Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Afghanistan

  • Iran Denounces US-Afghan Strategic Partnership

    Iran denounced the recently signed Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States. It sees the basing of American forces in the country and across the Persian Gulf as a security threat and has even reached out to the Sunni Taliban to balance this perceived threat.

    The Iranians have long voiced discomfort with the prospect of a long-term American presence on its eastern border. They have attempted to use their clout within the political system of Afghanistan and the means of bribery to influence Afghan parliamentarians to vote against any security pact with the United States. (more…)

  • No Good Ways Out of Afghanistan

    Western forces looking to exit Afghanistan over the next two years are playing a game of roulette, looking for the luckiest and cheapest way out of the warzone. Central Asian countries are scrambling to be the most attractive bet. Difficult and still closed, the road through Pakistan remains the preferred route.

    Afghanistan’s neighbors stand to make huge profits as NATO countries move to withdraw their troops and equipment. Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan will remain under American control until the war is over but the base cannot handle all of the equipment which NATO forces must remove from the region. Land routes are numerous but difficult for a variety of reasons and Central Asia is poised to cash in on the scramble to depart.

    Additionally, Central Asian states are more submissive to Russia than America. Russia and the United States have recently begun to negotiate a “retrograde transit” agreement to use the Northern Distribution Network but the Kremlin may well seek to exploit the deal in order to achieve its aims elsewhere.

    There are numerous options for getting into and alternatively out of Afghanistan but none are perfect bets.

    The Pakistan route is the easiest and the cheapest but unreliable. In late November 2011, Pakistan closed the border to NATO traffic in protest after an American airstrike killed nearly thirty Pakistani soldiers by accident. The border is still closed and Pakistan obstinate about reopening it without an American apology.

    The Northern Distribution Network was developed by the Americans as an alternative to the Pakistan route but there are signs that its gatekeeper Uzbekistan will seek to raise transit fees. While Uzbekistan has by far the best road and railroad network among Afghanistan’s neighbors, its price gouging will prompt NATO powers to seek additional alternate routes.

    The trouble is that difficult and pernicious as Pakistan and Uzbekistan can be, alternative land routes through Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are even more troublesome. Bad roads and bad winters are only where the problems begin.

    There is discussion of selling some equipment to the Central Asian republics and thus removing the need to transport such equipment out of the region on NATO’s dime. In February, British armed forces minister Nick Harvey suggested trading military equipment for favorable transit fees. He alluded to the unspecified equipment as being potentially useful in Central Asia’s battle with narcotics and terrorism.

    The United States have been more circumspect about leaving military equipment in the hands of Central Asian autocrats. Robert Blake, the American assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs said that arms transfers to countries along the Northern Distribution Network would be subject to the same restrictions that apply to regular arms transfers. Thus far, the Americans have been unwilling to sell any weapons to Uzbekistan, which has a less than pristine human rights record.

    The bottom line is that Pakistan holds the lucky numbers. The average shipping cost of a container, as reported by Radio Free Europe, from Afghanistan to Karachi is $7,200. By northern routes shipping the same container would cost $17,500. When Pakistan decides to reopen the road to NATO convoys, it is likely to be at a higher price but still able to undercut the Central Asian route.

    Money, power and politics all play a part in this game of supply route roulette. Money is on Pakistan and it is doubtful that by 2014 NATO powers will be interested in taking the longer, more expensive road through authoritarian Central Asia and into Russia’s arms. Islamabad will eventually reopen the border and happily usher the West out of its backyard.

  • Afghanistan Partnership Leaves Many Doubts

    In what proved to be a very busy day for the White House, President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday. After being met and greeted by Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador to the country, upon landing, the president quickly made his way to the presidential palace in Kabul to attend a joint signing ceremony with Hamid Karzai, thereby extending the American-Afghan relationship into 2024.

    For President Obama, who is preparing for a tough reelection fight over the summer against the presumptive Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, ceremony was an opportunity to not only convince Afghans that the United States would stand by them in the future but to assure the war weary American electorate that the fighting is close to ending.

    Addressing the American people by television, Obama said, “we’ve traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the predawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of new day on the horizon.”

    Afghanistan, like the war in Iraq five years ago, has become a battle that is increasingly unpopular at home. A Washington Post/ABC News poll released last month reported that two-thirds of Americans surveyed no longer thought the war was worth fighting.

    Republicans, usually more hawkish in national-security policy, are split over how much longer the United States should stay in. Swing voters, the constituency that will determine the entire presidential election in November, are more determined than ever to pull all American troops out as soon as possible. The American people will thus hold the president to his 2014 withdrawal promise, a date that he himself imposed.

    Obama’s speech was also aimed at the Afghan people. Though tired of the foreign presence in their country, they are just as concerned about what the future holds once NATO troops have left.

    The signing of the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement was designed to mitigate much of that worry, committing the United States and its NATO allies to a continuation of support for the Afghan government after 2014.

    Afghans may not take much solace in the alliance, however, since the document is short on details and questions regarding any future troop presence in Afghanistan still needs to be negotiated.

    The Taliban insurgency, in the meantime, will be sure to test the strength of the civilian government in Kabul any case. The Afghan people will expect their security forces, hampered with logistical and command problems, to respond to any such attacks quickly and efficiently.

    President Obama and the American people are ready to get out. The Afghan government and people will have to live with the outcome.

  • Relations with Iran Key to Solving Afghanistan

    One cannot govern well by reacting to events.

    The British government must share this view, as it is the intention behind the National Security Council. It is supposed to put day to day crises into a larger context and shape a strategic response to them. Speaking in Washington DC several months after the NSC was created, William Hague, the foreign secretary, boasted that it had already made Britain’s Afghanistan policy strategically “coherent,” among other things.

    Yet Britain’s handling of Iran suggests that this is not the case. The Iranians ought to be the West’s allies in Afghanistan but saber rattling over their nuclear program is forcing them to undermine NATO’s efforts there.

    If London really wants to resolve these crises, it needs to adopt a truly strategic approach toward them, not react to them as though they were unrelated events. (more…)

  • The Futility of Talking to the Taliban, For Now

    The face-saving strategy of the United States to facilitate an honorable withdrawal from Afghanistan — reaching a political settlement with the Taliban — seems to be failing.

    Last month, Mullah Omar’s Taliban leadership announced their decision to suspend the peace negotiations. The official reason given for the pullout was the delay and apparent reluctance of the Americans to release prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an important prerequisite for the talks to be held.

    However, the fact that the suspension came in the wake of the massacre of seventeen civilians in Kandahar by an American soldier clearly suggests a link between the two. (more…)

  • Tajikistan: Between a Rock, a Hard Place and Iran

    The head of United States Central Command, General James Mattis, held talks with Tajik president Emomalii Rahmon last Saturday to enlist commitments of continued support for American and NATO operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

    Rahmon told Mattis that “Tajikistan would like to see further strengthening of the development of ties with the United States in the sphere of security and the establishment of peace and stability in the region.”

    On Monday, Rahmon met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad who came bearing promises of pipelines and railways during the fifth annual Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan.

    Ahmedinijad came away from the talks pleased, telling reporters that Tajikistan and Iran are culturally “parts of the same body.”

    Caught between the Americans, a thousand kilometer border with Afghanistan, and a cultural connection to Iran, Tajikistan is indeed stuck economically and politically between conflicting interests and allies.

    Tajikistan is landlocked, mountainous, and the one of Central Asia’s poorest states. Its government is nominally a republic. In reality, Emomalii Rahmon has been ruling the one party dominant state since 1992.

    A political survivor, Rahmon held on to power throughout the Tajik civil war of the 1990s and secured a third term in an election in 2006.

    The country is dependent on Russia and Uzbekistan for energy. Its main sources of income are the aluminum industry, cotton growing and remittances from Tajiks working abroad.

    Uzbekistan recently announced that it will be stopping the flow of gas into Tajikistan, reportedly in order to meet commitments to larger buyers such as China. Regional analysts believe there is more politics to the stoppage than practicality. Tajikistan’s gas demand annually equals about what Uzbekistan produces in a single day.

    The Tajiks are looking for ways to diversify their energy sources and the Iranian promises sound tempting.

    Iran and Tajikistan share a cultural and linguistic history but little else. Ideologically and politically they diverge and economically, neither can quite afford to pay for the Iranian promises.

    Both countries are predominantly Muslim but Iran is a bombastic Shia bastion and Tajikistan mostly Sunni of the Central Asian persuasion.

    Tajikistan is politically secular, as is the norm in Central Asia. Political secularism in the region derives from the Soviet system and is also influenced by Sufism and pre-Islamic regional history. The 2006 election was boycotted by “mainline” opposition parties such as the Islamic Renaissance Party, which receives moral support from Iran and is the only legal Islamic political party in Tajikistan.

    To further illustrate the ideological divide, Tajikistan has been criticized by Iranian representatives for imposing “Islamaphobic rules on the population” such as banning the hijab and preventing underage children from attending mosque.

    Ideological differences are complicating factors not deal breakers but Iran’s promises remain pipedreams because of economics and security.

    Rahmon and Ahmedinijad, joined by Afghan president Hamid Karzai released a statement after talks in the Tajik capital city of Dushanbe which read that the three had “reached an understanding on how to cooperate more productively to accelerate construction of a railway from Iran to Tajikistan through Afghanistan.” They also announced plans to build an “energy line” across the three countries.

    Delegations from Dushanbe and Kabul are scheduled to meet in Tehran in two months to discuss the implementation of the projects, according to the same statement from President Rahmon’s office.

    The reality is that Tajikistan cannot afford the projects. The technical and security challenges of building a pipeline or railway across Afghanistan are unlikely to be easily surmounted. Iran, the target of multiple international sanctions because of its nuclear program, is also unlikely to be able to fund its promises or attract many investors for the risky venture.

    Tajikistan is in a tight spot. Uzbekistan, reportedly irked by Tajik hydropower projects upstream, is squeezing the state by cutting off the gas supply.

    Iran is under siege and scrounging for allies. It hopes to exploit the cultural connection with Tajikistan by offering promises which the Tajik government must realize are pipedreams.

    The war in Afghanistan goes on and while the Americans plot their exit by 2014, they have made efforts to reenlist Central Asian support for the cause.

  • Obstacles to Long-Term Presence in Afghanistan

    As deliberations over the final shape of the strategic pact between Afghanistan and the United States are underway, a number of obstacles remain. The Afghan government, the insurgents and neighboring states are all stakeholders who could undermine the final version of the treaty.

    The strategic partnership is meant to ensure some residual American presence in Afghanistan after 2014, the shape of which is yet unclear.

    The Americans consider their sustained presence in the country crucial to preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven and operating base for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The need to preserve American interests in Central Asia and balance the influence of China and Russia in the region increases the importance of the pact. The loss of Afghanistan as an operating base would prevent the United States from further expanding their influence in Central Asia. (more…)

  • Hope for Afghan Peace Talks After Taliban Walk Out

    Negotiations between the Americans and the Afghan Taliban were seen by many as too good to be true. Now that the talks have officially stalled, the scramble is to explain why and to label this new roadblock as either a tactical pause or an abject failure.

    Subsumed by the stalling are the small stepping stones to progress which the difficult negotiations have produced and the fact that “still, the door is very deliberately ajar,” as former United Nations official Michael Sempel put it.

    Plans remain in place for the Taliban to open an office in Qatar — a move that is seen as a significant confidence building measure.

    Negotiations to define the conditions under which the Pentagon would release five Taliban prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay to Qatari custody are still moving forward, although this would be a controversial transfer if it does go through. (more…)

  • Britain Must Cut the Gordian Knot of Afghanistan

    A blow, expected, repeated, falling on a bruise, with no smart or shock of surprise, only a dull and sickening pain and the doubt whether another like it could be borne.

    This is how it feels any time a great tragedy is reported from Afghanistan.

    One often asks, warily, “Why the hell are we there?”

    The deaths of six British servicemen in Helmand last week prompted David Cameron to answer,

    We are there to prevent that country from being a safe haven for Al Qaeda, from where they might plan attacks on the United Kingdom or our allies.

    Our troops are not only securing the future of the United Kingdom, but also “the future of the world.”

    It became difficult to take seriously such grandiloquent rhetoric by the prime minister when, nearly two years ago, he placed an arbitrary deadline on securing the future of the world. (more…)

  • For Afghan Peace, India, Pakistan Must Cooperate

    Since Western powers invaded Afghanistan to weed out Al Qaeda, the level of violence in South Asia has remained high. It’s not just Afghanistan is facing the consequences of more than a decade of war but the entire subcontinent.

    Many of Al Qaeda’s top leaders are dead but the situation in Afghanistan has hardly improved. Rather the fundamentalist forces are extending their reach and continuing to battle NATO troops and undermine liberal elements in their society.

    Afghanistan has been a battlefield for major powers for centuries. Invaders always failed to establish themselves there permanently however.

    Most recently, the Soviet Union tried to convert Afghanistan into its corridor but failed due to the tangible support that was given by America and Pakistan to the anti-communist mujahideen. Now, the Americans have made the same mistake by engaging what may well be the most warmongering ethnic group in South Asia in an enduring, never ending conflict.

    Despite past superpower involvement, the two most relevant external powers in Afghanistan today are India and Pakistan.

    India had a significant presence in Afghanistan into the 1970s but the collapse of communist rule and the emergence of the Taliban enabled Pakistan to establish a greater influence there. The 2001 invasion was an opportunity for India to reassert itself. New Delhi allied with the Northern Alliance and Hamid Karzai to oust the Taliban and frustrate Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth” in the country.

    The real struggle will begin after the NATO exit in 2014. The Afghan question will be one that is posed to the whole of the subcontinent. India has made economic and political investments in the country that it will surely try to safeguard while Pakistan is likely to try its best to protects its strategic interests.

    Pakistan considers the Indian presence in Afghanistan a direct threat to its security. The Pakistani army, despite its support for the War on Terror, always recognized that it inadvertently helped bring the Northern Alliance to power which it so detested because of their ties with India, Iran and Russia — all Pakistani rivals.

    The army has also been deeply perturbed by the sudden influx of Indians in Kabul. It believes that New Delhi is financing and training exiled Baloch leaders who live in Afghanistan. It would rather have the Taliban back in power than instability and possibly foreigners conspiring against it on its western frontier.

    Instead of vying for influence in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan may be best served by cooperating to reap the economic benefits. It would be better for the region to engage in order to stem an escalation of Indo-Pakistani rivalry in Afghanistan.

    There are few options to face the post-2014 challenges in Afghanistan. After the military pullout, the situation is probably not going to change. The Taliban will surely use violent means to attempt to come back to power. Warlords remain active and await the opportunity to establish themselves over the current power structure. Afghanistan could once again succumb to civil war.

    A regional security force, drawing personnel from all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation member states, could be stationed in Afghanistan to guard the fragile peace. These nations have previously worked together in peacekeeping missions in Africa under the banner of the United Nations. Their commander should be elected on a rotational basis.

    A second step toward stabilizing Afghanistan would be drawing representatives from all ethnic groups that live in the country into a power-sharing arrangement. It is the only way to neutralize the warring factions which are patiently awaiting the chance to occupy Kabul by force and rule the other groups.

    Thirdly and most crucially, India and Pakistan would have to work together to restore a modicum of normalcy in Afghanistan. They would have to give up their infighting in the interest of Afghanistan and stability in the region. Both recognize that the talibanization of Afghanistan has not been good for South Asia. It has disturbed the peace in their own countries; inspired terrorist activity in India and radicalized segments of Pakistani society which has caused an uptick in militant activity within Pakistan’s borders.

    There is no viable option for the nations of South Asia except to work together if they seek peace in Afghanistan. Unless the SAARC states recognize the gravity of the situation and their shared objective, they too will suffer the aftershocks once foreign troops pull out in 2014.

  • Protecting the Integrity of American Troops in Afghanistan

    American and NATO forces in Afghanistan have enough to deal with as is but a video that surfaced a few days ago of US Marines urinating on three dead Taliban militants — the men joking and laughing as they did — will only make the job of pacifying the country that much more difficult.

    On top of bomb blasts, IED attacks straddled along major roadways and ambushes during neighborhood patrols, the soldiers that are now operating in Taliban infested areas will very likely be faced with an uptick in violence in response to the video.

    Even more disparaging, the Afghan people who have either seen or heard of the tape, the very people that NATO has been trying to court for the past two years, could very well start distancing themselves from the war effort.

    The video has yet to be fully authenticated but Pentagon officials say they have no reason to believe that it is a farce. Senior American officials have certainly been acting as if the video was real. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have issued press statements and interviews strongly condemning the actions of the individual Marines. (more…)

  • Taliban Talks Could Hurt Obama’s Reelection Chances

    Very rarely do we receive good news from Afghanistan. Insurgent ambushes and bomb attacks continue to claim the lives of innocent Afghan civilians every day. But as peace talks between the Taliban and the United States are reportedly progressing, the prospect for a negotiated end to the ten year-old war may finally be in the making.

    The strongest political irritant to NATO operations in Afghanistan has been the Taliban’s consistent rebuffing of peace overtures regardless of where those requests came from. President Barack Obama’s announcement that American soldiers would be winding down their campaign by 2014 likely provided the Taliban leaders with an incentive to fight for another three years before aiming directly at Hamid Karzai’s civilian government.

    Yet with the Taliban facing a number of drawbacks over the past eighteen months — thousands of operatives killed or captured, a movement fracturing on the Pakistani side of the border and an insurgent leadership that is at times disconnected from its field units — the movement’s top members may be reconsidering that assumption.

    As in any negotiation process, the exact details of the talks with the Taliban are being kept under the wraps. The New York Times has managed to publish some of the major items being debated between the two sides nevertheless. The hope is that movement on these issues will create trust on both sides to discuss an eventual peace agreement.

    One proposal under review is a traditional quid pro quo that will surely be controversial for members in the United States Congress — the release of five senior Taliban prisoners from the Guantánamo Bay interrogation facility in Cuba. In return for that sacrifice, the Taliban would officially open a political office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, setting up shop in order to further explore the diplomatic option in the coming months.

    The White House has already come out to denounce this arrangement, describing reports of Guantánamo transfers as “not accurate.”

    For a president who is just starting to get his reelection campaign in synch, releasing five Taliban officials who had close links with Al Qaeda operatives would be a difficult thing to sell to the electorate.

    Republican presidential candidate and presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, who has been at his most passionate when bashing Obama’s foreign policy record, would exploit this move as an opportunity to further put his opponent on the defensive. Lawmakers who are unsympathetic to any Taliban overtures could view the prisoner release as a dangerous breach of American national security, if not an unnecessary capitulation before negotiations are even conducted in a serious manner.

    The Obama Administration, then, has a problem on its hands. It clearly wants to end the war and bring American soldiers home but doing so will entail confidence building measures that may weaken its image during a hostile election season. Will the president attempt to secure his reelection, or travel down the long and unpredictable road of negotiating with an enemy that, if successful, could end America’s longest war in modern history?  As a war-time president who has invested a considerable amount of time on looking for ways to end the war, one can only hopes he chooses the latter.

  • Pentagon Study Says NATO Messed Up

    Three weeks ago, 24 Pakistani soldiers dug in trenches along the Afghan-Pakistani border were accidentally killed by NATO aircraft during one of the many counterinsurgency missions that American and Afghan troops have undertaken over the past year. Except on this particular nighttime raid, the precision and professionalism that have become hallmarks of the coalition’s military campaign in Afghanistan were lost, tragically ending the lives of over two dozen men.

    The Pakistani military and government, which have had a frosty relationship with the United States for most of the year, responded angrily. The Pakistani embassy in Washington went so far as to tell reporters that the NATO operation was a deliberate act aimed at loosening the morale of the Muslim nation — a viewpoint that, while conspiratorial, may be acceptable given Islamabad’s roller coasty partnership with the Americans.

    Sensing that another fallout in American-Pakistan relations would hurt the NATO war effort in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense called their Pakistani counterparts and told them that a transparent and factually based investigation would be implemented. That Pentagon study is now out and to the consternation of Western military officials, it looks like the Pakistanis may not have been wrong in all of their assertions.

    Although the final report has not been made public, the Defense Department released a press statement briefly touching upon its most important findings. In sum, the investigation concluded that NATO was perfectly within its right to return fire in self-defense but the coordinates that were given to Pakistani soldiers in the area turned out to be wrong.

    The investigating officer found that American forces, given what information they had available to them at the time, acted in self-defense and with appropriate force after being fired upon. Nevertheless, inadequate coordination by American and Pakistani military officers operating through the border coordination center — including our reliance on incorrect mapping information shared with the Pakistani liaison officer — resulted in a misunderstanding about the true location of Pakistani military units.

    The study is not a perfect inquiry. Out of protest, the Pakistani military refused to cooperate with the Pentagon’s investigation, which lead investigator Brigadier General Stephen Clark acknowledged was a significant setback in uncovering all of the facts.

    The findings are certain to draw condemnation from the Pakistanis who continue to feel insulted by what they view as Washington’s lack of appreciation for the thousands of military and civilian casualties that they have suffered in the fight against terrorism since 2001. General Athar Abbas, the chief Pakistani military spokesman, quickly indicated that his colleagues rejected the report’s conclusions.

    The completion of the inquiry leaves the Obama Administration with a difficult decision to make. Does the president “swallow American pride” and formally apologize for NATO’s part of the responsibility or will he continue to express regret over the incident without offering that apology?

    At least for the time being, the White House and the State Department have not budged from their original position. A State Department spokesman attempted to take responsibility for NATO’s infractions at a press briefing after the report’s release, all the while punting questions on apologizing.

    Now that US/NATO forces are indeed held liable for at least part of the border incident, the administration should in fact reverse its previous stance, privately and publicly making it clear that anyone on the American side who was part of the problem will be dealt with accordingly.

    President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been on the phone for weeks with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and the Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, trying to rebuild a tattered relationship. Kayani has reestablished contacts with NATO commander General John R. Allen, a good start to making sure that a deadly accident like the one that occurred on November 24 does not happen again. But neglecting to say “I’m sorry,” even as the Pentagon investigation details that NATO did in fact make mistakes, will give the Pakistanis a greater reason to doubt the United States as committed partners in the region.

    The reality is that as long as the United States are engaged with tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan, Washington needs Pakistan’s help — whether or not Pakistan has been truly forthcoming in battling militancy on its own soil. Absent cordial relations between the two countries, NATO commanders can expect Islamabad to continue closing down supply routes that go into Afghanistan — forcing the coalition to either spent millions more airlifting supplies or putting them increasingly into the pockets of Central Asia’s autocratic regimes.

    Pakistan may be a double faced partner right now but imagine how much worse NATO’s experience in Afghanistan would be without a measurable level of Pakistani complicity. Sometimes in war, a nation does not get to choose its allies. Pakistan is one such nation — a pain to deal with but necessary for a smooth NATO conclusion to the war across the border.

  • The World Commits to Afghanistan in Bonn

    December 5, 2011 may have been just an ordinary day for most of the world but for Hamid Karzai and his government in Kabul, it represented a day of international solidarity for his country’s fate. 

    After quick successes by the United States and heir coalition allies against Al Qaeda and Taliban bases, the war in Afghanistan has grinded on for a decade. Afghans of all ethnicities and tribes have suffered immeasurably at the hands of all sides involved in the conflict. Suicide bombings, unheard of in Afghanistan prior to 2001, are now a facet of everyday life. 

    The insurgents have even targeted Kabul, a city that was once relatively insulated from violence in the rest of Afghanistan, with ever more ferocity. The latest suicide attack in the capital striking at the heart of Shia commemorations killed close to sixty innocent people.

    It’s not all bad however. Death and destruction may have defined the war effort so far but the Afghan government, the Afghan people and the world are clearly hoping that the future brings more hope. In Bonn, Germany, representatives of a hundred countries and organizations converged to talk about where Afghanistan is headed and what the international community can do to make the lives of Afghans a little less violent and a little more prosperous.

    President Hamid Karzai was the keynote speaker during the conference and praised Europe, the United States and the rest of his partners for the immense sacrifices that they have made for the benefit of the Afghan people. For American delegates sitting in on the meeting, Karzai’s remarks, which tend to change as fast as events on the battlefield, were noteworthy in their sincerity and appreciation.

    Together, we have spent blood and treasure in fighting terrorism. Your continued solidarity, your commitment and support will be crucial so that we can consolidate our gains and continue to address the challenges that remain.

    Challenges there are. Economic growth in Afghanistan has been at a standstill in the countryside where most Afghans live due to the dangerous security situation on the ground.

    The government of Hamid Karzai is so reliant on foreign aid that his authority would quickly collapse if the billions of dollars in international spending were to be cut even marginally. As of 2010, the United States alone had donated at least $52 billion to the Afghan government for a variety of tasks, most related to security but others related to reconstruction programs and reconciliation activities.

    Yet even that amount has not solved Afghanistan’s problems. The financial constraints on Karzai are so severe that he asked global contributors for an additional $15 billion for 2015 at the Bonn Conference — a pledge that Washington and its allies have nominally supported if the Afghans continue to progress on the political reform front.

    Where does this conference leave the United States and their NATO partners at the moment? Right now, the military mission in Afghanistan continues on its present course. NATO soldiers, with embedded Afghan units, are scheduled to take the fight to the enemy in the caverns of eastern Afghanistan, the home base of the Haqqani network and an area that will be extremely difficult to pacify without political dedication from NATO countries and an aggressive counterterrorism approach that will result in at least some casualties.

    Unfortunately, even with these force enablers in mind, it stretches credulity to expect these operations to do anything but temporarily dent the insurgency — especially without cooperation from Pakistan, who did not even participate in the Bonn Conference. 

    The training of Afghan security personnel will undoubtedly accelerate as Afghanistan’s own army only has a short three years to get its act together before NATO draws down and leaves the nation’s security where it belongs — in the hands of the Afghan people.

    Regrettably, the geopolitical aspect of the equation — which must include regional acceptance of Afghanistan as a sovereign and independent state, without interference from its neighbors — and reintegration with the Taliban is a dim prospect. In the end, what the Afghan people do not need is more war, but a political settlement that is acceptable to all of the major players in the country.

  • India Opens the Afghanistan Gambit

    While internally, India is caught up in civil unrest that could jeopardize the stability of its government, the country’s neighbors increasingly regard a powerful Indian presence in the region as in their own interest.

    Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s state visit to India this month signaled a paradigm shift in Indo-Afghan relations. After nearly a decade of balancing relations with India and Pakistan, traditional rivals in South Asia, Kabul opted for a strategic partnership with New Delhi. The choice and its timing were largely inspired by the imminent withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

    The United States are planning to withdraw up to 30,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the autumn of next year. In December, the first 10,000 are expected home. After the winding down of the Afghan surge, a supportive military presence will remain in Afghanistan up to 2014. But what after that?

    India has shown itself a partner for regional stability by investing $1.2 billion in development projects in Afghanistan and facilitating the necessary nation building in the wartorn country. India paid a price for its help. Diplomats and aid personnel were killed in Afghanistan in attacks for which New Delhi has held Pakistan’s spy agency responsible. Pakistani intelligence is known to entertain relations with Afghan insurgents and wary of an Indian presence on both of its borders.

    Despite the unpredictability and violence, India maintained its presence because it has a stake in a stable, democratic Afghanistan, unlike Islamabad. Pakistan would rather have a divided country, ruled by Islamists, to achieve “strategic depth” there.

    Other regional actors, including Central Asian states and Iran, as well as the United States want to keep the Taliban out of power. This convergence of interests has served India well. Its relationships with Iran and the United States are both stable if not improving. The question now is what role New Delhi sees for itself in a postwar Afghanistan? The answer may be found in its “Look West” policy which aims to improve cooperation with countries across West Asia. Afghanistan could be a launchpad from which to boost India’s diplomatic and commercial relations with the Central Asian republics.

    So far, India’s “Look West” policy hasn’t been as coordinated and successful as its “Look East” policy because New Delhi is restrained from pursuing relations across Central Asia and the Middle East by Pakistan. Similarly, its relations with the United States, though positive, haven’t developed significantly because the Americans need Pakistan’s support in their War on Terror.

    American-Pakistani relations are deteriorating however as Washington is growing tired of the Afghan campaign and as revelations about the intrigues of Pakistan’s spy agency stir anti-Pakistan sentiments in the United States.

    As Pakistan’s influence is eroding, there is a chance for India to jump into the vacuum that is Afghanistan and facilitate a comprehensive reconstruction effort, one that is supported by the neighboring states that have most at stake in the country, including Iran, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

    The longer term aim for India could be to deny other great powers, notably China, a leadership position in Central Asia. Here, again, it finds itself at odds with Pakistan which is a Chinese client state.

    The region north of Afghanistan will prove to be pivotal to the energy security of continental Asian powers soon. India can’t afford to slumber as usual but must design a strategy now.