy taxpayers abroad.
Dawn (Islamabad), March 5, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/thenewspaper/international/its-time-to-talk-to-taliban-un-envoy-530
W E D O N OT L EARN
FROM
H ISTORY
Women's groups, Afghan civil society organisations and activists have regularly raised alarm because they are concerned that the cooption of the Taliban is likely to amount to a loss of the achievements made over the past nine years. Could we turn the clock back in Afghanistan and travel through time? If so, then the Bonn Agreement of 2001 would be the right time and place to present the Taliban reintegration plan introduced at the recent London conference on Afghanistan. This is because the war was almost over back in late 2001, and a large number of Taliban members were eager for a new life in a new Afghanistan. But the government's failures since then have made the people who had given up violence rejoin militant groups, turning militancy into a full-fledged insurgency that is not being tackled by almost 100,000 of international troops and a similar number of Afghan Police and the Afghan National Army. The London Conference on Afghanistan held on January 28 marked another page in the country's history. It presented a reintegration plan for those Taliban who are ready to renounce violence and be brought back into the 'political process' as declared by President Karzai. The plan includes providing financial 'incentives' to those leaders and low-ranking fighters who have joined the militants for economic gains rather than ideological reasons. This 'buy out' plan is guised as a political settlement or deal. But the plan is likely to backfire and intensify the crisis. Women's groups, Afghan civil society organisations and activists have regularly raised alarm at the prospect of such plans because they are concerned that the cooption of the Taliban is likely to amount to a loss of the achievements made over the past nine years. The preservation of these achievements is important no matter how nominal they might appear to the rest of the world. This is because no peace can ever be brought without justice. But the Afghans lost their chance for justice when the
41
Afghan parliament passed an amnesty law in the first year of its establishment, providing immunity from prosecution to all the parties involved in war crimes of the last 30 years. And right after nine years, another plan to give amnesty to militants and insurgents is on the table in the name of reintegration. Justice is not only about prosecution but also a chance for the people to remember victims, condemn the injustices of the past and so create ways to prevent such conflicts in future. Therefore, this plan needs to assure us all that there are specific red lines to any negotiations and peace deals. Civil society groups and activists who are critical of the reintegration plan are now being regarded as representing an anti-peace front. The accusation has no ground because such critics desire justice, which is at the core of any peace process. Their scepticism about the peace offer to the Taliban reflects the views of a majority of Afghans, even including some of the architects of this plan who themselves have doubts about the plan's success. The plan's most likely outcome is not peace but the militants' takeover of the presidential palace in Kabul. The price that Afghan women have been paying, and are still paying, for this conflict has never been addressed properly. The Afghan women are rightly feeling resentful of this plan, which rewards those who are causing trouble and ignores those who have suffered as a result of Taliban violence. An Afghan woman in a consultation process said recently, "We are not a threat to anyone, so why should they care about us? Do they want us women to hold arms and start a rebellion so as to be taken seriously?" Maybe, that is the reason we have women also joining militant groups. I do not think anyone in Afghanistan, or among its international allies, opposes the principles of dialogue and reconciliation. We Afghans are tired of the ongoing violence, but the remedy is not what is being proposed. While we have failed to carry out the much simpler tasks of need-based service provision, why are we attempting the most difficult one? If the government and its allies believe that one of the reasons that the common people (men) join the militants is for economic gains, then why do they not strengthen the government's responsiveness to people's needs? For how much longer are we going to continue reintegrating militants into politics while the same politics make hundreds of young Afghans desperate and hence ready to join hands with militants? If we are to reward the ones that renounce violence, what will be the reward and
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incentive for the rest of the provinces in the country that did not join militants nor grew poppy in the past years? In simple words, we need a strong government that can provide jobs and economic opportunities for all Afghans, not only those who are affiliated with militants. But let us assume that the plan makes sense and should be implemented. But are we, in practice, capable of implementing the plan? If the government's own vehicles are hijacked by militants and used against the civilian population, as happened during January 1, 2010, Kabul bombing, how will the same government be able to attract the right beneficiaries for the peace package amidst the current atmosphere of uncertainty and violence? Reconciliation and conflict resolution are the right solutions for the Afghan dilemma, but only when the common Afghan who sells potatoes on the street has a stake in this government and trusts it. Then no one would need to pay him to root out militants from his community, but he himself would fight for his nation, as the Afghans did in the past. So the question is, how will the common Afghan start trusting the government? The answer is simple. We need a state capable of providing basic services in an accountable and transparent manner. A state whose cabinet members will be voted in by parliament because of their qualification and commitment, rather than the weight of the envelops filled with dollars left on the seats of MPs. A state that will not reintroduce its own previously sacked ministers just to fill the position and the rulers' pockets. Let us not forget that this reintegration plan will take place simultaneously with airstrikes and drone attacks. While the war is raging with the 39,000 troops surge, we want to reintegrate the ones we are fighting, while we do not know whom are we fighting in essence. Today we have hundreds of families that fled Helmand after the Marjah operation and now live in desperate conditions in displaced persons' camps in Kabul. They have no food and nothing to shelter them from the snow. If, after nine years, we have realised that this war has another alternative, then why are mud-built homes still being bombed into ashes every day?
Wazhma Frogh, Bangladesh Today, March 8, 2010. http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/archive/March%2010/8-32010.htm#viewpoints
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N EW D EVELOPMENTS
IN
A FGHANISTAN
The defection of a large number of commanders and fighters of the Hizbi-Islami to the Karzai government is a significant development and the first concrete success of Kabuls extension of an olive branch to the militants. Hizb-i-Islamis faction led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is the second largest insurgent group in Afghanistan, which has been carrying out militant actions in alliance with the Taliban against the Karzai government since it first assumed office in 2002. The infighting between the Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami, which on Sunday killed 79 in Baghlan, one of the northern provinces of Afghanistan, indicates not only the Talibans ire against their erstwhile ally, but also their spread to the north, where they have gained considerable strength to be able to carry out a major attack. According to the BBC, the fighting, which took place in Jangal Bagh area, seems to have been ignited by attempts to gain control over a village and its taxation. Although this is a major success for the Karzai government, Hekmatyar has always been a controversial figure and has been accused of opportunism and mercenary motives over the years. Of particular mention are his attacks on fellow mujahideen during the anti-Soviet resistance. During the Taliban regime established in 1996, he was left out in the cold and fled to Iran in 1997 after losing the confidence of his erstwhile supporter Pakistan as an effective leader. International pressure caused Iran to expel Hekmatyar and close all offices of the Hizb-i-Islami on their territory in early 2002 for his anti-Karzai government activities. After several attempts to find a place in the scheme of things in Afghanistan, Hekmatyars Hizb-i-Islami emerged as a fierce resistance group in 2008 that claimed responsibility for several attacks on coalition forces as well as government targets. When President Hamid Karzai offered peace with the insurgents, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar welcomed it on the condition that foreign troops should leave Afghan soil. This statement could be read as more than a mere token of support for the peace initiative of the Karzai government. Given Hekmatyars past as an unreliable ally, it showed an inclination to once again switch sides for personal gain. It can be argued that he was in negotiations with the Karzai government and waiting for the right moment to announce his acceptance of the peace offer. The move seems to have caused serious rifts with the Taliban who had rejected Karzais offer outright. The Taliban have not only inflicted heavy damage on the Hizb-i-Islami in Sundays
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battle (initial reports suggested 40 Hizb casualties, with 20 Taliban and 19 civilians dead), they have encircled their stronghold, forcing them to openly declare allegiance to the Karzai government, which is now on its toes to rescue the embattled fighters. Given the opportunist nature of the Hizb-i-Islami chief, the effectiveness of fighters under his command is questionable, but this switching of sides is significant for political reasons. Despite representing a relatively weaker section of the insurgency, Hizb-i-Islamis joining hands with the Afghan government is the first major success of Karzais policy of reaching out to the militants. It also indicates an element of desperation among the Taliban to this imminent departure of Hizb-iIslami from the resistance alliance. The reasons for this response to the open door policy notwithstanding, the possibility of opening up reconciliation with at least one section of the insurgency can only be welcomed.
Editorial, Daily Times (Lahore), March 9, 2010.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\03\09\story_9-3-2010_pg3_1
P AKISTAN
WILL BE
P RIVY
TO
T ALKS
WITH
T ALIBAN : K ARZAI
Afghan President Hamid Karzai assured Pakistan on Thursday of a role in his governments plan for reconciliation and reintegration of the Taliban to end fighting in Afghanistan. The president, who was on the second day of a two-day trip to Pakistan the first after his re-election in meetings with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and National Assemblys standing committee on foreign affairs promised to keep Pakistan on board about any political engagement with the Taliban. In his talks with his interlocutors, Mr Karzai acknowledged that Pakistan had a critical role in dialogue with the Taliban, who largely came from Pakhtun tribes straddling the borders of the two countries. Without a collaborative effort, it would be difficult to achieve peace and stability in the two countries, he was quoted by a source as having told Mr Gilani. Mr Karzais categorical assurance was viewed as very significant by Pakistans foreign policy strategists, who were earlier wary of an effort by the Afghan government to sidetrack it in political settlement with the
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militants. The agreement on keeping Pakistan engaged while reaching out to the Taliban in Afghanistan, because of its importance, overshadowed the signing of a bilateral agreement on boosting bilateral economic ties and people-to-people contacts. The Afghan president sent out positive messages aimed at assuaging Pakistans strategic concerns. The concerns are believed to have been behind the trust deficit that kept the two countries feuding for years and could yet undermine the new peace process for reconciling with the Taliban. Pakistan reciprocated the conciliatory gestures. The two countries had on Wednesday agreed to revive the bilateral jirga peace process involving eminent tribal leaders from both the countries for evolving a consensus on how Pakistan and Afghanistan could cooperate in talks with the Taliban.
Balancing Act
At his joint press conference with Prime Minister Gilani, the Afghan president attempted to strike a balance in his countrys relations with India and Pakistan. While he acknowledged Indias contribution to development of Afghanistan and termed it a friend, he called Pakistan a conjoined twin. India is a close friend of Afghanistan but Pakistan is a brother of Afghanistan. Pakistan is a twin brother. We are conjoined twins, theres no separation, he said. Suspicions in Islamabad over Indias growing influence in Afghanistan and the alleged use of Afghan territory to destabilise Pakistan has been one of the major causes of differences between the two neighbours (Afghanistan and Pakistan). The intensifying competition between Pakistan and India for influence in Afghanistan has complicated US efforts to quell militancy. In a clear message for all competing regional and global powers, Mr Karzai said: Afghanistan does not want any proxy wars on its territory. It does not want a proxy war between India and Pakistan on Afghanistan. It does not want a proxy war between Iran and the United States on Afghanistan. Mr Karzai, sources said, in his meetings with the civil and military leadership assured that Pakistans concerns vis--vis India would be
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addressed. Discussions on extradition of senior Taliban commander Mullah Baradar remained inconclusive. Prime Minister Gilani told the press conference the extradition had been held up because of a court ruling. We have our own judiciary and they are quite active. We are consulting legal experts before responding to Afghan request.
Joint Declaration
Foreign ministers of the two countries signed a document for boosting trade and economic ties; collaboration in energy projects; strengthening communication links; and promoting people-to-people contacts. The joint declaration, Next Steps in Afghanistan-Pakistan Comprehensive Cooperation, sketches out plans for enhancing cooperation in education and agriculture sectors. The declaration said the two countries would take steps to increase bilateral trade to $5 billion by 2015.
AP Adds:
Critics have accused Islamabad of protecting Taliban leaders to maintain good relations with the group in anticipation of Western forces eventually withdrawing from the country an allegation denied by Pakistan. Some analysts have speculated the country was trying to guarantee itself a seat at the negotiating table. The Afghans see this as an undermining of their (peace) initiative, said Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on the Taliban. Despite long-standing tension between the two countries, Kabul knows that Islamabad remains a powerful regional player and its longtime links to the Taliban could make it an indispensable part of talks. The Afghans are not in a position to take on Pakistan, said Mr Rashid. Mr Karzai plans to hold a peace conference in Afghanistan next month and hopes to rope in the Taliban. He said on Thursday he was dedicated to pursuing the process despite lukewarm enthusiasm from the US, which remains suspicious of talks with top Taliban leaders and prefers reaching out to disaffected Taliban fighters. Our allies are not talking the same language from time to time, Mr Karzai acknowledged. He said his government has had contacts within the Taliban
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leadership as high as you wish to go. He would not say if that included Taliban leader Mullah Omar, but reiterated his willingness to talk to him.
Baqir Sajjad Syed & Ahmad Hassan, Dawn (Islamabad), March 12, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-contentlibrary/dawn/news/pakistan/03-karzai-tells-pakistan-no-proxy-wars-inafghanistan-ss-10
K ARZAI V ISIT
Afghan President Hamid Karzais two-day visit to Pakistan came at an interesting time. First, the Pakistan Army has broken from its reticence of years past and plainly stated what it wants in Afghanistan. The army wants a friendly, stable and peaceful Afghanistan, thus ensuring Pakistan does not have a two-front security dilemma; it wants Indias presence in Afghanistan to end, or at least be minimised; it wants the Pakhtuns to be the most influential national players; and it wants to help train the Afghan army. In short, the Pakistan Army wants an Afghanistan in which it retains significant influence. For his part, President Karzai appears focused on the dynamics of the surge-and-exit strategy of the Obama administration. Perhaps afraid that the Americans may turn to Pakistan to fashion some kind of resolution of the perilous security situation there, President Karzai has embarked on a two-pronged strategy: aggressively pushing the reconciliation/reintegration idea with the Afghan Taliban inside his country and reaching out to Pakistan by, for example, agreeing to purchase weapons from here. There were no real breakthroughs as such during Mr Karzais visit (the plans for reviving the Afghan-Pakistan jirga process will face the same challenges that caused the process to fizzle out earlier) but the delicate dance between Karzai and the Pakistan Army looks set to continue. At the moment, all the players in Afghanistan, local and foreign, are trying to position themselves to gain some advantage in what amounts to the scramble for Afghanistan once the Americans start winding down their presence there. The key is the Taliban: will the Afghan and international forces be able to grind away at the Talibans strength in the next year or will they emerge unbowed and therefore the main player in the post-American Afghanistan? Little is certain at this point. But what is clear is this:
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Afghanistan cannot be allowed to sink into the morass of violence once again. The cost of that outcome will be disastrous for all sides involved. The region deserves peace, and peace will be within grasp if all sides stop treating the Afghan puzzle as a zero-sum game.
Editorial, Dawn (Islamabad), March 12, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/thenewspaper/editorial/14-karzai-visit-230-zj-08
F IVE M YTHS A BOUT
THE
W AR
IN
A FGHANISTAN
The war in Afghanistan is in its ninth year, and even officials supportive of the U.S. presence there acknowledge the challenges that remain. "People still need to understand there is some very hard fighting and very hard days ahead," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said during his trip to Afghanistan last week. But the conflict is not hopeless, nor it is eternal. If we want to develop realistic expectations about the war -- how it might unfold from here and when it could begin to wind down -- it would help to dispel some of the popular mythologies that have emerged about the Afghans, the enemy we're fighting and the U.S. commitment.
1. Afghans always Hate and Defeat their Invaders.

The Afghans drove the British Empire out of their country in the 19th century and did the same to the Soviet Union in the 20th century. They do fight fiercely; many American troops who have been deployed both in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years have asserted that the Afghans are stronger natural fighters. Yet, the people of Afghanistan do not despise foreigners. Despite downward trends in recent years, Afghans are far more accepting of an international presence in their country than are Iraqis, for example, who typically gave the U.S. presence approval ratings of 15 to 30 percent in the early years of the war in that country. Average U.S. favorability ratings in recent surveys in Afghanistan are around 50 percent, and according to polls from ABC, the BBC and the International Republican Institute, about two-thirds of Afghans recognize that they still need foreign help. And before we mythologize the Afghan insurgency, it is worth remembering some history. In the 1980s, the United States, Saudi Arabia and others gave enormous financial and military assistance to the Afghan resistance movement that eventually forced the Soviets out. That group
49
grew to about 250,000 in strength in the mid-1980s. But today, the Taliban and other resistance groups receive substantial help only from some elements in Pakistan -- and diminishing help at that -- and collectively, they number about 25,000 fighters. Finally, though U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, today's international presence there does not amount to an invasion. Foreign forces are present at the invitation of the host government, which two-thirds of Afghans consider legitimate, if somewhat corrupt.
2. The Situation in Afghanistan is much more Difficult than the one in Iraq.
The U.S. goals in both countries are similar -- establishing better security and governance and eventually passing total control to domestic authorities -- and there are certainly ways in which Afghanistan poses a tougher challenge than Iraq. There are more tribes to contend with, the drug problem is worse, literacy rates are lower, national institutions such as the security forces and the judiciary are weaker, and the economy is less advanced. But Afghanistan's history of violence and its relative underdevelopment also make its people realistic about the future; they are grateful for even incremental progress, as polls show. And consider the following signs of improvement: Seven million children are now in school (compared with fewer than 1 million under the Taliban), and some 8 million cellphones are in use among a population of about 30 million -compared with virtually zero before 2001. Health care is also getting better. Also, the violence in Afghanistan today is far less severe than it was in Iraq. Before the troop surge in 2007, more Iraqi civilians were killed every month than have been killed from war-related violence in Afghanistan each year. In other words, Afghanistan is less than a tenth as violent as the Iraq of 2004-07. Communities were displaced and sectarian tensions were inflamed far more in Iraq than they have been in Afghanistan.
3. The U.S. Military is for War-fighting, not Nation-building.

This was a core philosophy for the incoming Bush administration in 2001 -- until the tide of history made George W. Bush the president most
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preoccupied with nation-building since Harry Truman. The debate about whether the U.S. armed forces should be involved in nation-building was big in the 1990s, but the nation-builders have won the argument hands down. The terminology has shifted, to be sure, from "nation-building" to "stabilization and reconstruction" missions, but these include efforts to improve governance and the economy as well as security and stability. Among top civilian and military leaders, there is no real disagreement about whether the armed forces should engage in these types of activities -- at least not in situations such as Afghanistan, where the weakness of a state threatens American security. While Gen. David Petraeus led the writing of the new counterinsurgency field manual, with its emphasis on protecting local populations and helping build up indigenous institutions, it was then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who, in a November 2005 directive, wrote that "stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support." He added that such operations will receive a "priority comparable to combat operations." That remains U.S. policy.
4. We should Negotiate with the Taliban.

There is nothing wrong with negotiating with elements of the Afghan resistance, especially at the local level. If they are willing to renounce violence and accept the authority of the central government as well as the temporary presence of international forces, we can allow them to rejoin society, obtain jobs and perhaps, in some cases, hold government positions. Many insurgents who are motivated less by ideology than by money, opposition to the government or tribal rivalries may fit this bill. But a major compromise with the central Taliban leadership is not only unlikely -- it's a bad idea. The Taliban is not interested in negotiation and is not the sort of organization with which the Afghan government or the United Sates should ever compromise. Its extremist ideology is misogynous and intolerant, and its history in Afghanistan is barbaric. Most important, the Taliban is extremely unpopular among Afghans. President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly stated his willingness to negotiate with Taliban leaders willing to renounce insurgency, while British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has called for some form of political settlement with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, provided that our core interests are protected. But in general, NATO and
51
Afghan forces will have to establish more battlefield momentum before widespread negotiations become plausible. Any talks must be pursued from a position of strength, so that deals will involve convincing the Taliban to lay down arms rather than pretending that it could share power while clinging to its current ideology.
5. There is no Exit Strategy or Exit Schedule.

Some Afghans (and Pakistanis) listened to President Obama's Dec. 1 West Point speech, in which he promised that U.S. forces in Afghanistan would start to withdraw by July 2011, and worried that America's commitment is weak. Many Americans, though, have the opposite concern -- that this war is open-ended. But if the new strategy being implemented by Gen. Stanley McChrystal is successful, we will see clear evidence of that by late 2010 or 2011. We should then be able to contemplate major reductions in the U.S. military presence starting in 2012. There are two main reasons for large NATO and U.S. troop deployments in Afghanistan today. The first is to clear and hold key strategic areas, as with the current operation in Marjah. This effort will largely culminate in 2010 and 2011. The second is to train Afghan forces. Given schedules for recruiting, training and forming Afghan units, this process will be most demanding through 2012 or so. Put the pieces together and, while a rapid reduction in U.S. forces starting next summer is unlikely, the United States should be able to cut its presence by perhaps 20,000 troops per year thereafter. This is hardly a quick exit -- at least not as fast as Congress or Obama might want -- and such a time table implies that the United States will still have 60,000 or more troops in Afghanistan when Obama faces voters in 2012. But it is not unending, nor is it unrealistic.
Michael O'Hanlon & Hassina Sherjan, Washington Post, Match 14, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031103394.html
I NDIA
IN
A FGHANISTAN D OESN T S ERVE US I NTERESTS
No country has ever showed more hospitality to Afghanistan than Pakistan, and that his country (Afghanistan) would not allow its soil to be used against Pakistan. These were the wordings of the Afghan
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President, Hamid Karzai during the joint press conference between him and Pakistani Premier, Yousaf Raza Gilani on the conclusion of a daylong visit of the former to Pakistan on March 11, 2010. Earlier both countries agreed for a joint fight against the terrorism and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the augmentation of bilateral relationship. Declaring Pakistan and Afghanistan as the twin brothers, President Karzai further said that the destiny, grieves and happiness of both the countries are shared. On this occasion, Prime Minister Gilani assured the visiting President that, We want to take the strategic partnership with Afghanistan forward. Moreover, Pakistan would enhance its cooperation with Afghanistan to eliminate the terrorism, and bilateral ties between the two countries would be further enhanced. The resilience shown by either side is being envisioned as the glimmer of hope for the beginning of a new chapter in the bilateral relationship of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unfortunately, the history of Pak-Afghan relationship is an account of uneven correlation. There has hardly been a period of good will and cooperation between these two brotherly Muslim countries, linking various regions and civilizations of Asia. Why there has been a gulf in their mutual relationship, who has been playing in-between, and how long would it continue, is indeed a fruit for thought for over 200 million people of both countries? The significant factor, which has to be kept in mind, is that, after all, they have to live together, since neighbours cannot be changed. The buoyant joint statement of the two leaders indeed, is reflective of the lessons they learnt during their prolonged uncooperative history, especially after the incident of 9/11. In this regards, Pakistani efforts at various tiers has played a vital role. The Afghan Government has now realized the significance of incessant Pakistani pursuance for the CBMs and emphasis for the adoption of a collective fight against the terrorism. Pakistan has always been critical to the role of extra-regional powers in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and in the bilateral relationship of Pakistan and Afghanistan. So much so the US and NATO countries, with whom, Pakistan is playing the role of a frontline state and as a partner in the global war on terror has been suspicion of the Pakistani role. During the meeting of the NATOs Military Committee in Chiefs of Defence Staff (CHODs) held in Brussels on January 26-27, 2010, the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, adequately highlighted the role played by Pakistan in the war on terror. Indeed,
53
Pakistan lost over twenty five thousand lives during last nine years, since the beginning of this war. The casualties of security forces of Pakistan are much more than what the coalition and Afghans forces have collectively suffered in these years. General Kayanis presentation on the Pakistans contribution indeed, removed the misperception of the NATO countries about the Pakistani role in the global war on terror. Thereafter, the Western world has changed its perception about the Pakistani role and vision. Sequel to this meeting General Kayani, briefed the foreign and domestic press about the outcome of the meeting in Rawalpindi. During the course of the meeting, he categorically said that, We cannot wish for Afghanistan anything that we dont wish for Pakistan. Since Pakistanis desire peace, stability, and economic prosperity for their country, therefore, they ought to wish similar comforts for their brethrens of Afghanistan. Furthermore, three decades of war, factional fighting, and the internal instability in Afghanistan has brought us to the conclusion that, stability and peace in Pakistan is directly proportional to these factors in Afghanistan. Indeed, the statement of Chief of Army Staff was the factor compelled Afghan President to say that, the destiny, grieves and happiness of both the countries are shared. In the aftermath of US invasion of Afghanistan, India, a noncontiguous country, intruded in Afghanistan in a big way. Initially it assumed the responsibility of reconstruction of infrastructure of Afghanistan, but subsequently, it took over the responsibilities of other projects in that country. So much so, that Indian Army was given the responsibility to undertake the training of Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan secret services and Afghan National Police (ANP). Besides, the Indian training teams, training Afghans on their soil, over 100 Afghan senior defence officials are being trained every year in India`s military institutions. It is worth mentioning that a huge number of the Indian army officers and lower ranks have been especially deputed to teach basic military field-crafts and English-language skills to personnel of ANA. Afghan police officers and foreign ministry officials have also attended training courses in India. Afghanistan is getting Indian help in the training of Afghan pilots and technicians for using its helicoptergunships. Afghan education system is yet another area where India has been given a key role to play. Now it is to the imagination of the Afghan people to know, as what would be the ethical condition of its future
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generation after having gone through the Indian founded educational system and training of its security setup (ANA, ANP and spying agency). Pakistan feels that Indian trained ANA and ANP will be on the warpath to all its neighbours, mainly Muslim countries, and Peoples Republics of China. Apart from its geographically contagious neighbours, these Indian trained troops will be in conflict with basic Muslim cultural and social setup of that country even. Besides, promoting internal clashes, these troops will maintain the current state of volatility, distrust, and hostility with Pakistan. Indeed India and Afghanistan are two different countries, with different values, culture, and different future requirements. Therefore, the Indian trained ANA would further destabilize the region as a whole. This state of affairs would neither suit coalition nor to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In order to save Afghanistan from the lukewarm effects of these factors, General Kayani offered Afghan Government for the assistance in the training of ANA and ANP. Indeed, this step would greatly reduce the current instability and hostilities along the Pak-Afghan border by promoting harmony among the security forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan, as both countries share common terrain and borders to defend. Moreover, they have the similar cultural and historical values and milieus and ideological harmony. This is only possible once there are common trainers having corresponding training parameters for both armies. In fact, Afghans should not forget the experience of getting their Army trained from the former Soviet Union in 1970s. The result of the Soviet trained troops, teachers, doctors, other officials, and even politicians brought them in clash with the traditional Afghan society in late 1970s. That clash of ideas finally led to the Soviet invasion. Afghan society had enough of that, in the form of thirty years factional fighting, foreign invasions, and internal strife. Do they still want Russian like Indian invasion? Afghan should question themselves and later from their Indian friends too, that, why they (Indians) are so much concerned about Afghan people. Why should they forget the Indian role during Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s? Being part of the Communist camp, India fully supported the Soviet Union globally as well as regionally and considered the invasion as justified. Indeed, through the offer for the training of ANA and ANP, Pakistan envisions to bring the stability in the Afghanistan in the first phase and stabilization of the whole region thereafter. Besides, the offer would help in the implementation of the President Obamas recently
55
conceived exit strategy from Afghanistan, largely by paving way for the gradual restitution of peace in the region. The vision behind the offer is that We cannot wish for Afghanistan anything that we dont wish for Pakistan. What all Pakistan wish for is a peaceful, stable and friendly Afghanistan. If visualized precisely, the Coalition forces and Afghan administration should be very happy on this offer, as it would surely lessen the ceaseless fighting in Afghanistan in the near future. Did not successful Pakistani military operations during 2009, help in lessening the militancy in Afghanistan, by constricting space for the terrorists. This evidence indeed should become a lead point for the materialization of the Pakistani offer of the training to ANA and ANP. This indeed would be a win-win for Afghanistan, the United States, ISAF, and Pakistan. Besides, sharing common values, culture, and comparable stakes, both countries have a history of interdependence. Foreign interferences, influences, and imperialism cannot force the people to think differently. Pakistan visualizes a peaceful, stable, and economically affluent Afghanistan. It also wishes the Afghanistan freed from the foreign interferences and forays with an ethnically cohesive society. The wish for a stable Afghanistan is the collective voice of 170 million people of Pakistan. They can no more see their Afghan Brethren in a state of melancholy. The visionary offer of the Pakistani Army Chief for the training of ANA and ANP has the backing from the whole nation. Indeed, they stood behind Pakistan Army in curbing the militancy from Pakistan and have the enduring desire of peace and stability in both countries. The vision behind the offer indeed is a sincere endeavour to save Afghanistan from another debacle or colonialism.
Dr Raja Muhammad Khan, Dawn (Islamabad), March 16, 2010.
http://thedawn.com.pk/2010/03/16/india-in-afghanistan-doesnt-serve-us-interests/
P EACE
WITH THE
T ALIBAN
Even as the American troop surge is underway in Afghanistan, sensible minds have increasingly accepted that restoring peace in Afghanistan will require negotiating peace with the Taliban. The US defence secretary has acknowledged that the Taliban are "part of the political fabric" of Afghanistan. The recent London Conference agreed to finance a programme for the reintegration of Taliban elements. President Karzai called for reconciliation with them. Pakistan has consistently advocated this.
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However, there is as yet no clear vision, on any side, of the purpose, process and content of a negotiated peace with the Taliban. Four major questions need to be addressed and answered: who is peace to be negotiated with? When should negotiations take place? How should they be conducted? And what should be the terms of a settlement? Until very recently, the US felt that only the Taliban foot soldiers, who were presumed to be fighting either for money or from fear, ought to be accommodated., With Karzai's all-encompassing peace initiative, it is now increasingly accepted by the US-Nato coalition that negotiations will have to be held with all the Taliban, including leaders like Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbadin Hekmatyar. The two caveats now are: one, that the Taliban break their links with al-Qaeda and, two, accept the Afghan constitution. The McCrystal Plan envisages that negotiations would be held after the American troops surge had inflicted serious military reversals on the Taliban. The Americans' belief in this strategy may have been revived following their reported "success" in clearing Marjah and, even more, the capture of Mullah Baradar, Mullah Omar's chief of military operations, and several other Taliban leaders by Pakistani intelligence. Apart from the military significance of these developments, they may also reveal the nature of the process through which negotiations are likely to proceed. According to reports, Mullah Baradar had opened contacts with Karzai's emissaries. His capture by the ISI could well be a signal that no negotiations with the Taliban can exclude Pakistan. Kabul's efforts to "repatriate" the captured Taliban have been blocked. In a clear signal, the Pakistani army chief has publicly highlighted Pakistan's strategic interests in Afghanistan. Indeed, Pakistan is well placed to play a key role in negotiating peace in Afghanistan, given its old ties to the Taliban leadership, including not only Mullah Omar's group but also those led by Haqqani and Hekmatyar. The captured Taliban leaders add to this leverage. Yet, despite its strategic position and vital interest in the outcome, Pakistan will confront considerable difficulties in playing the intermediary's role. Pakistan will need, first, to ensure that negotiations with the Afghan Taliban do not compromise its priority objective of subduing the Pakistani Taliban (the TTP), who have shadowy relationships with Afghan and Indian intelligence. Second, a clear vision of a desirable and achievable outcome will need to be formulated. While both the US and the Taliban will seek peace
57
on their own terms, Pakistan should evolve a plan that can prove acceptable to both sides. Third, US acceptance will have to be secured for such an outcome. There will be resistance from militarists and other lobbies in Washington. However, the recent enhanced intelligence cooperation between Pakistani and the US may indicate that a measure of understanding may well have been reached regarding the future order in Afghanistan. Four, it will be necessary to ensure that the negotiating option is not jeopardised by competing interventions from India or other neighbouring or regional countries. India has already commenced a diplomatic campaign to frustrate a negotiated peace with the Taliban, protesting to the US, playing on Russian fears of Wahhabist revival in Central Asia and, no doubt, stoking concern in Tehran. Pakistan will need adroit diplomacy and ground action to neutralise India's spoiler role. The parameters for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan so far set out by the US or Karzai are unlikely to be acceptable to the Taliban. While they may consider breaking their links with al-Qaeda, it is unlikely that they will accept the present Afghan constitution, or agree to join the Karzai government, which is still dominated by Tajiks and assorted warlords. The Taliban's minimum conditions are likely to include a more representative central authority in Kabul, with adequate Taliban representation, exercise of power in the Pakhtun-majority areas of Afghanistan and, most critically, withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Since President Obama also wants to withdraw US forces as soon as possible and the US considers the Taliban a part of the Afghan political fabric, a deal with the Taliban appears to be eminently possible, unless extraneous factors and forces intervene to prevent this. A negotiated outcome could contain the following elements: One, a US commitment to a withdrawal of all foreign forces, linked to a timeframe or realisation of certain benchmarks. Two, a verifiable Taliban commitment to severance of all ties with al-Qaeda. Three, an agreement for the early cessation of hostilities. Four, formation of a coalition or "national unity" government in Kabul-including nominated Taliban representatives--exercising decentralised control over locally governed provinces. Five, transfer of power at the provincial and local levels to "Shuras" or Councils composed of tribal and Taliban leaders. Six, acceptance by the Taliban of reconstruction and
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development projects, executed with local and, where necessary, external participation. (This can include re-imposition of Mullah Omar's old edict banning poppy cultivation and Taliban acceptance of girls' schooling.) Seven, creation of a genuine Afghan National Army, with at least 50 per cent Pakhtun representation, including soldiers from among the ranks of the Taliban. A political settlement along these lines is not ideal--far from it. But a negotiated peace, however imperfect, is palpably preferable to the alternative: a prolonged and purposeless conflict in which the central threat from al-Qaeda survives. The prospects of negotiating such a settlement are likely to be better if pursued earlier rather than later. The Taliban have suffered some tactical reverses and are under threat of the impending surge. But the McCrystal plan, once implemented, will inevitably result in intensified fighting and higher casualties, including among civilians. It will make conciliation and compromise more difficult. And, if, as is quite possible, the surge does not succeed decisively, the US-Nato's negotiating leverage would be considerably reduced. The Taliban may then conclude that to win all they need to do is survive and wait for Western patience to run out. Therefore, rather than pursue further tactical objectives, like Marjah, and the planned offensive in Kandahar, it would be advisable for the US and Nato to open early and serious contacts with the Afghan Taliban, utilising Pakistan's intercession, to evolve the broad parameters of an eventual settlement. A negotiated peace will be good for Afghanistan, for the US and its allies, and for Pakistan and the region.
Munir Akram, Bangladesh Today, March 22, 2010.
http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/archive/March%2010/22-3-2010.htm#editorial
P ASHTUNS
ARE NOT
T ERRORISTS
It is not the gun but the gunner that hits the target. A very sophisticated weapon becomes useless when it comes to unskilled and inexperienced hands. Skill and experience joined together with wisdom can do miracles. Wisdom is the only element which is always important from beginning till the end, in all problematic matters of life. In spite of having a lot of strength and a lot of resources, the USA is still not even near the brink of success in Afghanistan; the only reason behind is the lack of wisdom. The situation is going to get more confusing, more entangling if the US authorities dont stop preferring the use of force to the application of
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wisdom. They will have to come out of the dilemma of their misunderstandings first if they want their efforts in Afghanistan bear fruit. The first and the most grievous misunderstanding of USA is about the Pashtuns. It is almost a criminal point of view that all Pashtuns are Taliban. It might be true to some extent that some of the Taliban have their hide-outs in the frontier area surrounding Pakistan-Afghanistan borders, they have their sympathizers and well wishers there but it does not mean that all people who belong to the Pashtun origin, living in that particular belt, are the supporters of Taliban and they must be crushed brutally with the help of drones. It has been clearly mentioned in different books on the history of Afghanistan that the tribes living in southern Afghanistan, particularly between Herat and Kandhar and who speak Persian are called Afghans while others living in the rest of Afghanistan, NWFP and Balochistan speaking Pashtu language are called Pashtuns. These Pashtuns are in a clear majority in Afghanistan. According to a recent calculation provided by the CIA, the total population of Afghanistan is 28,396,000. This population is a mixture of different ethnic and linguistic groups. Pashto is spoken most widely in the south, east and south west as well as in western Pakistan. The Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group. The Pashtuns and the Afghans have altogether different cultural and traditional values but the US authorities are mistakenly mixing up these two entirely different identities. At present there is a very clear cut division between the Pashtuns and the Afghans. The Pashtuns are aggrieved that in spite of being in majority, they are not given their due share and authority. The US hi-ups and the Indian conspirators are providing full support to the Afghans whereas the Pashtuns are being crushed and maltreated simply because the Taliban belong to the Pashtun origin according to their analysis. More pathetic is the fact that President Karzai is intentionally ignoring them and favouring the Afghans. He has very successfully proved himself a dummy and a rubber stamp. He has ever been trying to stabilize his government by using money to buy loyalties of the Afghan war lords. He is ignoring the fact that this purchase of loyalties is a costly affair with limited outcome. As per their tradition, the Afghans may remain loyal to the fund-providers till the time money keeps flowing up to them. When the flow of cash stops the loyalties will shift automatically and the effort will go futile. The Pashtuns are in majority in Afghanistan but the US led Afghan government is never ready to let them play the
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leading role. The situation can be easily tackled with if the Pashtuns are given a chance of forming a legitimate government in Afghanistan. Such type of government would surely succeed in playing a vital role for a long-term and deep rooted peace in the country. Taliban are neither a generation nor a race; they are a philosophy. Philosophies are never limited to material boundaries. The US authorities must get rid of this misunderstanding that all Pashtuns are the Taliban. According to a recent survey, the Taliban are losing their popularity in all those areas where just a few years back they were very much popular and lovingly admired. The reason behind this loss of public support is nothing but the cruel terrorist activities going on in the name of Taliban. Suicidal attacks on innocent Pakistanis and Afghanis, the bomb blasts in the mosques and a whole sale massacre of the innocent Namaziz particularly during the Friday prayers have caused a grave loss to the Taliban mission. Moreover as a result of terrorist activities hundreds of Pashtuns living in Peshawar and adjoining areas have lost their lives. If the Taliban were Pashtuns, how could they deprive their own people of their lives in such a painful manner? In fact the situation is very much confusing and ambiguous. Afghanistan has become a battlefield for various groups of fighters; some of them are striving for the safety of their motherland; some are doing jihad and so many others are taking care of foreign interests. No one is clear what is going to happen next. That is the reason that there are still countless people in Pakistan and Afghanistan who are not ready to accept that Taliban can be involved in such heinous kind of brutalities. They think that all this blood-shed is the artistic work of CIA and Raw and the motive behind is simply to defame the Taliban movement. It is also a fact that the supporters of Taliban are not willing to embrace the Tehreek-eTaliban Pakistan (TTP) as the representative of the original and actual Taliban movement. Be it the Afghan Taliban or the TTP, the USA is measuring all of them with the same yard stick, taking them as Pashtuns. Sometimes US war on terror seems the war against the Pashtuns. USA could have been successful in its war against terror if this war were not the war against Pashtuns. This prejudice approach of the US policy makers towards the Pashtuns is giving birth to a reactionary disliking and unending anger in their hearts. It is the result of this anger and disliking that most of the Pashtuns go with the Taliban in spite of their ideological differences with them. Moreover the drone attacks are adding fuel to fire. In such a horrid situation all policies of the USA and the
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Afghanistan government need to be revised. America is still following the old policy of spending money on warlords and old Mujahideens of eighties. All such efforts will once again go waste unless the Pashtuns are given their legitimate right to form government in Afghanistan. Hence change of present government and change in US policy is imperative to succeed in Afghanistan. Pakistan can play a positive role in Afghanistan but unfortunately the authorities that matter have created an environment of distrust between US and Pakistani leadership to manage affairs in Afghanistan. There is a need to overcome such misunderstandings by attending to Pakistans concerns and interests if USA is serious and sincere with reference to its objectives in Afghanistan.
Ali Sukhanver, Pakistan Observer (Islamabad), March 24, 2010. http://www.pakobserver.net/201003/24/detailnews.asp?id=21937
T ALKS
NOT AN
O PTION Y ET
The recent disclosure by Kai Eide, the former United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, about his secret contacts with the Taliban received wide publicity and triggered a controversy. The issue being debated is whether the Taliban representatives held meetings with him and other UN officials and if their contacts broke down following the arrest of Mulla Abdul Ghani Biradar and other Afghan Taliban leaders in Pakistan. If one were to believe the Norwegian diplomat, who until last month was the UN secretary general's special representative in Afghanistan, he managed to open a channel of communication with the Taliban in spring last year and met some of their leaders in Dubai and elsewhere. In fact, he claims that he met the members of the Taliban central Shura, or the Quetta Shura, as it is referred to by western officials and media. He believes that the Taliban supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar had authorised the meetings. Kai Eide had made a similar claim earlier also when he was still the UN special envoy in Kabul, but his recent statement about the issue was more specific and elaborate. In fact, the statement was issued to complain that Pakistan's decision to arrest the Afghan Taliban leaders had abruptly halted the channel of secret communications that he had built over the past year. He thought Islamabad made the move to take control of the situation in case the US and its allies decided to negotiate with the Taliban. Pakistan rejected the accusation and insisted that the arrests had
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no link with any talks with the Taliban. The US, too, appeared to be siding with Pakistan as its officials continued to hail the Taliban arrests in Pakistan. Not yet keen on holding dialogue with high-ranking Taliban figures such as Mulla Omar and in the midst of a big military campaign aimed at wresting control of the Taliban-held territory in south-western Afghanistan, the US apparently wasn't bothered by the prospect of Taliban arrests undermining the nascent Afghan peace process. Twice in two days, the Taliban denied Kai Eide's claim about his secret contacts with the Taliban leadership and termed it baseless. Alleging that it was an effort to create mistrust in Taliban ranks, they reminded that similar false claims were made in the past about Taliban taking part in reconciliation meetings in Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Maldives. They also denied the involvement of Mulla Biradar, the deputy Taliban leader now in Pakistan's custody, in talks with UN officials or Afghan government and demanded evidence from those making such claims. The only way to end the Afghan conflict, according to the Taliban, was the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. Even if one were to wish so, the Taliban refuse to go away. They have been around as an organised force in Afghanistan since 1994/95 and were able to stage a comeback after suffering defeat and losing power in late 2001 as a result of the US invasion. The efforts by the US-led NATO forces to sustain the Afghan government in power are proving costly in terms of human and material losses. Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is now widespread in the western countries that have deployed their troops there, and bringing the soldiers home has become a popular demand. Talking to the Taliban and trying to negotiate a political solution is increasingly being seen in Kabul, Washington and other western capitals as necessary to supplement the military initiative and stabilise the situation. However, there is no evidence that any serious initiative has been made to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. Even Kai Eide's reported contacts with the Taliban were, in fact, "talks about talks" that had been ongoing for a year or so and were yet to enter the stage of a formal dialogue mandated by the US and other real parties to the conflict. Though the UN's former Afghanistan envoy is claiming that there had been an increase in the intensity of contacts with the Taliban, it is obvious that these talks were still of an exploratory nature. Kai Eide may have kept Kabul and certain western capitals informed about his contacts with the Taliban, but it appears that neither the Taliban nor other major
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parties to the Afghan conflict were taking these apparently informal contacts seriously. None of the combatants have until now shown any flexibility in their stance towards each other and there isn't much hope that the US and its allies would become involved in meaningful talks with the Taliban any time soon. Despite Taliban denials, it seems their representatives did maintain contacts with the UN officials and held one or two meetings with Kai Eide. In fact, the Taliban haven't been averse to maintaining contacts with the UN, International Committee of the Red Cross and certain private institutions due to the specific nature of the job performed by these organisations. The name of Muhtasim Agha Jan, the former Taliban finance minister, has been mentioned as someone who held talks with the UN officials. He was reportedly removed from his job as the head of Taliban finances some eight months ago after detection of irregularities in the accounts. He is among the Afghan Taliban leaders now in custody in Pakistan. The Afghan government, too, has been sending emissaries to contact the Taliban Shura members. As President Hamid Karzai recently mentioned, he has been offering talks to the Taliban for the last three years now. Despite US reservations, he even invited Mulla Omar to come to Kabul for peace talks and offered to guarantee his security. On one occasion, Karzai asked for Mulla Omar's address so that he could go and meet him at his hideout. Mulla Omar's summary rejection of every offer of talks by Karzai hasn't stopped the Afghan president from trying again. However, Karzai's talks offer lacks substance as he has yet to persuade his American benefactors to help create the right conditions for starting a credible peace process. This could only happen if the names of the top Taliban leaders with whom Karzai wants to negotiate are removed from the UN 'blacklist' and all sanctions against them are lifted. The US offers of head-money against Mulla Omar and other Taliban leaders would also need to be withdrawn as part of the confidence building measures. For obvious reasons, the US doesn't want to let the Taliban off the hook at this stage. Rather, it is applying greater pressure on the Taliban through its military and civilian 'surge' in Afghanistan to weaken them to such an extent that they no longer are able to dictate terms to the US and its NATO allies, and instead, agree to peace talks and a deal on terms dictated by Washington and Kabul. For this reason, President Karzai was allowed to offer 'reintegration' involving money and jobs to low-ranking Taliban commanders and fighters willing to stop fighting. There is no
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offer of 'reconciliation' at this stage as that would involve talks with the ranking Taliban leaders and could possibly lead to a power-sharing deal. The US-led western strategists don't envisage such a scenario both in the short and long term, as the priority right now is to defeat and evict Taliban from their strongholds and strengthen the Afghan government and security forces in the captured territory to keep the militants out. The big offensive in Marjah in Helmand province involving NATO and Afghan soldiers would be replicated in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace and spiritual capital, and also in faraway Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan and elsewhere in the militants' strongholds. If Marjah is going to be the model for the upcoming NATO-Afghan Army military operations, it cannot inspire much hope as the 15,000 heavily-equipped troops backed by more than 400 jet-fighters and gunship helicopters took almost a month to capture the small market-town and are still neither fully in control nor able to inspire confidence among the insecure populace. With the focus on military operations, it would be nave to expect any serious initiative by the US and its allies for engaging in talks with the Taliban and finding a political solution to end the Afghan conflict. In such circumstances, the claim by the former UN special envoy Kai Eide about his contacts with the Taliban was, therefore, at best a side-show incapable of achieving anything.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, Bangladesh today, March 24, 2010. http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/archive/March%2010/24-32010.htm#editorial
K ANDAHAR O FFENSIVE
TO
F OCUS
ON
G OOD G OVERNANCE
The American surge into Afghanistan, which kicked off in February with the capture of Marjah, is moving to Kandahara far more valuable prize. The coming operation to secure Afghanistan's second-largest city will look completely different from Marjah, where thousands of U.S. Marines fought their way into rural areas under total Taliban control, say American and Afghan officials drafting the campaign. "Kandahar is a political problem," Frank Ruggiero, the top U.S. civilian official in southern Afghanistan, explained as he toured the city to prepare the push. "And the campaign in Kandahar will be led by governance."
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No combat is needed for coalition or Afghan troops to enter Kandahar city, the Taliban movement's birthplace. Unlike Marjah, this metropolis of one million people has remained under government authority, albeit an increasingly tenuous one, since the Taliban regime's downfall in 2001. U.S. and Canadian patrols rumble through the city every day; a huge coalition base sits in its outskirts. The Afghan government here, however, has been so weak, predatory and corrupt that more and more Kandaharis have come to view the Taliban as a lesser evil. Changing this perception holds the key to victory in the cityand to the success of the surge, coalition officials say. "The specific objective is to make the Afghan government a more viable option for people to turn to," says Mr. Ruggiero, whose rank is equal to an army major-general. "It's to show that the government has more relevance to their lives vis--vis the shadow governance of the Taliban." Coalition efforts in coming months will focus on establishing functioning government offices, backed up by Afghan and coalition forces, in all of the city's 10 districts, and on bolstering the authority of provincial governor Tooryalai Wesa and Kandahar Mayor Haidar Hamidi by providing them with more staff, and more sway over how international reconstruction money is spent. Another priority would be to enforce weapons laws, set up new and more efficient checkpoints all over the city, and overhaul the local police force that, Mr. Ruggiero says, is often "the entity that instead of providing security is taking from the people." Within this low-rise, sprawling city, the military surge in coming months is likely to be limited to more U.S. military police and military intelligence troops, and to Afghan army, intelligence and plainclothes police deployments. Things will be very different, however, in the rural districts surrounding Kandahar city, such as Zhari and Arghandab, where large areas are under full Taliban control. Marjah-like clearing operations are likely there this summer, once U.S. reinforcements arrive, American and Afghan officials say. Afghan officials also see operations in the more-distant districts of Ghorak and Mia Neshin, where the Taliban have completely supplanted government authorities.
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There appears to be little appetite for all this fighting among ordinary Kandaharis. "If they put pressure on the Taliban in the districts, the Taliban will retaliate inside Kandahar cityand no one can prevent them," says 26-year-old shopkeeper Mohammad Alam. Kandahar already is succumbing to panicky rumors about the planned campaign, says Gov. Wesa. "They think it will be bombs, tanks, artillery in the city," he says. He says no decision on combat operations will be made without consulting with Kandahar residents first: "We've learned our lessons in Marjah, and hopefully they won't be repeated here." One of the first such consultations was a meeting between Gov. Wesa, Mr. Ruggiero and a few dozen Kandahar University students last week at the governor's palace, which faces a shrine where Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar in 1996 wrapped himself in a cloak believed to have belonged to the Prophet Muhammad, claiming to lead all of the world's Muslims. Student after student hit the same themesrule of law, corruption, tribal balancethat Mr. Ruggiero had explained as the coalition's priorities in a talk to American and Canadian civilian staff at a military base in the city the previous night. "If there is a good district chief in an area, there won't be any bomb blasts or suicide bombings," said one student, Abdurahman. "If you get the right people in place, there won't be any need for military operations." Coalition officials here and in Kabul say they are aware of the popular anger with Kandahar's existing power brokers, among them president Hamid Karzai's brother Ahmed Wali. They hope to marginalize these power brokers in coming months, or at least to pressure them into moderating their behaviorsomething that would require direct and active involvement by Mr. Karzai. "As you build up the strength of the formal functions of the state, the informal actors will see some of their powers fade away," Mr. Ruggiero predicts. "Leadership in Kabul will be critical to this." Greater tribal balance in Kandahar, where Mr. Karzai's Popolzai tribe and the powerful Barakzai tribe wield disproportional influence, would remove another major source of instability. Without redressing this imbalance, officials say, a sense of exclusion from power and economic spoils will continue pushing many other communities especially the large Ghilzai tribesinto Taliban hands.
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Overhauling the somnolent and corrupt justice system, which usually lets Kandahar's powerful men go unpunished, is another priority. "The Taliban, one of the things that they bring, and that the people genuinely want from them, is the sense of justicequick, brutal, but it's justice," says Mr. Ruggiero. Right now, he adds, "the average Kandahari feels disenfranchised."
Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2010. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230443440457514922185553793 4.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews
P RESIDENT O BAMA
IN
K ABUL
President Obamas visit to Afghanistan on Sunday was a long overdue, and desperately needed, attempt to persuade President Hamid Karzai to clean up his act. American officials have repeatedly warned Mr. Karzai that unless he truly commits to eradicating corruption (including among his own family members), improving governance and institutionalizing the rule of law, there is no chance of defeating the Taliban. Mr. Karzai has repeatedly shrugged off those warnings. We hope that hearing it directly from the American president will finally make the difference. There is certainly no more time to waste. Mr. Karzai has a long history of telling the international community what it wants to hear while he and his aides continue to do whatever they choose. The most outrageous example was the brazen attempt by Mr. Karzais loyalists to steal last years presidential election. After Washington belatedly cried foul, Mr. Karzai seemed inclined to mend his ways. His inaugural speech in November resonated with highminded purpose, with promises to end the culture of impunity. But as Gen. James Jones, Mr. Obamas national security adviser, said en route to Kabul, the administration wanted Mr. Karzai to understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have not been paid attention to, almost since Day 1. Mr. Karzai has strengthened the governments anticorruption commission, and his attorney general is pressing forward on some cases involving former government figures. Still, corruption remains rife, including in Kandahar, where American and NATO forces are about to begin a major operation to rout the Taliban.
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Mr. Karzais brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is the main power broker in Kandahar and reportedly has strong ties to the opium trade. If he is truly committed to rooting out corruption, President Karzai can start by pushing his brother to step aside as leader of the Kandahar provincial council. He must also cut ties with many other corrupt officials and warlords and ensure that war criminals and human rights abusers are held accountable. His recent decision to sign a law giving amnesty to some of the worst offenders is especially worrying. The United States and others rightly cried foul the administration even canceled Mr. Karzais planned White House visit after the Afghan president issued a decree that would allow him to appoint all of the members of the election watchdog commission that exposed the fraud in last years election. Mr. Karzai should reverse that decree and return to the previous and far more credible formula under which the United Nations chose three of the five members. Mr. Obama made the right decision to send another 30,000 troops to help drive the Taliban out of important strongholds. But there is no way to hold those cities and towns without an effective Afghan government (at both the federal and local level) to take over. And after eight years of fighting, more than 1,000 American lives lost and more than $200 billion from American taxpayers spent, Mr. Karzais failure to build a credible, honest and even minimally effective government remains the Talibans No. 1 recruiting tool. Mr. Karzais failure to devote maximum effort to fix his government is self-destructive. So is his recent cozying up to Irans repressive government a clear effort to spite his American critics. We hope Mr. Obama told Mr. Karzai all of that in no uncertain terms. He will have to keep telling Mr. Karzai in the months ahead.
Editorial, New York Times, March 29, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30tue1.html
K ABUL S M OVE
FOR
T ALKS
WITH
T OP T ALIBAN U PSETS US
Two senior US officials state and defence secretaries have expressed concern over the Afghan governments effort to seek reconciliation with the Taliban leaders, calling it premature. Defence Secretary Robert Gates told a Senate panel this weekend that he believed it was still probably early for Kabul to seek reconciliation with senior militant leaders.
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The shift of momentum is not yet strong enough to convince the Taliban leaders that they are, in fact, going to lose, he said. It is when they begin to have doubts about whether they can be successful that they may be willing to make a deal. And I do not think we are there yet, he explained. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went a step ahead, saying clearly that Kabuls move was a cause of concern for Washington. Were particularly concerned about the reintegration, reconciliation plans that the Karzai government has undertaken, she said. The statements clearly show Washingtons indignation with Kabuls move and explain why the US administration reacted differently from the Afghan and Indian governments to the recent arrest of Mullah Baradar and some other Taliban leaders in Pakistan. In fact, US officials publicly acknowledged that the CIA was an equal partner in the raid that netted Mullah Baradar and his comrades. Afghan and Indian officials, on the other hand, said that Kabul was already negotiating a reconciliation deal with Mullah Baradar and blamed Pakistan for scuttling their move by arresting him. Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, elaborated the difference between the two positions at a recent briefing. We are extremely gratified that Pakistan apprehended the number two (Taliban leader) and others, he said when asked if Washington supported the arrests. He said the catch brought more pressure on the Taliban than before and was good for the military operation in Afghanistan. Mr Holbrookes statement also differed sharply from the former UN special representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eides claim that the detentions had a negative effect on attempts to find a political solution to the eight-year-old Afghan war. The reactions in Washington made it obvious that Kabuls attempt to negotiate a deal with senior Taliban leaders lacked US blessing. Some political commentators in the US capital described the move as President Karzais attempt to make a solo flight and said that it had annoyed American policy planners. They claimed that Indias strong support for Kabuls reconciliation effort also exposed fissures between Washington and New Delhi over how to settle the Afghan dispute.
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In her statement before the Senate panel, Secretary Clinton acknowledged that the Afghan government expected the people they sought to reconcile with to abide by the law and constitution of Afghanistan, but she was not sure if the Taliban leaders were ready to do so. Secretary Gates advised the Karzai government to wait till more foreign troops arrived in Afghanistan and the coalition and Afghan government took control of more parts of the country. Mr Gates said between now and July of next year, the US-led coalition will have enough troops in Afghanistan to persuade the militants to accept Kabuls terms for reconciliation. US President Barack Obama has set a July 2011 deadline for US forces to start pulling out of Afghanistan but wants to launch some more military operations against the Taliban before settling down for negotiations. This, he believes, would soften the Taliban and would also allow him to find a solution which is acceptable to his voters in the United States as well. President Hamid Karzai, however, seems unwilling to wait that long. He is planning a peace council for next month, and this week he met representatives of Hezb-i-Islami, one of the main Taliban affiliates. The move caused members of the US Congress to publicly express concern over the reconciliation process. Our concern is that the reconciliation takes place on the terms of the Afghan government and that it be done from a position of strength, said Mr Gates while addressing the lawmakers who criticised Kabuls move. The United States wanted Taliban leaders to agree to put down their weapons, agree to abide by the Afghan constitution and agree to participate in the political process before entering into an agreement with Kabul, the US defence secretary said. US officials say that the proposal Hezb-i-Islami presented to President Karzai did not come close to meeting those criteria. Mr Gates told the congressional committee he saw the process of reconciliation as different from reintegration. The first involved Taliban foot soldiers and the second involved senior leaders. While the US supported reintegration, it believed that now was not the time to seek reconciliation, he said.
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US and allied forces, however, were working to create the position of strength needed for reconciliation and Kabul should wait for that to happen before making the move, he added
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/thenewspaper/front-page/19-kabuls-move-for-talks-with-top-taliban-upsets-us-930-hh-04
Dawn (Islamabad), March 29, 2010.
O BAMA P RESSES K ARZAI
FOR
C OOPERATION
In his first visit as commander in chief to the war zone he has remade, President Obama on Sunday pushed for greater cooperation from the government of his Afghan counterpart, a stagnant and corruption-laced administration that poses perhaps the biggest threat to U.S. success against the Taliban insurgency. Obama's tone in brief public remarks alongside President Hamid Karzai was solemn, and he chose not to praise the Afghan leader. While U.S. officials have been encouraged by military advances in recent months, Obama said, "we also want to continue to make progress on the civilian process." Obama's national security adviser, James L. Jones, made the point in blunter terms. He said Obama wanted Karzai to understand "that in his second term, there are certain things that have not been paid attention to, almost since Day One." Karzai promised in his inaugural address four months ago to fight corruption and improve governance, but U.S. officials say they have seen little concrete change at a time when they are desperate to present a credible alternative to Taliban rule. Many think the fate of Obama's troop buildup -- he has ordered 50,000 new troops to Afghanistan since taking office -- hinges in large part on the ability of the Afghan government to provide services after soldiers have pushed out insurgents. Obama's first look at Afghanistan as president was brief and in darkness. He arrived after dusk at Bagram air base, met with Afghan and U.S. officials at the presidential palace in Kabul, then spoke to a cheering crowd of U.S. soldiers back at Bagram before flying out of the country before dawn. The six-hour tour, cloaked in secrecy to ensure security, dispatched with much of the customary pomp of a state visit. Karzai learned of Obama's arrival just three days before Air Force One touched down, according to the White House. The visit marks a progression from Obama's biggest domestic policy success to his most pressing foreign policy challenge, and comes
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amid criticism that he has been too consumed by health-care reform to pay sufficient attention to the war he has escalated. Unlike health care, which became a bitterly partisan issue, Obama's management of the Afghanistan war has earned him Republican backing. A new Washington Post poll found that Afghanistan is one of Obama's strongest issues, the only one for which he earned majority approval. Overall, 53 percent of those polled approve of the way Obama is dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, despite a U.S. death toll that has roughly doubled the first three months of the year compared with the corresponding period last year. The United States has been trying to persuade Karzai to appoint competent government officials, address rampant theft and extortion, and fight opium trafficking, which fuels the insurgency. Karzai, who won a fraud-marred election in August, has still not selected a full cabinet, and the central government is particularly impotent outside of major cities in the vast rural stretches where the insurgency makes its home. White House and national security officials think that the military offensive underway in Helmand province, and planned for neighboring Kandahar province, must be accompanied by a genuine improvement in local government. "We haven't seen any results," Khalid Pashtun, an Afghan parliament member, said of Karzai's second term. "Maybe Washington is really worried about that." For Karzai, who has spoken several times by videoconference with Obama in recent months, the meeting on Sunday emphasized themes he has heard before, according to his advisers. Obama used the occasion to invite Karzai to the White House for a meeting scheduled for May 12. Karzai had long wanted the invitation, but administration officials were unwilling to extend one until his performance improved. Rangin Spanta, a top Karzai adviser and the former foreign minister, said the discussion with Obama focused on corruption, reconstruction and "strengthening Afghan state entities." "There was a strong message that President Obama brought to us, especially the long-term commitment of the United States for Afghanistan and aligning the cooperation of our governments," Spanta said in an interview. Karzai's spokesman, Wahid Omar, described the meeting as "very cordial" and set in a "friendly atmosphere." After a roughly 40-minute meeting of the two presidents and a handful of close aides, a larger group gathered at the palace for dinner before Obama's entourage flew to
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Bagram. Omar said Karzai told Obama about the Afghan government's efforts on corruption, including changes to an anticorruption body, intended to give it more power. Karzai also stressed that the billions of dollars of international funding should not be used to create "parallel structures" but should be funneled through the Afghan government, Omar said. Karzai has met this month with leaders from Pakistan, Iran and China, and some Afghan officials also saw Obama's visit as a chance to remind Karzai of the need to work closely with the United States. "The situation in Afghanistan is critical right now. It's unstable, insecure, and there is concern all over the world, especially in the United States, to keep relations between these countries close," said Noor ul-Haq Ulumi, who heads the defense committee in the Afghan parliament. Ulumi said he hoped Obama in the coming months will focus less on large-scale military operations and more on government reform and development projects. "Our problem needs a political solution," he said. "Karzai became president through fraud, and it's still a corrupted government inside Afghanistan." White House officials said the president had sought the trip for months after his decision in December to add 30,000 new U.S. troops. He has made one other war-zone trip, visiting Iraq under similar secrecy last year. White House officials did not disclose the president's whereabouts until he had landed in Afghanistan, telling reporters that he was spending the weekend at Camp David, where his movements are easy to disguise. The press corps traveling with him was required to keep the visit secret for security reasons. Upon arrival, Obama was treated to a red-carpet welcoming ceremony, with an Afghan color guard on display, before retreating for meetings. Just after 11 p.m., Obama landed at Bagram, and entered a hangar to address a boisterous crowd of about 2,000 soldiers. Wearing a leather bomber jacket, Obama spoke for about 20 minutes, thanking the troops for their service. "If I thought for a minute that America's vital interests were not served, were not at stake here in Afghanistan, I would order all of you home right away," Obama said. Their services, he told them, "are absolutely necessary, absolutely essential to America's safety and security." Obama said the U.S. mission is to "disrupt and dismantle, defeat and destroy al-Qaeda and its extremist allies," while at the same time
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reversing the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, and strengthening the Afghan government and security forces. His speech to the soldiers was more rousing than when he announced the troop escalation, but the content was largely the same.
Joshua Partlow & Scott Wilson, Washington Post, March 29, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/ AR2010032800828.html
S OLUTION
FOR
A FGHANISTAN
The Obama administration now slightly understands the ground realities in Afghanistan. This is evident from Obamas speech in January this year, which shows clarity of thinking on the objectives. The objectives are denying al-Qaeda a sanctuary to resurrect itself, and establishing a broadbased government before a US-NATO exit from the country. The new approach towards Pakistan and the new era of strategic dialogue also supplement the idea of change in the US approach towards Afghanistan. The administrations point men for the region are busy defining the contours of the tactics to achieve these objectives. The US also realises the fact that it cannot honourably extricate itself from the quagmire without involvement of regional and neighbouring countries. These reduced objectives are now slated for regional consensus and international backing. But there are multiple regional and neighbouring players who scramble for securing their interests in the future setup. The current regional approach to finding a durable solution to the crisis, though realistic, is fraught with dangers if the players are not involved according to their stakes, roles and influence in Afghanistan. In this context, most of the stakeholders have similar interests, but their expected roles must be on grounds of historical engagement, cultural affinities and geographical proximity to Afghanistan. For example, Pakistan, a smaller country in size and economy as compared with China and India, has to be given a greater role in the future reconciliation process, for obvious reasons. This country is deeply involved in Afghanistan since the USSR intervention in Afghanistan. During the process, it has cultivated deep relations with many Afghan factions and as such is matchless in terms of influence on most of these important players in the current conflict.
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In terms of stakes and influence in Afghanistan, Iran rightfully enjoys the second place after Pakistan. Therefore, this country needs to be given a say in the strategic level decision on the future of that country. However, with the US determined to engineer a regime change there, this important player is least expected to offer a helping hand to the USNATO alliance and Kabul. The US-Iran tensions on the nuclear issue and the recent arrest of Jundullah leader Abdul Malik Rigi have increased them. Similarly, the Western intention to involve Saudi Arabia was also not received well in Tehran. All these factors have annoyed Tehran to the extent that for the first time it boycotted the London Conference on the future of Afghanistan. In this backdrop, the mounting tensions between Kabul and Tehran are visible. In a joint press conference with Karzai during a recent visit to Afghanistan, Ahmedinejad dubbed the US presence in the region as the root cause of all problems. All these should be reason for the Western alliance to try to bring Iran back into the fold. The Russians, the Central Asian Republics and China claim to have stakes in the Afghan issue as well. All these countries, though US partners, vie for securing their stakes through a role in the reconciliation process. In the same vein, the Americans cannot be oblivious to the European and NATO agenda in the war battered country. In a recent lecture in the US, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband emphasised the role of India and Turkey in the future reconciliation process. In this connection, the role of Turkey is understandable due to the fact that it is a Muslim Nato member actively involved in Afghanistan. Turkey also claims ethnic relations with the Uzbek population of Afghanistan. However, Indias role cannot be comprehended as it enjoys none of the Turkish advantages. So how could this country claim a role in the peace process in Afghanistan? It also needs to be appreciated that if India is given any role, Pakistan, with its deeper influence and higher stakes, will never let India have its way on any important issue to the peace process. In such an event, the whole process will become hostage to India-Pakistan antagonism. Certainly, the strategic decision to initiate a new process for reconciliation and peace in the region rested with the Americans and its Western allies, but the keys to such an objective lies with regional players. All the stakeholders would like the Western alliance to clearly define various interests of stakeholders and then take genuine initiatives
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to address them systematically. They must be involved in strategic decision-making at the regional level. After accommodating these interests, the initiative for reconciliation process must be handed over to the Kabul government and the insurgents. This initiative needed to be a purely Afghan initiative between Afghans and the stakeholder, except that Pakistan should be kept out of the negotiation process. All previous attempts show that when stakeholders were involved in the reconciliation process, the process failed due to the inability of the stakeholders to trust each other. On the negotiating table, everyone would lobby for his favoured proxies. This entire scramble leads to a nondurable solution. However, there is one exception, Pakistan, to this rule. History, close relationship with Afghan Mujahideen, proximity and consequent fallouts of all Afghan wars, huge sacrifices, frontline role in fighting the terrorists and security concerns places Pakistan in a unique position. Its ability to influence any afghan event is matchless. Among all stakeholders in the region and immediate neighbourhood, Pakistan is the only country which is equally suffering from terrorism and bloodshed alongside Afghanistan. On his recent trip to Pakistan, President Karzai rightly dubbed both countries as conjoined twins who are destined to prosper and suffer together. Recognising this fact, the Obama administration had hyphenated Pakistan with Afghanistan in its Af-Pak strategy. Why not Af-Iran or Af-India, because the world also considered Pakistan the equal sufferer. Thats why the wise people suggest that only Pakistan should be make part of the reconciliation process with Afghan factions.
Saleem Safi, News International (Rawalpindi), March 29, 2010. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=231360
U.S. F ORCES S ET S IGHTS ON T ALIBAN B ASTION K ANDAHAR
OF
U.S. forces have begun the initial phases of a political-military offensive in this Taliban bastion and hope to control the city and surrounding areas by late summer, according to senior U.S. military officials. Officials have pressed local leaders and tribal elders over the past several weeks to begin holding shuras, or conferences, in Kandahar city and outlying districts, telling them that they must improve governance,
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address corruption and eject the Taliban. Otherwise, their areas will be the focus of expanding military operations scheduled to begin in June with the arrival of 10,000 new U.S. troops, the officials have said. Among those specifically warned by U.S. military commanders is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the elected head of Kandahar's provincial council. American officials have for years accused Karzai, the unquestioned power broker in the province and brother of President Hamid Karzai, of administering a corrupt regime and protecting narcotics traffickers. He was also accused of orchestrating voter fraud in Augusts presidential election. On a visit here Tuesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Kandahar the "center of gravity" for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and compared the importance of the offensive to the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops that helped turn the tide in the Iraq war. In interviews, senior U.S. military and civilian officials stressed the difference between the operations in Kandahar, an urban area that is the Taliban's heartland, and operations in neighboring Helmand province, where Marines have taken control of the Marjah district and installed government officials appointed by the central government in Kabul. "Marjah is rural and was ungoverned," said Frank Ruggiero, the senior U.S. civilian official in southern Afghanistan. "Kandahar city is controlled by the Afghan government." But 80 percent of the Zhari district to the west is controlled by the Taliban, as is 40 percent of the Panjwayi district, to the southwest. There are scattered insurgent operations in the Arghandab district to the northwest, Ruggiero and other officials said. Together, the three districts and the city proper have a population of 2 million, making Kandahar Afghanistan's second-largest population center, after Kabul. U.S. officials, including President Obama during a surprise visit last weekend, have pressed the Afghan president to take long-promised action against his brother and other allegedly corrupt officials. But they acknowledge that their limited knowledge of tribal politics here, the power wielded by Ahmed Wali Karzai and a few others and President Karzai's reluctance to act have made it an uphill battle. Senior administration officials in Washington said overall transition to stability and vastly improved governance in Kandahar must be completed by December, when Obama has asked Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for an
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ov verall review w of how the e new strateg gy he announ nced last fall is faring. T strategy calls The c for U.S. military with hdrawals to begin b in July 2011. "We rea ally don't hav ve much time e," said a seni ior military official o on M McChrystal's staff of the Kandahar K ope eration.
The political side of the offensive e began in ea arnest last we eek with a sh hura in Argh handab orga anized by th he provincial l governor, Tooryalai T W Wesa. When an unrepres sentative gro oup of tribal leaders sho owed up, R Ruggiero said, , Wesa sent them t home with w instruct tions to wide en the net of f participatio on. Similar meetings m are scheduled th hroughout th he region ov ver the next several s weeks s. U.S. offi icials have ur rged Presiden nt Karzai to travel here ne ext month fo or a provincia al shura. The e pitch they have h made to him, one off ficial said, is s "Mr. Preside ent, we've go ot to get goin ng on Kandah har, and we need n your help." y constructed d the operat tional timeli ine for the Kandahar As they of ffensive, officials said, th hey undertook a "deep di ive" into the collected in ntelligence on n the area an nd concluded d that "it's am mazing what we don't
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know," a senior military official said. "Our knowledge of the enemy is pretty darn good." But the key to success, he said, "is understanding the tribal nature of what's going on in Kandahar, and we're not there yet." Ahmed Wali Karzai "presents a huge challenge for us, that's for sure," another senior military official said. Added a Western diplomat in Kabul: "Is it a campaign to liberate Kandahar city from the Taliban or to liberate it from Wali Karzai? The two come together." One senior U.S. military official described a personal visit he said he made two weeks ago to Karzai in Kandahar to threaten him with arrest or worse. "I told him, 'I'm going to be watching every step you take. If I catch you meeting an insurgent, I'm going to put you on the JPEL,' " the Joint Prioritized Engagement List, reserved for the most wanted insurgents. "That means," the official said he told Karzai, "that I can capture or kill you." But this official and others acknowledged that they have no real evidence to back up allegations that Karzai has contacts with insurgents and that the threat is largely an empty one. "We'd rather not have him," the military official said, "but there's nothing we can do unless we can link him to the insurgency." As an elected official, Karzai cannot simply be removed from office, and officials said the only option is to persuade his brother to ease him out of office by sending him to an overseas embassy, something the president has thus far refused to do. He has said that he has repeatedly demanded U.S. officials provide him with proof of specific wrongdoing by his brother, but that none has been forthcoming. Ahmed Wali Karzai has proved to be a deft political operator, both within Afghanistan's complicated tribal networks and inside the U.S. government. While he has earned the ire of U.S. military officials and diplomats, he has reportedly cultivated a longtime relationship with the CIA. The New York Times reported last fall that he had received regular payments from the CIA for several years and helped recruit a Kandahar-based militia that works on behalf of the U.S. spy agency. "No intelligence organization discusses publicly who it may or may not deal with overseas," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said Tuesday. "But if anyone thinks this agency is supporting drug dealers, they're wrong." A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that allegations of Ahmed Wali Karzai's ties to narcotics traffickers had
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never been proved. "He's a key tribal leader," the official said. "If you take out Karzai, you don't have good governance, you have no governance. He's done very good things for the United States. He's effective." Karzai has also consistently denied allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. He did not return phone calls and text messages seeking comments for this report. Other senior officials in Kandahar also have refused to take a stand against him, either from conviction or fear. "He's the guy who will keep Kandahar stable," Wesa, the governor, said Tuesday after holding a shura of tribal leaders with Mullen. "If he's not here on the scene," Wesa said of Karzai, "you don't want to see what's going to happen." For now, the strategy is to try to reduce the influence of Karzai and other power brokers by increasing that of other tribal and political leaders and providing them with the economic and good-governance tools to succeed. The military aspects of the operation began about two months ago with targeted operations leading to the detention of about 70 mid- and senior-level Taliban leaders, with a slightly smaller number killed, according to U.S. officials. The next stage, an official said, will involve a "body blow" to areas under Taliban control, with the arrival of two U.S. combat brigades and Special Forces contingents that will move quickly to take control of the main highway into the city, through Zhari, to the west. The bulk of U.S. troops will remain outside the city, while a trained and uncorrupt police force -- yet nonexistent -- will be installed inside Kandahar city. "We have about four months," a military official said. "In that time, we have to flow our forces in and stay on that timeline." If U.S. and Afghan officials have retained and expanded security control in Helmand, while "moving toward a solution in Kandahar that the people support . . . then we've got the momentum," the official said. The timeline also has larger goals, including a new police training structure and increased recruitment, as well as continued growth in the strength and competence of the Afghan army. By fall, an additional 5,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to eastern and northern Afghanistan, for a total of 98,000 in the country, with about 40,000 from international partners. At the same time, the fourregion command structure under McChrystal, with a U.S. command in
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the east, British in the south, Italian in the west and German in the north, is to be grown to five regions. Helmand and the rest of the southwest will be broken off to form a new U.S. command with the Marines and British troops. The British commander in the south, scheduled to depart in November, will be replaced by a U.S. general, leaving the United States in command of three of the five regions.
Karen DeYoung & Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, March 31, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/03/30/AR2010033004090.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
U.S. C AMPAIGN
TO
R EFORM K ANDAHAR P ITFALLS
IS
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The coming battle for control of this ancient crossroads city will be the toughest challenge of the war in Afghanistan -- not because it will be bloody, necessarily, but because it will require the hardest item for U.S. commanders to deliver, which is an improvement in governance. Kandahar is the heartland of the Pashtun people -- a place of competing tribes and clans, of hidden wealth accumulated from drug trafficking and smuggling, and of notorious power brokers symbolized in the public mind by Ahmed Wali Karzai, the leader of the provincial council and brother of Afghanistan's president. Reforming the local government is like disassembling a pyramid of pick-up sticks. One wrong move and the whole pile collapses. Yet if the United States accommodates the existing power structure, it will appear to be condoning corruption here -- a bad message for the public in Afghanistan and America alike. Talking with U.S. officials about the coming campaign, I heard a range of good ideas but not a clear strategy. The American officials know they can't deliver on their counterinsurgency promise of protecting the population without breaking the hold of the local chieftains. Yet they are wary of toppling the system and opening the way for what might be even worse chaos -- and new resentment at American meddling. The Kandahar campaign will have a military component as U.S. troops clear Taliban strongholds surrounding the city, such as Zhari, Panjwai and Arghandab. But in Kandahar, the problem isn't the enemy so much as our nominal friends such as Ahmed Karzai. The battle for the
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city will be political more than military -- and it will require skills and expertise that are in short supply. "It's amazing what we don't know about Kandahar," says one of the top U.S. military commanders. He just supervised a special push to gather intelligence about power brokers, tribal leaders and their grievances and, as he put it, "who's who in the Kandahar zoo." Unfortunately, the United States is starting from a low base after years of intelligence collection that was "only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," according to a report in January by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn. Recognizing the severe gaps in their knowledge, U.S. commanders have adopted what might be described as "operational humility." They know they can make big mistakes if they aren't careful. Shaking up the power structure might put the United States on the side of the Pashtun man in the street, but it would open a power vacuum that could be exploited by the Taliban. Given the planned July 2011 start for withdrawal of U.S. troops, there isn't time for risky experiments in Kandahar. American officials worry, quite sensibly, about the law of unintended consequences. So commanders are opting instead for an approach that one calls "re-balancing" the Kandahar power elite. The idea is to open up political space to tribes and clans that have been left out of the spoils system. "The basic problem in Kandahar is that you have a disenfranchised population," says Frank Ruggiero, a State Department official who is the top U.S. civilian representative in southern Afghanistan. The tool that U.S. strategists hope to use to broaden the political base in Kandahar is the traditional Afghan forum known as the "shura." Officials are encouraging these gatherings regularly in the city and the surrounding districts, and urging local Afghan officials to make them more inclusive and a better forum for redressing grievances. They want to combine the shuras with better policing, aided by embedded U.S. trainers, and with new economic development projects. Traveling here with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I attended a shura hosted by Tooryalai Wesa, the governor of Kandahar province. This was not exactly a gathering of the dispossessed. The most emphatic speakers around the table warned that the United States shouldn't go after Ahmed Karzai. "If he's not here, the balance will be unbalanced," Wesa said after the meeting. Curbing corruption in Kandahar may be mission impossible. But it's the task that the United States has set for itself, by promising through
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its counterinsurgency campaign that it is working for a better and more just Afghanistan than what the Taliban offers. It's this dissonance between ends and means that worries a visitor here this week. The hardest part of this war, paradoxically, isn't the fighting on the ground, which the U.S. military conducts brilliantly, but the struggle in the Afghan political sphere, where we know precious little.
David Ignatius, Washington Post, April 1, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/ AR2010033102991.html
P AKISTAN
HAS
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A FGHAN R ECONCILIATION : US
The Pentagon has said that Pakistan also needs to be enlisted in any effort to seek reconciliation with the Afghan militants, although the process has to be led and managed by Kabul. A senior US defence official, while briefing journalists in Washington, recalled that Pakistan had offered assistance to Afghanistan in the reconciliation process and the offer needed to be considered because of the tribal region and the nature of it. Under those terms, then, I think, you know, probably helping enlistment of Pakistan in that as well as in that framework for reconciliation would be useful, the official said. But the decision for accepting Pakistans offer would have to be taken by the Afghan government because the reconciliation and reintegration process had to be led and managed by the Afghans, said the US official. The US believed that some of the militants were reconcilable and some were not, the official added. In the April 2010 edition of The Atlantic magazine, Maj-Gen Michael Flynn, director of intelligence, US Central command, was quoted as saying that militant leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were both absolutely salvageable. The general said that Mr Hekmatyar already had members in the Karzai government, and it could evolve into a political party while the Haqqani network was tired of fighting. Both groups have lucrative business interests to protect: the road traffic from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to Central Asia, the general said.
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The Atlantic also quoted a former British military officer, who fought in Afghanistan, as saying that both Haqqani and Hekmatyar are pragmatists tied to the probability of outcomes. With all the talk of Islamic ideology, this is the land of the deal. This supports the Pakistani position that the US needs to engage senior militant leaders instead of trying to defeat them militarily and that if contacted those leaders would be willing to cooperate. Pakistan has been urging the US to seek reconciliation with the militants for quite some time. The suggestion was initially rejected by Washington but now US officials are becoming increasingly interested in the process of reconciliation as they seek a conclusion of war in Afghanistan. The development has alarmed India. During a recent visit to Washington, Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao warned the international community that there were no good or bad Taliban. One cannot stress enough the need to avoid compromises or differentiation between the so-called shades and hues of the Taliban, she said, adding that such attempts, if unchecked, will only embolden the same forces that held sway in Afghanistan in the 1990s and caused the tragedy of 9/11. At the Pentagon, the senior US defence official also acknowledged that not all Taliban leaders were reconcilable but underlined the importance of involving Pakistan in the process. The official also noted that Pakistan seems to be abiding by the pledge it made in 2008 to go and uproot the insurgencies in the areas where militants had been entrenched. Youre seeing a trend where they are trying to remove the areas that were once unapproachable, the official said, noting that the recent Pakistani military offensives marked the first time any military had occupied South Waziristan. The official characterised the accomplishments of the Pakistan security forces as quite impressive. To see the gains that they have made in this short time is a real testament to the resolve, the fighting spirit and the leadership of Pakistans armed forces, the official said. He said that about 200 US military personnel in Pakistan were providing security assistance and training to the Pakistani military and to paramilitary operatives and members of the Frontier Corps. The official
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said the number of US forces might increase if the US delivered military equipment to Pakistan that required specialised trainers. We stand fully behind Pakistan in its relentless drive to restore peace and security in this region, the official said. He said that what spurred on Pakistan to greater action against militants within their borders was the realisation that Taliban operatives working in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Al Qaeda behaved as a syndicate, working in support of each other. The official also noted that Pakistan began to take threats from the syndicate more seriously after militants began encroaching in areas that traditionally had not been home to insurgent forces. The official said coordination had improved among the US-Nato coalition forces, Afghan security forces and Pakistan. That (Afghanistan-Pakistan) border that was very fluid, the official said, now is starting to be problematic for the insurgency.
Anwar Iqbal, Dawn (Islamabad), April 1, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/thenewspaper/front-page/pakistan-has-role-in-afghan-reconciliation-us-140
C HURCHILL S C HOICE
FOR
A FGHANISTAN
General Stanley McChrystal, having read The Memoirs of Winston Churchill, has opted for a new strategy for Afghanistan, named as Churchills Choice, which he defined in these words: The more an outside army sought to impose order, the more ferocious the Afghan response. Brute force of arms was not only insufficient and ineffective, but likely to foment greater antagonism. Therefore, there was the option of pulling out and working through and with the tribal system, and leaving the tribals to their bloodletting. The new strategy, therefore, was formalised during the strategic dialogue with Pakistan with high expectations that the Pakistan army after having steamrolled Taliban from North Waziristan, will also be ready to support the surge strategy against Taliban in Afghanistan. However, Chief of Army Staff General Parvez Kayani, on his return to Pakistan, has poured cold water on the incumbent US administrations desire by saying: Pakistan has no intention to launch steamroller operations in North Waziristan, nor it can provide any military support to the coalition forces surge inside Afghanistan. As a result, the American dream for a brick by brick demolition of the jihadi
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infrastructure has ultimately dashed to the ground, as much as the effort to capture Marjah in the Helmand province and also hoisting the US flag on a mud hut in Marjah bazaar. Now, it is expected that the surge will turn towards Kandahar, inviting a befitting response from Taliban. This encounter, certainly, will not be a stalemate as in Marjah, but a turning point of the surge operations. In any case, there is undoubtedly no possibility of a quick fix military success before the US mid-term elections, nor the option of pulling out and leaving the tribals, to their bloodletting is achievable by implementing the Maldives Plan. In fact, the Maldives Plan would be a clear recipe for disaster. This option was used in 1990, after the Afghan mujahideen and the government of Pakistan together provided a safe exit to the Soviet troops; however, for the exit of the US/NATO forces now neither Pakistan, nor Taliban, can provide any such guarantee. On the hindsight, Obamas recent dash to Kabul to announce the premature success of the strategic dialogue was a crude attempt to fool the American public, as the surge strategy has failed and so has the Maldives Plan even before it could be launched. So what is the option left for the US/NATO forces? The answer is to make peace with the Taliban of Afghanistan, which is possible only if the occupation forces try to understand the genesis of Taliban of today and find a way to negotiate peace with them. The present Taliban are different from those in 1988 and 1989. They are what the CIAs website named The Long War Journal describes in detail. Added to it, is the hardcore of young Taliban fighters who were born 30 years back and have grown under the shadows of war. Their only objective in life is to win their freedom. They have enjoyed no pleasures of life - courtesy foreign invasions, by the Soviets and the Americans. They live in a state of anomie, where life and death have little meaning for them. They are a phenomenon, least understood, yet one can understand them, if there is the willingness to engage with them. But the question is, how will the US/West engage with the Taliban? Indeed, this is extremely difficult mainly because of its obsession to call Taliban as terrorists rather than freedom fighters. The US/West has to get rid of this obsession and treat them as freedom fighters who, during the last three decades, have sacrificed two generations in order to preserve their freedom, their values and traditions, which do not find harmony with the American plans and policies for Afghanistan (Mullah Umar).
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Nevertheless, there exists a serious trust deficit between Taliban and the US, who betrayed them in 1989, at Geneva, and again in 2001, at Bonn, by denying them power-sharing in government which they deserved as the winner and also being the majority (55 percent of the population). Similarly, the Maldives Plans that has now been hatched and is to be implemented, will be another betrayal and disastrous for peace. Pakistan and the other stakeholders in the region do not want a Talibanised Afghanistan. However, they have no right under any law to make such a demand. It is only for the people of Afghanistan to choose the form of government that best suits them. Amongst our immediate neighbours, China follows the Communist/Socialist ideology and is the most peaceful country in the world. Likewise, Iran follows the Islamic ideology and, despite such provocations from Israel and pressures from USA, has maintained its cool. Similarly, Afghanistan under the Taliban will follow the Islamic ideology, respecting the rule of law and distributive justice. In fact, the world has to remain engaged with them to ameliorate their sufferings of the last 30 years, caused by foreign aggressions. Therefore, Pakistan and the US, in particular, will have to recalibrate their positions and harmonise their interests with Afghanistan for a lasting peace in the region. As a final word, it is not President Hamid Karzai and his government that will look after the American interests when they are gone from Afghanistan. The Taliban can provide such a guarantee only if we remain engaged with them and promise to invest in rebuilding the country, which has suffered untold misery, death, destruction and deprivation at the hands of the two great powers - Russia and America. The US/West owe it to the people of Afghanistan, not in blood or flesh anymore but in kind, if they decide to save the day and abandon the Churchills Choice of leaving the tribes, to their bloodletting.
General Mirza Aslam Beg, Nation (Islamabad), April 4, 2010. http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-englishonline/Opinions/Columns/04-Apr-2010/Churchills-Choice-for-Afghanistan/
A F LAWED S TRATEGY
On July 2, 2009, in a lightening heliborne strike 4,000 US Marines landed in the Helmand River valley, the so-called heartland of the Taliban. Their objective was to trap the Taliban and to assure the local population that they would stay and protect them.
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The speed and scale at which Operation Khanjar was conducted, it was expected that the Taliban would be taken by surprise. They were not. They had been forewarned. Instead of giving battle they withdrew into the mountains. The invaders were surprised. In the days that followed they experienced the skill and tenacity of the Taliban. They were subjected to classic guerilla hit-and-run and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attacks that caused the heaviest casualties suffered by the occupation forces in a month since 2001. It was then that Gen McChrystal realised that the situation in Afghanistan is serious and that he would need another 40,000 troops to stabilise the situation. After months of dithering 30,000 were approved but with the proviso that the US and Nato forces would start thinning out from July 2011 after handing over the country to the Afghans. The US strategy seeks to accomplish three objectives: to protect the Afghan people; to force the Taliban through military action to sue for talks; to enhance the capacity of the Afghans to provide for their own security. In line with this, on Feb 13, 2010, 15,000 US and Nato troops stormed into the Helmand River valley once again. Their objective was Marjah, a rural area with scattered poppy farms and small villages inhabited by a few thousand people. Once again the Taliban did not give battle and withdrew into the mountains, leaving behind a small staybehind force which engaged the invaders in sporadic firefights. On March 1 the conquest of Marjah was announced and the Afghan flag raised. It was a symbolic victory for the invaders. The Taliban are skilled, experienced guerilla fighters. They know that holding ground would involve pitched battles in which they would be annihilated by the regulars superior combat power. Instead, they strike a number of small blows in different directions at the time and place of their own choosing. Their strategy is thus characterised by dispersion in time and space. This is what the Pakistani Taliban also did when Operation Rah-iNijaat was launched in South Waziristan. Although, they have lost control of space, they have retained the capacity to hit and run. What, however, hurts the Taliban most is not loss of space but loss of that space which constitutes their critical space their safe havens. These essentially are in the mountains, both in Fata and in Afghanistan. In strategy the focal point of planning is defence or capture of critical space. The great
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art is to identify it correctly and apply the dimensions of time and space imaginatively to achieve the desired aim. History abounds with examples of the critical importance of this. In 1805 in the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon induced the enemy to uncover Pratzen Heights, the critical space, then attacked on the flank and centre to occupy the heights which led to total victory. Hitlers campaign in Russia failed primarily because in 1941 he diverted his main force heading for Moscow, the critical space, towards Kiev, losing in the process six valuable weeks, so that when the offensive towards Moscow was resumed, it floundered in the Russian winter. In 1971 the Indians induced Generals Yahya and Tiger Niazi to uncover Dhaka, the critical space, then went all-out to capture it which led to total victory. During their occupation of Afghanistan if the Soviets had blocked the major crossing sites on the Durand Line, they could have isolated the Mujahideen from their handlers and logistics in Fata and Balochistan. Likewise, if the Americans had blocked these prior to their airbombing campaign, the routed Taliban would not have been able to escape to Pakistan. Even now, although Pakistan has deployed a large number of troops along the Durand Line, a complementary deployment is lacking on the other side. By planning to take Kandahar the Americans are making the same mistake again. Its loss will not fill the Taliban with panic. It would be another symbolic victory. During the Vietnam War, South Vietnam remained in American control except the jungles which served as a safe haven for Vietcong guerillas, into which US troops rarely ventured. In Afghanistan they have avoided venturing into the mountains. There is something about jungles and mountains that unnerves them! In order to protect the people from Taliban they would have to deploy the bulk of their forces in the cleared areas. This has defensive connotations. It would leave the initiative with the Taliban. Yet, the US strategy is predicated on the assumption, a single hypothesis, that the Taliban would be forced to come to the negotiating table through military action where the Americans would negotiate from a position of strength, proclaim victory, hand over the country to the Afghans, and start thinning out to be home in time for Thanksgiving 2011. What if this hypothesis fails to materialise? The Afghans would not be ready to assume responsibilities by July 2011, nor even by 2015, but even if they are, the Pakhtuns would never
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countenance domination of the country by non-Pakhtuns. The Taliban, who are predominantly Pakhtun, are also not likely to succumb to the incentives that would be offered to them for laying down their arms. If they do they may never rise again. The only way to force the Taliban to submit is by deploying minimum force to dominate the valleys and maximum force, spearheaded by all the forces of special operations command, to dominate the Taliban hideouts in the mountains. This should form the cornerstone of the American surge effort not Kandahar. Until then they can keep shifting momentum from the enemy to the Afghan people as Adm Mullen says, and keep living in a world of their own.
Javed Hussain, Dawn (Islamabad), April 5, 2010. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/thenewspaper/editorial/a-flawed-strategy-540
P AK S EEN
AS A
K EY
TO
A FGHAN C ONUNDRUM
The main objective of USA to occupy Afghanistan in November 2001 was to break the myth that Afghanistan is unconquerable, tame the Afghans and convert it into a permanent military base for the realization of its regional and global ambitions. After eight years of fighting the sole aim of the US is how to pullout its forces from self created Afghan quagmire safely and honorably. Till 9/11, India taking advantage of its relationship with USA, painted Pakistan as a failed state, abettor of cross border terrorism in occupied Kashmir and involved in manufacturing an Islamic bomb. The US obliged India partly by placing Pakistan in the watch list of countries suspected of indulging in terrorism and keeping it under harsh sanctions. 9/11 helped India achieve what it could never have in normal course. New rules on global terrorism framed by USA and doctrine of pre-emption and shock and awe conceived by George W. Bush Administration helped India to convert Kashmir freedom struggle into terrorism, brand Pakistan as an extremist state indulging in international terrorism and in nuclear proliferation. Pakistans nuclear capability was projected as a threat to world peace. The US helped India in regaining and expanding its influence in Afghanistan to be able to encircle Pakistan and to put into operation the devised game plan. Themes of extremism, terrorism and nuclear proliferation appealed to the jittery senses of
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western audience fearful of Islamists and also fitted into the policy framework of new rules injected in New World Order in which Islam figured as the chief threat to US imperialism and capitalist oriented international order. There was clear cut mutuality of interests between the four strategic partners USA, UK, Israel and India. Pakistan did not fit into George Bush doctrine but was accepted as a tactical coalition partner on condition of taking upon itself the most hazardous task of frontline state. It was to be kept within the loop till the realization of US short term gains and then dropped like a hot potato at an opportune time. Although the ground situation made it crystal clear that Pakistan had been turned from an ally into a target from 2005 onwards, our shortvision leaders infatuated with friendship of US and India ignored repeated warnings of saner elements and kept pursuing US agenda under the false hope that such a recourse would be beneficial for Pakistan. They received the whips without a whimper and shut their eyes to Indian ingresses into Pakistan merely to remain in their good books. As a consequence, flames of terrorism engulfed each and every part of Pakistan and caused colossal human and material losses. To the utter bad luck of people of Pakistan, even the new leaders whom they had elected with fond hopes brought no change in the highly damaging policies. They too took no notice of the deadly game of our adversaries, hell bent to destabilize, denuclearize and balkanize Pakistan and continued to follow the dictates of US energetically. Already reeling under the impact of fruitless war on terror, Pakistans position became more fragile when its economy collapsed and the country fell into the clasp of IMF. I have not an iota of doubt that the US gave all out support to India and would have continued to support its filibustering, blackmailing tactics and covert operations till the accomplishment of laid down sinister objectives against Pakistan had the security situation in Afghanistan not spun out of control and US economy nosedived radically making the stay of coalition forces dangerous. Afghanistan became the proverbial Achilles heel of USA and military defeat at the hands of rag tag Taliban became a reality. Decision to withdraw from Afghanistan starting mid July 2011 and to gradually hand over security responsibilities to Afghan security forces was a tough one. Extremely bitter pill was swallowed by Obama only when he found out that monster of terrorism had become so powerful that it could become a catalyst for downfall of US Empire. The US-NATO military commanders operating in Afghanistan had realized much earlier that they were fighting a losing
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battle and reliance on military force was no more a viable option. They were dissatisfied with the performance of Afghan National Army (ANA). Another factor that worried them was the glumness and disheartenment that set in among foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan and 80% increase in desertion rate since 2003. Their desire for a political solution to Afghan imbroglio and early exit based on realistic appraisal compelled Obama to take the decision which brought some relief to the world in general but caused immense heart burns to India, Israel, Karzai regime and hawks within US corridors of power. Troop surge was meant to enable Gen McChrystal to win some tactical battles in southern and eastern Afghanistan and place USA in better bargaining position by mid 2011. It was also meant to put extra pressure on Pakistan to deal with al-Qaeda, Quetta Shura and Haqqani network more effectively since in US view the tide in Afghanistan couldnt be changed in its favor without dismantling Pakistan based bases. In contrast to poor showing of ISAF, Pakistan military had performed exceptionally well against more well equipped and well entrenched militants in Malakand Division, Swat, South Waziristan and Bajaur duly supported by foreign agencies. It also enabled Gen Kayani to remind Washington that 148000 troops were deployed in the northwest as against nearly 100,000 coalition troops from 43 countries and that for the time being his troops could stretch no further. He refused to give in to US demand to further thin out troops from its eastern border and start another operation in North Waziristan on the silly plea that India posed no threat. The US was also told that Pakistans gains were much more and sacrifices much larger than anyone else and hence do more demand was no more applicable to Pakistan. The US was clearly informed that increased Indian military presence in Afghanistan was a cause of concern and unacceptable. Once USA, India, Karzai regime, Saudi Arabia and the UN failed in breaking the alignment between al-Qaeda and Taliban and in dividing Taliban, a hard reality stared in the face of US military that given the resurging power of Taliban-Haqqani network-Gulbadin Hikmatyar-alQaeda nexus and lack of commitment among coalition soldiers and ANA; resistance forces would make the pullout of coalition troops very costly. Carrying out an in-house appraisal, US policy makers had to grudgingly admit that Pakistan was a key to Afghan conundrum and the only country that could help USA in its withdrawal, possibly on a triumphant note. Changed geo-strategic realities coupled with altered
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perceptions have transformed Pakistan from a pariah state into a most sought state. There is now a marked change in the attitude of US officials compared with the hawkish and demeaning attitude of US officials against Pakistan which they had adopted for so many years. Transformation from haughtiness to affability led to holding of strategic dialogue in Washington in the last week of March. The hosts were extremely respectful, affectionate, responsive and accommodating; on no occasion any American official tried to be nasty. For the first time the hosts refrained from singing nauseating mantra of do more since they knew that it was their time to payback. Even US media remained in check. The superstar on whom the spotlight remained focused was Gen Ashfaq Kayani. Pakistans pivotal position in Afghan affairs has been reemphasized and ground is being paved to bridge trust deficit and remove some if not all grievances.
Asif Haroon Raja, Pakistan Observer (Islamabad), April 5, 2010. http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=24024
U SING A FGHAN C ULTURE
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AN
E XIT
If US military commanders are right, heres how the path out of Afghanistan begins: Several dozen weathered Pashtun farmers are sitting on carpets under a makeshift tent. Its 45 days after US Marines and Afghan troops have swept into this Taliban stronghold, and now the towns elders are gathered in a shura. A tribal leader named Haji Abdul Salam presents a long list of grievances: schools, clinics, roads, money to replace the opium poppy crop thats blooming in the fields. An Afghan district governor named Gulab Mangal makes generous promises of assistance; hovering in the background are US military and civilian officials who will pay the bills. This is how conflicts end in Afghanistan: The Afghans talk out their grievances and eventually reach a deal. Money is exchanged and honour restored. Fighting often continues in the background, but most people go home until the next conflict begins. By all appearances, the people of Marjah just want to get on with their lives, says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was an enthusiastic observer of the shura here. He assured an audience of Afghan journalists later in Kabul: All of us want to see this
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[war] end as soon as possible. The national version of this process has barely begun, but its outlines are sketched by Graeme Lamb, a retired British lieutenant general who is co-ordinating the process of reconciliation and reintegration for the US-led coalition. He quotes a precept of military strategy to explain his mission: The object of war is a fair peace. Lamb argues that the first hints of how this war will end can be seen in a loose and sometimes inchoate process of signalling that involves the various Afghan parties to the conflict, the neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and the US-led coalition. He describes this budding dialogue as a melting pot of tribes, nations and interests. Lamb says that he cant yet describe terms for negotiations and that, in any event, this is a matter for the Afghans. We are not at the point of negotiation; we are at the point of trying to understand. Already, the jockeying has begun over how Afghanistan will work when the fighting ends and the Americans leave. President Hamid Karzai has started talks with a Taliban ally headed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Pakistanis are lobbying for their covert proxies in the Haqqani network to have a seat at the table. The other neighbours Iran, India and China are also eager to play. The haphazard process will get another forward jolt next month when Karzai holds a peace jirga to discuss how to broaden the political circle in ways that might include the Taliban. US troops have won some battles recently, including here in Marjah, but these military successes shouldnt mask the real challenge, which is the uncertain transition to Afghan control. To find this exit ramp, the United States must build Afghan security forces and governance structures that can hold together as Americans start to leave in July 2011. Unfortunately, theres little evidence to confirm that this transition will work on schedule. As of now, the Afghan military and government cant do the job, and theres an air of unreality to some of the US training and governance programs. Given the weakness of the central government in Kabul, US commanders are working to align American power with the most basic political structures, the tribal shuras. Culturally, this country works, says Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the chief US military spokesman here. People sitting down together can solve almost anything. A top US commander argues that the key now in this run-up to reconciliation is to keep pounding the enemy and to avoid premature negotiating positions. The worst thing anyone can do is put red lines on the table. Make them fuzzy blue, he says, so that the parties
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can bargain toward the eventual red lines of a deal. Karzai has caused consternation among Americans recently because of his defiantly independent rhetoric and his invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Kabul. His tirade Thursday against meddling by the United States and its allies will deepen that concern. But its not surprising that hes bristling against US pressure to reform or dickering with his Iranian neighbour. Politics in this part of the world is a contact sport, and we shouldnt be afraid of Afghan expressions of sovereignty. Lamb notes that the dividing line between fighting and talking isnt as clear as Westerners sometimes think: Clausewitz was right, but he didnt finish his sentence: If war is an extension of politics, then to politics it must return.
David Ignatius, Pakistan Observer (Islamabad), April 5, 2010. http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=24027
A H INT
Introduction
OF
V ICTORY ?
In the early part of March, a number of reports from the United States suggested that substantial progress was being made at last in southern Afghanistan and western Pakistan, so much that there were indications that the conflicts with the al-Qaida movement and the Taliban were moving in favour of the United States and its coalition partners. This view was in many ways an extension of a wider analysis that had come to the fore towards the end of 2009 and was discussed in the January 2010 briefing in this series. That briefing had a cautious conclusion, pointing to developments in Yemen, the Christmas Day attempt to destroy a passenger jet en route for Detroit and the attack on a CIA forward-operating base in Khost Province. The attack in Khost, in particular, showed evidence of longterm planning and penetration of the coalition intelligence system, suggesting that al-Qaida was far from in retreat. Since then, however, there have been such positive indications of progress from Washington that it is appropriate to return to this issue and discuss whether this evolving narrative of possible victory does indeed represent a clear change.
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The current optimism stems from three developments. One is that Operation Moshtarak in central Helmand Province is resulting in the expulsion of Taliban paramilitaries and their replacement by a governmental administration protected by Afghan security forces. A second is that preparations are being made for an operation to take control of the city of Kandahar later this year, this being seen as the key centre of Taliban influence across the whole of Afghanistan. The third is the evidence that the very extensive use of armed drones, especially in western Pakistan, is having a massive, destabilising impact on the viability and perhaps even the survival of al-Qaida as a movement. The drone attacks, in particular, have been presented by the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, as having had a devastating impact on the ability of the al-Qaida movement to operate. The CIA alone mounted 22 drone attacks in the first ten weeks of 2010, compared with 53 during the whole of 2009. While most of these have been in western Pakistan, armed drones have also been used extensively in Afghanistan, with the US military heavily involved as well as the CIA. The overall effect is reported to be that the command and control capabilities of the al-Qaida movement have been greatly diminished, to the degree that it is now struggling to maintain any sense of cohesion, let alone have the capability for mounting new attacks. The al-Qaida leadership, in short, is concentrating primarily on its own survival.
The Domestic Context

Part of the reason for the presentation of a narrative of possible victory is the political environment in the United States. After initial enthusiasm for an era of change, the Obama administration lost a lot of support during the course of 2009, with the greatest area of controversy being its proposals for healthcare reform. It also suffered from constant criticism of its security posture from two quite different sources. Conservatives in the US claimed the administration was being soft on terror, especially with its accelerated withdrawal from Iraq, while progressives were critical of the expansion of the war in Afghanistan and western Pakistan. There was also the specific issue that the US intelligence community, especially the CIA, had come in for much criticism, exacerbated by the Khost attack and the failure to detect the Detroit incident despite warnings. In such circumstances, and with the crucial healthcare vote due before Congress in early March, it is hardly surprising that the
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administration, and the CIA in particular, would emphasise any areas of potential progress. It is in this context that it makes sense to discuss, whether there really have been major changes, or whether a much longer term perspective remains necessary.
Helmand
The southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar are two of the largest in Afghanistan. Both are mainly Pashtun, and the provincial capital of Kandahar Province, Kandahar city, was the focus for the rise to power of the Taliban in the mid-1990s. Helmand Province, to the west of Kandahar, is also important because it has become the most important area for the production of opium anywhere in the world. The export of raw opium paste has become a major revenue earner for Taliban paramilitaries and warlords, and this has been enhanced by an increasing tendency for the raw paste to be refined into heroin and morphine within the country. Although precise data is difficult to gain, it is reported that ten years ago, around a quarter of all raw opium produced in Afghanistan was refined into these much more valuable end products, whereas that proportion is now around three-quarters, providing a much greater revenue source for Taliban and other groups. It follows that one of the main reasons for concentrating on Helmand Province is to limit this crucial revenue source. Operation Moshtarak is still under way, and it is far too early to assess its long-term impact. Even so, one aspect is already relevant in trying to determine the likelihood of success. As coalition forces have moved into central Helmand Province, so the tactics employed by Taliban paramilitaries have altered, with the main focus being on a considerable increase in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), especially in the form of roadside bombs. Furthermore, the IEDs being used in Afghanistan tend to be much less sophisticated than those developed in Iraq, usually being made from a fertiliser/diesel fuel mix with a minimum of metal parts and circuitry. As the US military experienced a growing IED problem in Iraq from 2004 onwards, it invested in a $17 billion counter-offensive programme using advanced detection equipment developed specifically for that environment. This was countered by Iraqi paramilitaries so that there ended up being a contest of technologies, in which the US military eventually became highly proficient at detecting quite advanced IEDs.
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In Afghanistan, though, the much more simple IEDs, made from readily available components, are proving more difficult to detect their very simplicity bypasses the advanced detection systems, yet the insurgents intimate knowledge of localities and the large number of IEDs available for use mean that they are the largest source of casualties. Moreover, not only are IED attacks more common, but much more powerful units are being deployed. US forces reported over 8,100 IED incidents in 2009 compared with just under 3,900 the previous year. In Helmand Province alone, 28 US and allied troops were killed in February. While there is now a major foreign military presence in central Helmand, it appears that Taliban paramilitaries have simply melted into the background, adopting guerrilla tactics focused on IED attacks.
Kandahar and the Taliban

At the beginning of March, US forces announced that they were in the early stages of planning a major operation to take control of the city of Kandahar. This was represented as taking a city that is now in Taliban hands, thereby evicting the Taliban and forcing them into retreat. It may well be possible to decrease Taliban influence in Kandahar, but the attitude implicit in this approach suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of the Taliban that goes right back to the mid-1990s. When the Taliban regime established itself in Afghanistan fifteen years ago, a strong impression was gained in the West that this was akin to an invading force that had its origins in madrassas and other centres of Islamist learning in western Pakistan. It was often described as a force that came in from outside Afghanistan to take control of most of the country. This attitude persists to the present day when there is talk of evicting Taliban paramilitaries from central Helmand or, in due course, from the city of Kandahar. What is seldom recognised is that there were major elements of the opposition to Soviet control of Afghanistan in the 1980s that were essentially religiously motivated and came very much from within the Pashtun communities across southern Afghanistan. They were, in essence the people from which the movement known as the Taliban originated. There certainly were elements from Pashtun communities across the border in Pakistan, but the key point is that the Taliban takeover of the mid-1990s was not an external invading force but much more of an internal entity.
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Similarly, it is wrong to think of the Taliban as an external force that moved in and took control of Helmand Province or now occupies the city of Kandahar. The Taliban in essence is simply not an external force that can be defeated and expelled, it is a phenomenon that is deeply embedded within Pashtun society and has direct origins going back a quarter of a century. When the Bush administration terminated the Taliban regime after 9/11, in the closing months of 2001, the Taliban paramilitaries did not flee in vast numbers across the border into Pakistan. Some elements certainly did so, but what was far more common was a melting away into their own communities within Afghanistan. This is what is also happening today in central Helmand, where the paramilitaries are simply adjusting to the US presence, modifying their modes of opposition and biding their time. This is almost certainly what will happen if and when US forces move into Kandahar city later in the year. There will be an illusion of victory but not a great deal more, since the Taliban phenomenon is actually part of Afghan society.
The Impact of the Drone Attacks

The experience in Helmand brings into some doubt the idea of a turning point in the war, but that still leaves the question of the impact of the drone attacks. Again, it is necessary to put to one side the force of the rhetoric originating from CIA and other sources because such rhetoric is a necessary part of domestic US politics. What is clear, though, is that there has been a greatly increased reliance on armed drones as a means of pursuing the war, and there are some indications that they are having an impact on elements of the al-Qaida leadership. Even here, though, there are two elements of caution that should be considered. One is that while a number of significant middle-ranking leaders of the movement have been killed in the past two years, there appears to have been a ready cohort of younger paramilitaries to take their place. Moreover, these are people who frequently have recent and direct combat experience, including exposure in the field to the multitude of surveillance, reconnaissance and attack capabilities available to the United States and its coalition partners. They have thus been in an intensive learning environment and may have an unrecognised capability to respond creatively to the adverse environment that the drones create. Experience in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, suggests that paramilitary
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movements have an evolutionary capability that frequently exceeds expectations. The second element of caution relates to the much more general phenomenon of the use of armed drones in modern warfare. Such use has been restricted primarily to the United States and coalition partners such as Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the Israeli defence forces for their operations in southern Lebanon and Gaza. As a result of such use, other armed forces are embracing the technologies which are, in turn, proliferating rapidly. Bearing in mind the manner in which irregular and asymmetric warfare has evolved in recent years, it would be wise to assume that we are close to the point in which drone technology becomes readily available to paramilitary groups. There is some evidence that this is already happening, not least with Hezbollahs use of a TV-guided drone flown deep into Israeli airspace more than three years ago. That was largely a symbolic gesture using an unarmed system, but caused some consternation in Israeli security circles. Given the level of sophistication shown by planners in a number of paramilitary movements in recent years, it would be entirely wise to assume that such movements are no more than a decade behind the drone technologies available to western states in the planning of their actions. In modern asymmetric warfare the potential for drone use, especially in large urban areas, is considerable and may yet represent a highly significant development. For the moment, the advantage may lie largely with western states, not least in western Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, but that may be no more than a short-tem advantage. In this, as in other areas, a narrative of possible victory is, at the very least, premature.
Oxford Research Group, http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/monthly_briefings/a_hin t_victory#header (accessed April 6, 2010).
H OW
TO
S AVE A FGHANISTAN
FROM
K ARZAI
In February, the Taliban sanctuary of Marjah in southern Afghanistan was attacked in the largest operation of the war. Last week, President Obama flew to Afghanistan and declared, Our troops have pushed the Taliban out of their stronghold in Marjah .... The United States of
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America does not quit once it starts on something. But what is that something? And, equally important, does Afghanistans president, Hamid Karzai, have to be a part of it? The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, was guilty of understatement last fall when he told Washington that Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner. Still, getting rid of Mr. Karzai at this point wouldnt be easy, and any major upheaval would clearly imperil President Obamas plan to start withdrawing American troops next summer. The Marjah offensive, however, may have shown us an alternative approach to the war. For one thing, it demonstrated that our Karzai problem is part of a broader failure to see that our plans for Afghanistan are overambitious. The coalition is pursuing a political-military strategy based on three tasks. First, clear the guerrillas from populated areas. Second, hold the areas with Afghan forces. Third, build responsible governance and development to gain the loyalty of the population for the government in Kabul. To accomplish this, the coalition military has deployed reconstruction teams to 25 provinces. We may call this a counterinsurgency program, but its really nation-building. The problem with building a new and better Afghanistan is that, above the local level, President Karzai has long held the levers of political power by controlling provincial finances and leadership appointments, including those of police chiefs. Regardless of the coalitions success at the district level, an obdurate and erratic Mr. Karzai is an obstacle to progress. The success in Marjah, however, changed the dynamics of the conflict. It now seems that the planned surge of 30,000 additional troops will likely achieve progress in clearing and holding Kandahar and other Taliban-controlled areas by mid-2011. At that time, the force ratio will be one coalition soldier for every three Afghan soldiers and policemen, and the Afghan Army will still rely upon us for firepower and moral support. Ideally, we could then begin to withdraw major American units and leave behind small task forces that combine advisory and combat duties, leading to a new ratio of about one American to 10 Afghans. Not only would this bring our troops home, but it would shift the responsibility for nation-building to Afghan forces. At the same time, we would have to pivot our policy in two ways. First, Mr. Karzai should be treated as a symbolic president and given the
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organizational mushroom treatment that is, we should shut off the flows of information and resources directly to the national government. President Ronald Reagan did something similar with another erratic ally, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. In February 1986, Reagan warned Marcos that if government troops attacked opposition forces holed up on the outskirts of Manila, it would cause untold damage to his relations with the United States meaning the aid spigot would be turned off. When his countrymen saw that he was stripped of prestige and support, they forced Marcos into exile. Second, the coalition must insist that the Afghan military play a primary role in the governance of the districts and provinces, including in the allocation of aid and the supervision of the police. We should work directly with those local and provincial leaders who will act responsibly, and cut off those who are puppets of Kabul. This is happening, to some extent, in Helmand Province, site of the Marjah battle, where the coalition has independent control over $500 million in reconstruction aid and salaries. We have been fortunate that the provincial governor, Gulab Mangal, while a Karzai appointee, has proved an innovative partner. But in any case, we know that coalition aid need not flow through Kabul. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in the region, already seems to be considering this approach as the battle for Kandahar gains intensity. One of the things well be doing in the shaping is working with political leaders to try to get an outcome that makes sense including partnering inside the city with the Afghan National Police, he told reporters last month. Although isolating Mr. Karzai will strike many as a giant step backward, the truth is that we dont have a duty to impose democracy on Afghanistan. The advancement of liberty doesnt necessitate a one person, one vote system, as the 1.5 million fraudulent votes cast for Mr. Karzai in last summers sham election showed. We cannot provide democracy if we desire it more than the Afghans. The Philippines and South Korea as well evolved into thriving democracies at their own pace, well after American aid helped to beat back the military threats facing them. It was enough to prevent the Communist takeovers and leave behind governments controlled in the background by a strong military. We didnt spend tens of billions of dollars on material projects to inculcate democratic principles.
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Similarly, a diminished Hamid Karzai can be left to run a sloppy government, with a powerful, American-financed Afghan military insuring that the Taliban do not take over. Admittedly, this risks the emergence of the Pakistan model in Afghanistan an army that has a country rather than a country that has an army. But we are not obliged to build a democratic nation under a feckless leader. We need to defend our interests, and leave the nationbuilding to the Afghans themselves.
Bing West, New York Times, April 6, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/opinion/07west.html
T HE K ANDAHAR G AMBIT
Last week, the US' top military officer, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, journeyed carefully into Kandahar, the capital of Afghanistan's conservative Pashtun heartland, to talk with community leaders at a shoura, the Afghan equivalent of a town meeting. It was a tense event in a dangerous place. To reach the meeting in the provincial governor's palace - a graceful, arched building on a grassy square where Mullah Omar, founder of the Taleban, once ruled - Mullen, his aides and a group of reporters climbed into armored vehicles that rolled through eerily empty downtown streets as aircraft patrolled overhead. But the real source of tension was the battle that was about to begin. Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city, has been advertised as the target of a major US-led offensive this summer. The operation will aim to break the back of the Taleban on its own turf. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the offensive "the cornerstone of our surge effort and the key to shifting the momentum" in the 9-year-old war - as important to the Afghan struggle, he said, as pacifying Baghdad was to Iraq. In fact, the offensive has already begun with a "soft launch" of US special operations raids to kill or capture suspected Taleban leaders, answered by Taleban assassinations of police officials and a string of suicide bombings. In June, about 10,000 fresh US troops will arrive, part of President Barack Obama's Afghan surge of 30,000, to launch major operations in the province. In the governor's palace, seated around a long conference table under modernistic brass chandeliers, the recurring question from a row of
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turbaned elders was: Will this offensive bring any kind of peace, or only more destruction? "People are concerned about these (military) operations, when they will start and what the effects will be," said Haji Agha Lalai, a former Taleban commander who changed sides and now heads the equivalent of a county council. He also had a complaint. "Promises were made of jobs, but no jobs appeared," he said. "We have seen many (military) operations, but they won't have any real effect unless these things are changed." Mullen nodded, and agreed on the last point. The goals of the offensive, he said, were not only defeating the Taleban but also reducing corruption, making local government work and, eventually, providing jobs. "I hear your concerns," he said. It is the central dilemma of the offensive in Kandahar, and of the entire US effort in Afghanistan. The Americans, confident of their military prowess, believe they can clear Kandahar of most of the Taleban who have roamed at will and operated as a shadow government in some areas. Strategists on the staff of Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of Western forces in Afghanistan, said they believe the Taleban are already running low on money, ammunition and confidence. But once the Taleban fighters melt back into the civilian population in the face of US firepower, can the Americans succeed in installing a local government more responsive and less corrupt than the one whose failings allowed the Taleban to rise? They intend to try, and are focusing talent and money on an elaborate "sub-national governance" plan to recruit and empower local councils, the shouras. "We're going to shoura our way to success," one of the operation's planners said. Among the first goals: persuading local councils to actually invite the US military to enter their areas unopposed, making the offensive less bloody. But even the operation's planners acknowledge that the outcome is uncertain. "This is hard stuff, and it will take a while to work out," one said. Kandahar's provincial government has one big complicating factor: It's run by Ahmed Wali Karzai, a half brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. US officials call him AWK for short and consider him an organized-crime kingpin as much as a politician. "He runs a vertical syndicate of corruption," said one senior officer. Besides old-fashioned
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graft and a slice of the opium poppy trade, AWK also has been accused of collaborating with the Taleban, an allegation that infuriates US military officers. But AWK has two powerful defenders: his brother the president and the CIA, which considers him one of its main assets in Kandahar, according to officials in other agencies. So US officers are hoping to persuade AWK to cooperate with their efforts. That won't be easy, especially since one purpose of the shoura-building operation in Kandahar is to empower new leaders who aren't beholden to AWK, and AWK knows it. One more factor to watch: Will Karzai publicly approve the offensive, or merely accede to it? "He's got to be seen as the guy who's leading this fight," another officer said. But Karzai initially balked at US proposals that he travel to Kandahar to address a shoura. And on Thursday, he delivered a speech in Kabul that was sharply critical of Western military operations in Afghanistan, saying the troops are walking a fine line between "invasion and cooperation," and warning that Afghan opposition to foreign military operations "could become a national resistance."
Doyle Mcmanus, Bangladesh Today, April 7, 2010. http://www.thebangladeshtoday.com/analysis.htm

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Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

A FGHANISTAN : US E XIT S TRATEGY

ASSISTANT EDITOR MUHAMMAD NAWAZ KHAN

April 30, 2010

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

A FGHANISTAN : T HE L ONDON C ONFERENCE 28 J ANUARY 2010 C OMMUNIQU

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Development and Governance

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Regional Cooperation/International Architecture

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

T HE US F INDING I TSELF ON THE H ORNS A FGHANISTAN

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

M ARJAH : T HE T ALIBAN S TRONGHOLD

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

A LTERING A FGHANISTAN ' S B ALANCE

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy people wanting to grow opium.

In a way, this battle for Marjah will be a test case, right?

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

D ESTINATION K ANDAHAR : M ARCHING T OWARDS E ND -G AME ?

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

F IVE M YTHS A BOUT

1. Afghans always Hate and Defeat their Invaders.

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

3. The U.S. Military is for War-fighting, not Nation-building.

4. We should Negotiate with the Taliban.

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

5. There is no Exit Strategy or Exit Schedule.

A FGHANISTAN D OESN T S ERVE US I NTERESTS

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Dawn (Islamabad), March 29, 2010.

O BAMA P RESSES K ARZAI

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

U.S. F ORCES S ET S IGHTS ON T ALIBAN B ASTION K ANDAHAR

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

Afghanistan: US Exit Strategy

R EFORM K ANDAHAR P ITFALLS