State of Decay

My new piece is up at The Review (National), State of Decay. It argues, by taking a longer historical look at the idea of Pakistan, that the relationship between the provinces and the federal govt. determine what the future for Pakistan holds :

Twenty years of military dictatorships, under Ayub Khan and Zia ul Haq, cemented the rule of the few over the many. Their policies led to the emergence of specific grievances by sub-nationalist groups in Baluchistan and Sindh. In the decade of Pervez Musharraf’s rule, these tensions grew dramatically, and pushed the state into a greater alienation from its own citizens.

Musharraf’s dictatorial regime sought to polish over any internal incoherence with a unified foreign front aimed primarily at operating militarily in Afghanistan, NWFP and Baluchistan. The influx of cash, some $6 billion, into the coffers of the military propelled the army to new-found heights as the country’s largest landlord, largest employer and largest business. But maintaining this new oligarchy came at a steep price for Pakistan.

X-posted at CM. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Schweich, ICG, etc. -- Assume the Existence of a State in Afghanistan

The buzz about Afghanistan (outside of Afghanistan) has focused on Thomas Schweich's New York Times Magazine article, Is Afghanistan a Narco-State? This article contains the startling revelation that corrupt Afghan officials protect the drug trade, and that neither President Karzai nor the U.S. Department of Defense believes that direct confrontation with some of the most powerful people in Afghanistan while we are already losing the struggle with the Taliban is a good idea.

Before I proceed, I would like to stipulate that I know and like Tom Schweich. He came into his job as coordinator for counter-narcotics and rule of law in Afghanistan with virtually no background on the subject and read into his brief very quickly and impressively. He is very smart, and he works harder than I do. Unfortunately, he has no idea what Afghanistan is.

(For a detailed analysis of the drug economy in Afghanistan, counter-narcotics policy, and the fallacies of arguments like Schweich's see the report I co-authored with Jake Sherman.)

(Another point: drugs is by far the largest industry in the Afghan economy, probably accounting for a quarter to a third of GDP. It is not a "deviant" activity in the sociological sense. As a political scientist, I don't know of any government in the world that does not have relations with the owners of its country's largest industry and biggest employer. There was a very good essay on this general problem, not focusing on Afghanistan, by a Hungarian World Bank economist. I'll post the link as soon as I can find it.)

I'm going to criticize the Bush administration later in this post (no fainting please), but the basic error Tom makes is not limited to the Bush administration, Republicans, people on the right, or Americans. Samina Ahmed of the International Crisis Group and many others (for example in my own human rights community, if I have not yet been excommunicated) make the same mistake, which we might call the Can Opener Assumption.

According to a story I heard in graduate school, a chemist, a physicist, and an economist were stranded on a desert island where their only provisions were canned food. How would they eat? The chemist tried to analyze the composition of the metal and searched for materials that would rapidly corrode it. The physicist sought to create a lens out of palm leaves and sea water to concentrate the sun's energy enough to pierce the metal. All failed. Finally, they turned to the economist to ask his advice.

The economist examined the can. After reflection he said: "In principal the problem is very simple. First, assume the existence of a can opener."

In this case, the solution is: assume the existence of a state.

Tom summarizes President Karzai's view as:

"[Mr Karzai] perceives that there are certain people he cannot crack down on and that it is better to tolerate a certain level of corruption than to take an aggressive stand and lose power."

I imagine that is a fair statement of President Karzai's view. He has decided not to lose power trying to do things that might fail disastrously. Tom never says that Karzai is wrong about this, so I wonder what his objection is. Maybe such a grim analysis is contrary to his moral principles.

I happen to think that the President of Afghanistan does not have to be that weak, and there is more he could do, though not the way Tom recommends. But Tom tells us a few things he does not comment on, and he refers to a few things he does not say explicitly, that might explain some of President Karzai's problems.

I'm going to make this short, because there is nothing new here. The Bush administration responded to 9/11 by arming and funding every commander they could find to fight the Taliban, regardless of criminal past or involvement in drug trafficking. Then they refused to get involved in "nation building" activity and instead got other "lead nations" to be responsible for various security issues with insufficient funding and capacity, including counter-narcotics. Then, every time that President Karzai tried to remove one of the U.S.-funded commanders from a position, Donald Rumsfeld would warn him against it and say the US would not back him if there was a problem.

Then the Bush administration decided narcotics in Afghanistan was a problem, but since they didn't want to move against the power holders, they decided to attack the poor -- at least they are consistent in their domestic and foreign policy: eradication, eradication, eradication. They wanted to have a "balanced" policy in Afghanistan: alongside our counter-insurgency policy we should also have a pro-insurgency policy. Karzai resisted that too.

(The charge about poverty is the one that upsets Tom the most. He cites the UN, actually the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, which argues that poverty and poppy cultivation are not connected and says he would not support a policy that attacked the poor. I am analyzing the effect of the policies not the intentions behind them. See our report for an explanation of the poor data and statistical fallacies on which UNODC bases its claim. The World Bank takes the position that "Dependence on opium cultivation is associated with poverty.")

To his credit, Tom tried to introduce more incentives and more enforcement. It is very good that he compiled a list of corrupt officials with data that would hold up in a US court (and he is a law professor, not, I think of the Yoo/Addington variety, so he should know). But just who did he think was going to arrest or fire these people?

It's simple: assume the existence of a state.

What does this mean? Tom Schweich says that Afghanistan's Attorney-General, Abdul Jabbar Sabit, says he wanted to arrest 20 corrupt officials and that Karzai stopped him. Unlike Tom, I have known Sabit for 20 years. He helped me in my research by introducing me to some of his colleagues in Hizb-i Islami. But I would not necessarily take everything he says literally.

Actually Sabit did try to arrest a corrupt official one time, General Din Muhammad Jurat, one of the most powerful Northern Alliance commanders in the Ministry of the Interior. The upshot was that Jurat detained Sabit and disarmed and beat his men. This was not in a remote area on the Pakistan border but less than an hour's drive north of Kabul in an area considered to be under "government" control. What does that mean? It means that Jurat and people like him are the government. There is no state that operates independently of power holders like Jurat. The project is to build such a state, not assume its existence and use it based on that false assumption.

The same applies to Samina Ahmed's incoherent critique of "talking to the Taliban," though at times she opposes negotiating with the Taliban and at other time accepting the Taliban's most extreme demands, as if this were the same as talking to them (this is the John Bolton approach to diplomacy: surrender first, then we'll discuss the terms). (Samina is also a friend, but I wonder if ICG takes the same position on Hamas, Hizbullah, or Iran?)

According to Samina, the international community should first build a state in Afghanistan and then negotiate the Taliban's surrender. Talking now would just be a "quick fix" that would not work. First we should build a functioning nation-state, and then construct the political agreement on which it will be based. Sounds good to me! And how do we build that state without a political agreement? Assume the existence of legitimacy. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Afghan Government Charges Pakistan Is World's Main Source of Terrorism

Update: Looks like India is getting in on the act -- a leak to the Hindu (Chennai) reveals that India is considering covert retaliation against Pakistan. The article has a useful review of RAW-ISI covert wars. It would not be surprising if the Afghan NDS and RAW were coordinating. Note that the recently retired former head of RAW, Vikram Sood, is the brother of the former Indian ambassador to Kabul, Rakesh Sood.

At today's weekly cabinet meeting, the government of Afghanistan, chaired by President Hamid Karzai, formally endorsed a statement charging Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate with responsibility for most of the terrorism carried out in Afghanistan. I have received the text in Dari and Pashto and will post it as soon as it is translated.

Excerpts from AP's coverage:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday directly accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of being behind a recent series of attacks by extremist Islamic militants that have killed scores of people.

"Dishonouring and insecurity in Afghanistan is carried out by the intelligence administration of Pakistan, its military intelligence institutions," Karzai said in a statement.

"We know who kills innocent people," the president said. "We have told the government of Pakistan and the world and from now on it will be pronounced by every member of the Afghan nation."

The cabinet announced meanwhile that Afghanistan would boycott a series of upcoming meetings with Pakistan unless "bilateral trust" was restored.

Pakistan's "intelligence agency and military have turned that country (in) to the biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world, particularly Afghanistan," a statement from the cabinet said.

Karzai also referred to a suicide attack that targeted police in southern Uruzgan province on Sunday that killed 24 Afghans, most of them civilians in a bazaar, police said.

He also condemned the Taliban's killing in Ghazni province the same day of two women whom the militants alleged were prostitutes and worked for the police.

"These ladies were martyred by terrorists who have been trained in terrorist nests and intelligence offices outside Afghanistan where respect of (women's) honour doesn't mean anything," he said.

The decision by the Afghan government to boycott bilateral meetings are presumably intended to put pressure on the U.S. and on Pakistan's elected government to take measures to curb the ISI's activities. Thus far neither has publicly agreed with Afghanistan's direct attribution of responsibility, but their denials have been rather mild in tone.

Note that by calling Pakistan the "biggest exporter of terrorism and extremism to the world," the government of Afghanistan is implicitly challenging the U.S. claim that Iran is the greatest source of terrorism. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Notes from Kabul and Kandahar on Recent Bombings

In response to my previous post on the killing of civilians in the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul and in a bombing by the U.S. in Eastern Afghanistan, BBC correspondent Alistair Leithead wrote, "We went up to the bomb site in Nangarhar yesterday...here's the report...":

On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck.

Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequined and brightly decorated clothes - the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day.

After hours of driving to the village deep in the bandit country of Nangarhar's mountains we heard time and again the terrible account of that awful day.

What began as celebration ended with maybe 52 people dead, most of them women and children, and others badly injured.

The US forces said they targeted insurgents in a strike. But from what I saw with my own eyes and heard from the many mourners, no militants were among the dead. A big double wedding was taking place between two families, with each exchanging a bride and a groom. So Lal Zareen's son and daughter were both getting married on the same day.

He gave the account with his son, a 13-year-old groom, sitting at his feet.

"This is all the family I now have left," he said in a disturbingly matter of fact sort of way.

Apparently the wedding party was crossing a narrow pass of the type that Taliban might use for infiltration when it was bombed by U.S. planes. It reminds of of an incident from 1984: Christian Science Monitor reporter Ed Girardet was traveling to the Panjshir Valley with a weapons convoy. At a narrow pass in Upper Panjshir Soviet fighters decimated a caravan of nomads, killing dozens of them, possibly trying to block the infiltration route.

Leithead concludes:

Mirwais Yasini, a local MP and the deputy speaker of Afghanistan's lower house, made the point that civilian casualties widen the gap between the people and the government, and the international forces.

As another memorial service took place in the mountains, Lal Zareen told me: "I want President Karzai to make sure the people responsible for this face justice."

That will depend on the US findings and how the Afghan government acts.

These mistakes are incredibly costly in a counter-insurgency campaign which relies on winning people over, not forcing them against the authorities.

I wonder how many enemies have been created in Nangarhar as a result of the latest bloodshed?

I also got a note from an Afghan in Kandahar who summarized the situation:

I am writing from Kandahar. It is hell hot here--both literally and figuratively. The temperature is around 40 degrees on centigrade. The heat is especially unbearable during mid days when the sun is strong. And there is almost no electricity in this city. During the Taliban time Kandahar had at least 12 hours of electricity in 24 hours, now days pass here without a blink of electricity. Normally though we have 4 hours of electricity in 2 days. And the political situation has never been as bad here in the last seven years as it is now. There is a general discontent among the people. While a few corrupt government officials are embezzling lots of money, the rest of the population is even deprived of the facilities that it had seven years ago like--electricity, drinking water, and security. The Taliban are using this pathetic situation to their benefit. With the help of local population the Taliban now manage to carry out attacks within the city like the spectacular attack on Kandahar prison last month--and they will not stop there. In Kandahar, time is definitely on Taliban's side.

Finally, further information on the attack on the Indian embassy from Tom Stauffer, President of the American University of Afghanistan, in Kabul:

Indian Embassy Blast. One result of the suicide bomb attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul last week (7/7) was a flurry of inquiries from my emailing friends. The attack was a VBIED (vehicle borne improvised explosive device), actually a Toyota Corolla, with 80-100 kilos (over 200 pounds) of top quality RDX plastic bonded high explosive mixed with land mines and tank shells designed to inflict maximum hurt. The nature of the blast suggests that some professional intelligence service was involved. RDX (or cyclonite) is not found at street vendors.

The Indian Embassy was described as situated on a “leafy suburban street” in several press dispatches, which I figure must have been filed from London, Delhi or some other safe haven. (The actual location is in central Kabul.) Many journalists are afraid to come to Kabul, and, as a result, report from afar. I do not much blame them. . . .

Embassies and military compounds in Kabul are surrounded by wire mesh containers, about three yards on each side, filled with dirt, maybe also fronted by heavy concrete blast barriers. The mesh units each weigh many tons. This is what the bomb hit, albeit it at a weaker embassy entry point, and damage to embassy buildings could have been much worse. The blast was well absorbed, except for those unfortunates lined up to get travel visas to India.

At last count, about 60 died and 130 were wounded. More will succumb.Press dispatches always fail to convey the agony and human cost. Flesh and severed limbs were scattered about. Paris or Dubai based journalists reported the numbers but overlooked those real human beings who perished. Four included a mother and her three children who wanted to go to Delhi to catch a flight for London so that they would visit their student husband/father. A girl and a family, seeking a visa to study in India and passports respectively, were also wiped out. Most victims were just walking in the vicinity. Four Indian diplomats and six police officers were murdered and seven at the nearby Indonesian Embassy were wounded. Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry is also located on that same street and many visitors come on routine missions. I have been there twice. The mangled body of one Indian diplomat was found on the roof of his embassy’s main building hours following the blast. Today, the Indian Consulate started issuing visas again.

Anent who did it, everybody denies knowing anything as if the bombing was unplanned. Speculation on the streets and in the press run the gamut of possibilities, but talk concentrates on long deadly clashes among elements in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The story takes too long to tell in my blog, but suffice to say there is poison in the well of regional peace. The Indian Embassy bombing is for the world’s intelligence services to resolve, but trust me, they are working on it. Pakistan and the Taliban deny involvement.

A friend and very prominent Afghan-American missed the explosion by ten minutes because he forgot a small item back at his residence. The human dimension cannot be lost among a pile of geo-political analyses and poorly informed speculation that inevitably follows this and other terrifying VBIED detonations.

Read more on this article...

Rubin: Afghanistan Accuses Pakistan of Responsibility for Attack on Indian Embassy

In a press conference yesterday, Humayun Hamidzada, the official spokesman of President Karzai (and a former colleague at the Center on International Cooperation at NYU) virtually accused Pakistan of responsibility for the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul yesterday:

Afghan officials have evidence that foreigners were behind a massive suicide bombing against India's embassy in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai's spokesman said Tuesday, implying that Pakistan orchestrated the attack.

The spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, did not name Pakistan's intelligence agency but told reporters it was "pretty obvious" who was behind Monday's bombing, which killed 41 people and wounded 150.

An Afghan security report released earlier Tuesday found that the bombing could not have succeeded without the support of foreign intelligence agencies, another reference to Pakistan, India's archrival.

"The sophistication of this attack, and the kind of material that was used and the specific targeting, everything has the hallmark of a particular intelligence agency that has conducted similar attacks inside Afghanistan in the past. We have sufficient evidence to say that," Hamidzada said. "The project was designed outside Afghanistan. It was exported to Afghanistan."

The Taliban continue to deny any involvement. I haven't seen any U.S. spokesmen commenting on these allegations. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Attack on Indian Embassy in Kabul (Multiple Updates)

After the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul this morning, I wrote the following comment in response to a query from a journalist:

The war in Afghanistan is often depicted as a battle between jihadi groups and the U.S. or the west. But Afghanistan is also a theater for the struggle between India and Pakistan and for the domestic struggles of Pakistan. This is the second major terrorist attack on an Indian target since the election of a civilian government in Pakistan. Nine synchronized bombs killed 63 people in the Indian city of Jaipur on May 13, just before the first high-level diplomatic meeting between India and Pakistan after the elections. Part of the context of this attack is also the Afghan official, public charges that the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, organized the attempted assassination of President Karzai in Kabul in April. These attacks seem designed to sabotage any improvement of relations between Pakistan and either of its two neighbors, India and Afghanistan, to assure that Pakistan has no alternative but to continue to support militant organizations as part of its foreign policy.

I might add that there is also a consistent pattern of attacks on Indian road construction teams in southwest Afghanistan. These teams are constructing a road linking Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf via the Iranian rail and road network, which would bypass both Karachi and Pakistan's new port in Gwadar. This road also passes through the Baluch parts of Afghanistan and Iran, next to the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, where Pakistan charges India with supporting nationalist/separatist insurgents.

Juan Cole on Informed Comment links the bombing to the attack yesterday in Islamabad and posits:

Since the neo-Taliban want to pull down the Karzai government, trying to scare the Indians into leaving would be a way of removing one foreign pillar of support from the edifice of state.

The link to the Islamabad attack on the anniversary of the raid on the Red Mosque may well be valid, but, along with the pattern I cited above, it looks to me more like it forms a pattern of a regional strategy by those who want to place (or keep) the state in Pakistani in the jihadi camp. In addition, in my (admittedly limited) contact with Taliban and in examining Taliban texts from Afghan sources, I see a focus on foreign troops in Afghanistan, not the Karzai government or India.

I heard on the radio that "Taliban" have claimed responsibility for this act. (Also reported by Reuters.) Let's see which "Taliban." Did it come from the former Taliban leadership in Quetta, or did it come from the Haqqani group in North Waziristan? (Note that both command and control centers of the Taliban are in Pakistan.) The latter is campaigning for predominance -- last week a document surfaced in which Jalaluddin Haqqani charged Mullah Umar and the Quetta shura with incompetence. (The authenticity of this document has yet to be established -- facsimile above left from here. [UPDATE 1: A source in Kabul who has been investigating it tells me the document is mostly likely a fake. Psy-ops, I guess.]) Kabul is also focusing its accusations of terrorism on the Haqqani group, which it claims reports daily to the ISI and which has much closer links to al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban than does the Quetta shura.

UPDATE 2: Now I heard on NPR that the "Taliban" have denied responsibility. Let me stick my neck out here: I don't believe that the Kandahari Taliban leadership would mount an attack like this against the Indian embassy. The idea of such an attack came from some combination of all or some of the following: the Haqqani group (as part of a campaign for Pakistani support), Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaida, and the Pakistani security agencies, or private entities under their supervision.

Reuters: The Afghan "Interior Ministry believes this attack was carried out in coordination and consultation with an active intelligence service in the region," that is, Pakistan's ISI.

Taliban (Quetta shura) spokesman denies responsibility:

Still, a Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the militants were behind the bombing. The Taliban tend to claim responsibility for attacks that inflict heavy tolls on international or Afghan troops, and deny responsibility for attacks that primarily kill Afghan civilians.

"Whenever we do a suicide attack, we confirm it," Mujahid said. "The Taliban did not do this one."

Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned the attack. I heard him on the BBC (I can't find the interview on line yet), and he sounded very sincere and pained by it, almost as if the attack were aimed at his government -- which it might be.

UPDATE 3: According to someone who who spent most of the 1980s with the mujahidin in Afghanistan, even then Jalaluddin Haqqani was saying that the number one enemy was India. I've asked a few people, and so far no one can recall hearing this kind of talk from the core Taliban in Quetta. In my experience, the Kandahari mujahidin resisted Pakistani influence quite strongly. Read more on this article...

Rubin -- The Dilemma of anti-Extremist Pakistanis

Yesterday the New York Times ran a front-page article on the growth of al-Qaida in Pakistan and the failure of the Bush administration to devise any strategy to confront it.

(Instead they are apparently thinking again about attacking Iran. At an international meeting on Afghanistan a few months ago, an Iranian diplomat pulled me aside at a reception, his hair more or less on fire, and asked, "Does your government have any idea what is going on along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border?" He has since been sidelined, as his bosses, like the Bush administration, think that the U.S.-Iran confrontation is more important than the threat from al-Qaida.)

Not that this is really news. As I noted in April:

The U.S Government's General Accountability Office (which, unaccountably, has continued to operate through the current administration) has issued a report entitled "Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas." Unlike, say, the "Patriot Act" or the "Protect America Act," in this case the title provides an accurate summary of the contents.

As usual, the Times article presented the alternatives as do nothing, Predator missile strikes, or invasion by U.S. Special Forces, without any discussion of competing Pakistani and Pashtun political agendas for the tribal agencies. A successful and sustainable strategy has to be carried out together with allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, within a political framework that they support. Pakistani physicist and public intellectual Pervez Hoodbhoy provides some thoughts on this today in Dawn, where he writes about "Anti-Americanism and Taliban" in Pakistan:

The recent killing of eleven Pakistani soldiers at Gora Prai by American and Nato forces across the border in Afghanistan unleashed an amazing storm.

Prime Minister Gilani declared, “We will take a stand for sovereignty, integrity and self-respect.” The military announced defiantly, “We reserve the right to protect our citizens and soldiers against aggression,” while Army chief, Gen Pervez Ashfaq Kayani, called the attack ‘cowardly’. The dead became ‘shaheeds’ [martyrs] and large numbers of people turned up to pray at their funerals.

But had the killers been the Taliban, this would have been a non-event. The storm we saw was more about cause than consequence. Protecting the sovereignty of the state, self-respect, citizens and soldiers against aggression, and the lives of Pakistani soldiers, suddenly all acquired value because the killers were American and Nato troops.

Compare the response to Gora Prai with the near silence about the recent kidnapping and slaughter by Baitullah Mehsud’s fighters of 28 men near Tank, some of whom were shot and others had their throats cut. Even this pales before the hundred or more attacks by suicide bombers over the last year that made bloody carnage of soldiers and officers, devastated peace jirgas and public rallies, and killed hundreds praying in mosques and at funerals.

These murders were largely ignored or, when noted, simply shrugged off. The very different reactions to the casualties of American and Nato violence, compared to those inflicted by the Taliban, reflect a desperate confusion about what is happening in Pakistan and how to respond.Unfortunately, as Hoodbhoy notes, U.S. behavior has reinforced such attitudes: There is, of course, reason for people in Pakistan and across the world to feel negatively about America. In pursuit of its self-interest, wealth and security, the United States has for decades waged illegal wars, bribed, bullied and overthrown governments, supported tyrants, undermined movements for progressive change, and now feels free to kidnap, torture, imprison, and kill anywhere in the world with impunity. All this, while talking about supporting democracy and human rights.

Even Americans — or at least the fair-minded ones among them — admit that there is a genuine problem. A June 2008 report of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs entitled The Decline in America’s Reputation: Why? concluded that contemporary anti-Americanism stemmed from “the perception that the proclaimed American values of democracy, human rights, tolerance, and the rule of law have been selectively ignored by successive administrations when American security or economic considerations are in play”.

American hypocrisy has played into the hands of Islamic militants. They have been vigorously promoting the notion that this is a bipolar conflict of Islam, which they claim to represent, versus imperialism. Many Pakistanis, who desperately want someone to stand up to the Americans, buy into this.

While it is understandable that U.S. journalists and politicians resort to shorthand like "Pakistan," "the Pakistanis," or "the Pakistan government," such simplifications are no basis for analysis. The tribal agencies are "federally administered" through the governor of NWFP, who is appointed by the President. In the Pakistani system of government, the president is the balancer between the military and the civilian government -- now he is the former Army Chief of Staff and military coup-maker. The current offensive against Mangal Bagh in the area around Peshawar and in Khyber Agency is being carried out by the Frontier Corps, which is under the command of the Ministry of the Interior, which is part of the civilian government, not by the Ministry of Defense, which answers to the Army Chief of Staff and the President and which has a very different agenda.

The New York Times concluded another recent article, on the offensive against Mangal Bagh, with this throwaway line, which many readers might have ignored:

Afrasiab Khattak, a leader of the Awami National Party, which now governs the North-West Frontier Province, of which Peshawar is the capital, has said he believed that Mr. Mangal Bagh and his men were a creation of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Khattak is in fact the provincial head of the Pashtun nationalist party that now governs the Northwest Frontier Province. The government of NWFP has recently appointed him "Pashtun Peace Envoy" for the province, FATA, and Afghanistan, and he is negotiating with the presidency and governor of NWFP (indirectly with the military) over his involvement in policy toward the tribal areas, over which the civilian political leaders have so far had no authority. According to Khattak, one part of the "government of Pakistan" is at war with groups created by another part of the "government of Pakistan." A policy toward "Pakistan" cannot address this problem.

I realize this poses more questions than it answers about what to do. More to come. Read more on this article...

Coming to a Boil

My apologies for the long silence.

Since we last talked, things in Pakistan have been moving slowly towards that ultimate showdown. The current PM, Gilani, has proven to be a stand-in for the real holder of PPP power - Asif Zardari. Nawaz Sharif will re-join the Parliament soon enough. He has moved significantly towards advocating reinstatement of the Judges, immediate resignation and military trial for Pervez Musharraf. The Lawyer's Movement seems to have faltered - riven with in-fighting and lack of focus. The Long March ended with more frustration and confusion than the emancipation that was planned.

But dwarfing all of that, is the war on Pakistan's borders between the Talibans (why bother with denoting the Afghan and Pakistan varieties?) and the military for the control of north west regions. Baitullah Mehsud had long declared war and the Pak Army has finally moved in. The various agreements are null and voided. The air strikes have started and the radio stations are being shut down.

In the meantime, the country is gripped with the worst Electricity shortage in a long while. Load-Shedding (shutting down grids for relief from usage) is at the highest levels since the 80s. Coupled with the intense heat, this has led to hundreds of deaths from heat across the nation. Foodstuff is still at exorbitant prices.

There is little that I can add that you have not read from recent newspaper coverage. Where does this end? I don't know. Doesn't seem to be heading to anywhere wholesome, in any case.

I have somewhat of a thought-piece on some related issues over at my blog, The Third Migration that some readers might be interested in. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Insurgent Attacks Still Up in Afghanistan's East

I've been traveling in Pakistan and Afghanistan for a couple of weeks and have accumulated a backlog of themes to blog about. While traveling I often lacked electricity and internet access; the latter, when available, was usually too slow for blogging. I'll catch up as I can.

First, this update on the debate about counter-insurgency success in Afghanistan's Regional Command/East (RC/E). The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan has five regional commands: East (led by the US), West (Italy), South (Canada), North (Germany), and Capital (Italy). The U.S. uses RC/E as a showpiece of counter-insurgency success to outsiders taken on short embeds. I appeared on the NewsHour with the Washington Post's David Ignatius, who had just returned from such a trip, and I took issue with his rosy prognostications based on his brief guided tour. I followed this up with some data on weekly insurgent attacks in RC/E, comparing 2007 and 2008. I also announced the death of a friend and colleague, Michael Bhatia, who was killed by an IED in Khost province, RC/E, on May 7. Michael's work as a social scientist contributed to the successes of the counter-insurgency effort in the province.

I have now received the complete data for RC/E through week 20:

The level of attacks initiated by Taliban and other anti-government forces continues to exceed last year's, despite the vaunted successes of US COIN efforts.

One of the main explanations for the level of violence is a significant increase in infiltration from Pakistan's Tribal Areas, which are directly adjacent to RC/E. The Pakistan army has used the election of a new civilian government as a blame-shifting cover for its decision to withdraw from FATA and conclude a truce with the Pakistani Taliban. This truce has enabled the militants to focus their energy on Afghanistan.

This may be true, but it does not show that the U.S. effort in Afghanistan is in fact succeeding, when all factors are taken into account. During my visit to Kabul I found that several officials of the U.S. government there interpreted my challenge to Ignatius' assertions as criticisms or denigration of their efforts in RC/E. That is not at all my intention. I was not able to take up the Embassy's offer of a repeat of the Ignatius tour on this visit, and I last visited RC/E in August 2006, when I went to Gardez, Paktia, to visit Governor Hakim Taniwal, an old friend and academic colleague (Taniwal was a sociologist) . Taniwal was killed by a suicide bomber a few weeks later. I have no reason to doubt the positive accounts of US counter-insurgency work, mostly in Khost, one of the smallest of the 12 provinces in RC/E. The failures of U.S. policy do not result from poor implementation by people in the field. On the contrary, from what I have seen, whatever successes there have been have largely been led from the field, not from Washington. Those working on the ground have worked hard in many cases to reverse or evade policies imposed by the Bush administration.

Nonetheless, no amount of success in Khost amounts to success in Afghanistan. If counter-insurgency success in Khost does not reduce the strength of an insurgency whose leadership and logistical bases are in Pakistan, it shows the failure of the Bush administration to address the challenge of Pakistan. President Karzai (and nearly all Afghans I have spoken to) have argued for years that the factors that turn Afghanistan's innumerable internal problems into a violent insurgency that is increasingly using suicide bombs lie mainly in Pakistan.

In a discussion after we went off the air, Ignatius asked me if the success in Khost could be spread nation-wide if the US took over the entire effort, with its greater COIN expertise. I said, first, I doubt it, because Khost was such a small place with a relatively high level of education (it was called "Little Moscow" under the communists), and, second, the forces for such an expansion are not available, because the U.S. is stuck in a disastrous war in Iraq. It is not the fault of the Americans working in RC/E that the U.S. is in Iraq, but it is the responsibility of the administration, which undermined the chances of success in Afghanistan and Pakistan with an illegal war based on propaganda and ideology, a war that should never have been waged and should never have been authorized.

The same week that Ignatius and I appeared on NewsHour, al-Qaida and some Taliban disrupted an important national celebration in Kabul, killing three people and barely missing President Hamid Karzai. Subsequent investigations showed that this operation was carried out with the complicity of high officials of the ministries of defense and interior who were either complicit with the attackers or corrupt. The attack was planned and financed in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

No amount of road building and police mentoring in Khost will compensate for a failed regional policy and unreliable security forces. The successes in Khost are not so much fake as irrelevant to the larger picture. No amount of mini-successes in isolated show pieces will compensate for the overall strategic failure of this administration. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Death of Michael Vinay Bhatia in Khost Province (RC/E), Afghanistan

Michael Vinay Bhatia, a researcher well known to many of those working on Afghanistan, died in an IED attack on his vehicle in Khost Province, Afghanistan, on May 7, 2008. Michael was working as a civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense as a member of the Human Terrain System of the Army. I last saw Michael when he came to visit me before his departure and I mourn his passing.

Some of Michael's Friends have put up a blog with links to many of the tributes to him that have appeared in the press and on the Internet, including to obituaries in the Boston Globe and on the website of the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, where Michael worked before leaving for Afghanistan.

From the Watson Institute tribute:

In addition to graduating magna cum laude in international relations from Brown University, Michael was a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute from July 2006 to June 2007. At the Institute, he was involved in a research project on Cultural Awareness in the Military, writing his PhD dissertation, and teaching a senior seminar on "The US Military: Global Supremacy, Democracy and Citizenship."

Over several years, Michael’s research and humanitarian work took him to such conflict zones as Sahrawi refugee camps, East Timor, and Kosovo, in addition to Afghanistan.

Of his work in Afghanistan, Michael wrote in November: “The program has a real chance of reducing both the Afghan and American lives lost, as well as ensuring that the US/NATO/ISAF strategy becomes better attuned to the population's concerns, views, criticisms and interests and better supports the Government of Afghanistan.”

Michael had recently published some of his research on Afghanistan.

His co-authored book on Afghanistan, Arms and Conflict: Armed Groups, Disarmament and Security in a Post-War Society was just released by Routledge in April. It assesses small arms and security-related issues in post-9/11 Afghanistan.

His edited book on Terrorism and the Politics of Naming was published by Routledge last September. Stating that names are not objective, the book seeks the truth behind those assigned in such cases as the US hunt for al-Qaeda, Russia’s demonization of the Chechens, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In August, his personal three-part photo essay, “Shooting Afghanistan: Beyond the Conflict,” was published by theGlobalist. In it, he wrote:

“Afghanistan will soon reach a desperate milestone – the thirtieth anniversary of ongoing conflict. … Though I have spent the majority of my time there researching the wars and those involved in it, conflict is not my primary memory and way of knowing it. I am compelled to write about experiences and ideas that cannot be placed into analytical paradigms, which do not speak to theories of war or peace, to destruction or to reconstruction, but instead to daily interactions that occurred in the course of research.”

Michael's death while working for NATO's Regional Command/East came as I and other researchers have been trying to evaluate the claims of the U.S. and some journalists that its counter-insurgency activities in the region, including Michael's work, have been succeeding in improving security in this contested region across from Pakistan's North Waziristan Tribal Agency. By coincidence, as I was receiving and circulating information about Michael's sad death, I received another notice of the incident -- as a statistic. My source in Kabul has updated the comparison between number of Taliban and other insurgent attacks per week in 2008 and 2007. As I noted previously, data from the first 17 weeks showed a significant spike over the previous year in RC/E. The statistics from the first 18 weeks are now in, and the increase over last year continues.

But this time, we know the name of one of the statistics from week 18: Michael Bhatia.

The memorial blog for Michael contains links to his writings and photographs, as well as information on memorial services in the U.S. and U.K., where Michael studied at Oxford. It also includes information on how to contribute to a scholarship fund that is being established in his name. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Data on Security in Afghanistan's Regional Command/East

My debate with David Ignatius on the NewsHour has sparked a discussion about security in NATO's Regional Command/East, has sparked a debate about the reported success of U.S. counter-insurgency efforts. Washington Post "reporter"/government stenographer David Ignatius claimed that "the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has begun to get some traction." In a subsequent post, in addition to criticizing the helicopter tour/PR handout school of "journalism," I cited data showing that in the first quarter of 2008 attacks by anti-government elements in the east had increased 30 percent over the same period last year.

Peter Marton at [My] State Failure Blog reviews the arguments about security in RC/E and notes that it is not the same as the "Eastern Region" (ER) as defined by my source. That ER consists of four provinces (Laghman, Nangarhar, Kunar, and Nuristan), whereas RC/E includes ten others as well (Paktika, Paktia, Khost, Ghazni, Logar, Wardak, Bamiyan, Parwan, Panjshir, and Kapisa).

I asked my source to aggregate the data by NATO command and got the following chart for the first four months of 2008 compared to 2007:

This chart shows that throughout RC/E attacks have been only slightly higher this year than last year, though there has been a spurt in the last week of April, when the Taliban announced their spring offensive. It will be important to see if the insurgent surge continues.

Marton cites U.S. military claims (relayed by Anne Marlowe) that the attacks are concentrated in smaller areas. Combined with the above data, the conclusion seems to be that U.S. efforts have confined the same or slightly greater effort by the insurgents to a smaller area. Given the nature of guerrilla warfare, which places a premium on mobility, surprise, and strategic choice of targets, this does not seem like much success.

After this debate, the U.S. embassy in Kabul wrote to offer me the RC/E helicopter tour. I'll take up the offer when I can, but my next trip (forthcoming soon) will be too short. Meanwhile, I wrote my correspondent in Kabul that "It's nice to know that when the government collapses in Kabul, at least Khost will still be secure." He wrote back to say, "You gave my my first laugh of the day, and it's 7 PM here." But he who laughs last.... Read more on this article...

Rubin: Negotiate with Bitter Pashtuns who Cling to Religion, Guns

[In response to comments: Warning! Title and text may contain irony. Read at your own risk. In case of outrage, read links and think it over.] Ten days ago the new Chief Minister of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (soon to be renamed Pakhtunkhwa) gave his inaugural speech to the Provincial Legislative Assembly. He promised that "in the next session of the provincial assembly we shall present a comprehensive peace plan for our province." He promised to look for "a negotiated settlement to the problem of militancy" despite "many rejectionists at local, regional and international levels with various agendas and positions who might jeopardize the process."

At least somebody is working on a plan. The U.S Government's General Accountability Office (which, unaccountably, has continued to operate through the current administration) has issued a report entitled "Combating Terrorism: The United States Lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas." Unlike, say, the "Patriot Act" or the "Protect America Act," in this case the title provides an accurate summary of the contents.

The report provides a lot of evidence to back up the title, but in case you would like a simple summary of what the GAO means by lack of a "comprehensive" plan, take a look at this breakdown of U.S. expenditures in the border regions of Pakistan:

This might be what Chief Minister Hoti had in mind by "rejectionist," but a more accurate term might be "oblivionist." Note the amount spent to support political reform: 0%.

Some U.S. commanders are now pressing for more attacks by the U.S. inside FATA. For now, the administration has decided not to jeopardize relations with Pakistan's new democratic government by undermining its policy before it can even formulate it. There is indeed a serious question of how to balance the time required for a political solution that will isolate al-Qaida and eliminate its safe area permanently, and the potentially urgent threat posed by militants who are undermining the international effort in Afghanistan (not just a US effort) and may strike in Europe or even the U.S. again. For a balanced assessment of this problem, we turn to Peshawar, Pakistan, where Khalid Aziz, former chief secretary of NWFP, is responsible for much of the strategic thinking going into the government's peace plan.

Aziz recently outlined his ideas in a conference paper and discussed the obstacles to implementing them in an article published today in Pakistan's The News. He notes the somber background: apparently the situation is even worse than in Pennsylvania small towns:

If a "class" and regional analysis of the insurgency is made, it will show that it is based on support of conservatives, who inhabit the poverty stricken and under-developed regions of the NWFP and tribal areas. In the NWFP, more than 33% and in FATA more than 45% of the population lives on or below the poverty line composed of those who earn $1 or less per day.

The liberal economic development model followed in Pakistan since the late 1980s and based on diminishing public expenditure on education and health has forced a sizeable population to seek the services of madressahs and Islamic charities for their basic needs. A large majority of such persons are committed followers of the Islamist. This is the flip side of the liberal model of economic development and globalisation.

Another significant social transformation of the 1980s was our involvement in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. It was the emergence of "Jihadism" as the preferred Pakistani state policy. This ballooned with help from international Islamic charities, many of which focused on NWFP and FATA. This was a shift from state responsibility to private actors.

The war in Afghanistan brought an immense amount of money and weaponry to this lightly policed and institutionally weak region. According to a reputable estimate, from 1979 to 1992, the Afghan-Pakistan duo received $66 billion worth of weapons from various countries!

Thus a conservative Pakhtun society living in poverty was financially enriched and weaponised.

Aziz describes the combination of hope and fear aroused by the Chief Minister's promise to find a peaceful solution:

To those who listened it sounded too good to be true! People wished to know basis of the optimism behind these stirring words. They wondered whether the hard non-state fighters, who were involved in war, could be swayed by rhetoric alone. They were also aware that the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan [Taliban Movement of Pakistan] has laid down impractical pre-conditions before participation. These include the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, withdrawal of the Pakistani military from FATA, and non-interference in the jihad against US forces in Afghanistan. At the same time the US has said that it has no intention of withdrawing from Afghanistan in the near future. Therefore, can any peace plan succeed in the face of such rigidities?

On the other hand the Feb 18 election has clearly indicated that the people of Pakistan voted against militarism and violence. The Taliban recognise that resort to force alone will not lead to the achievement of their main political objective which is the creation of an Islamist Caliphate.

However, while everyone waits for good sense to prevail, there may be forces amongst the non-state fighters planning another strike in the West. If that happens, one may be certain of an air war in FATA and this could lead to incalculable harm to Pakistan. This in a nutshell is the danger surrounding the process of talks. . . .

Many conservative Pakhtuns believe that the fighting in Swat, Kohat and Waziristan is a war of liberation against US occupation of Afghanistan; they fight the Pakistani state because of its alliance with the US. However, it does not make it a US war alone. Whatever may be the case at the start, this is now Pakistan's war, since the objective of the insurgents is to change the nature of the Pakistani state. To fellow Pakistanis I would say that it is our war, whether we like it or not.

Compare what Aziz has written to General Musharraf's speech on September 19, 2001, when he told Pakistan that his aim was to "save Afghanistan and Taliban." What Musharraf said in that speech was that supporting the war against the Taliban was the "lesser of two difficulties," compared to driving the U.S. into the arms of India. All negotiations with militants pursued by Musharraf's government had as their aim to balance the imperative of acting against al-Qaida with that of saving the Taliban as a strategic asset for Pakistan.

Aziz says the opposite: the Taliban and other militants are fighting "to change the nature of the Pakistani state," and that therefore "It is our war, whether we like it or not." Negotiations in support of the expansion of democracy and federalism in Pakistan are not the same as negotiations in support of balancing military action against al-Qaida with preservation of the Afghan Taliban. The program of the new government in Pakistan and NWFP, unlike that of Musharraf, corresponds to the aspirations of the majority of people in the NWFP and FATA, including many conservatives, and it can win their support. If negotiations do not suffice to disarm the militants, the required military action, in support of an elected government trying to extend democracy and social services, will gain far more domestic support in Pakistan than Musharraf's balancing act ever could have. This government of Pakistan has articulated goals consistent with international objectives in the region and believes in pursuing negotiations in support of those goals without abandoning its own vision of a stable democratic Pakistan at peace with its neighbors.

Khalid Aziz and others like him are developing the "comprehensive plan" to uproot terrorism from the border regions of Pakistan. As part of our assistance, we should follow the advice of Lt.-General David Barno:

In Congressional testimony this month, a former top American commander in Afghanistan said the need for more action was urgent. “A senior member of the administration needs to go to Pakistan and take the intelligence we have on Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani network inside of Pakistan and lay it out for their most senior leadership,” said the retired commander, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno.

He said the American envoy should “show them exactly what we know about, what they don’t know about what’s going on in their tribal areas and say, this is not a tolerable situation for you nor for us.”

“And,” he added, “we need to sit down and think through what we can collectively do about this.”

I'm not sure what the new government supposedly does not know about; in my experience the Pashtun nationalists had better intelligence than what I heard from the US government. But we now have a full partner in Pakistan, elected, ironically enough, by Pakistani voters angry at what the GAO calls the "lack of a comprehensive plan," rather than just a military approach. It is indeed time to "sit down and think through what we can collectively do" with these partners.

Read more on this article...

Rubin: Afghanistan Insurgent Attacks up in 2008

I received the charts below from Sami Kovanen, a Finnish security specialist in Kabul.

The first compares the total number of "security incidents" originated by Taliban/anti-government elements (TB/AGE) in Afghanistan for the first 13 weeks of 2008 compared to the first 13 weeks of 2007:

The second chart compares the total number of incidents during these 13 weeks in both years, broken down by region (Central Highlands, Eastern Region, Southeast Region, Southern Region, Western Region, Northeast Region, Northern Region, and Central Region).

Incidents in 2008 are almost 40 percent more numerous than in 2007. Except for the Central Highlands Region, where the number of incidents is negligible, the largest proportionate increase is in the Central Region, which includes Kabul, Wardak, Logar, and Parwan, where incidents have increased by 70 percent. I have been told that incidents in Wardak have declined recently, since a commander of Hizb-i Islami was appointed as police chief, and he hired all of his old mujahidin. Further details or corrections welcome.

No last throes yet. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Taliban and Telecoms -- Secret Negotiations Just Got Easier, and at a Price You Can Afford!

Last week I was at a meeting in Madrid to discuss a "Political Solution" to the conflict in Afghanistan. Among the topics discussed was prospects for talking to the Taliban. I was surprised, however, at how literally some of the participants seemed to take it. One of my friends was interrupted over tea by a call from a Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan who was trying to figure out who was behind an incident in which some of his men were killed by a remote-controlled mine.

Nothing distinguishes the Afghan Taliban from al-Qaida more than their approach to telecommunications. Back in the distant past (ten years ago -- 1998) Usama Bin Laden apparently stopped using his satellite telephone, then virtually the only form of telecommunications in Afghanistan, when it was leaked to the press that his calls were being used to locate him. This was part of the aftermath of the US missile strikes in Khost after the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August. Those bombs mostly killed Pakistanis being trained by the ISI to fight in Kashmir. (Richard Holbrooke reports on today's Khost.)

Today the Taliban can't seem to get off the mobile phone. In the past six years, Afghanistan has gone from no mobile (and virtually no fixed) telephone service to 10% mobile phone penetration. The Taliban have participated in this technological development. Recently they attracted attention by threatening to blow up mobile phone towers if they were not switched off at night, claiming that NATO was using their signals to track their locations.

As National Assembly member Shukria Barakzai stated, this claim "does not make any sense." They can still be tracked during the day. And if they really wanted to avoid detection, they could turn off their phones or take out the batteries! In any case, a friend of mine who negotiated the release of two of his Afghan staff who had been taken hostage by Taliban in Wardak (just next to Kabul) said that it was always difficult to reach the kidnappers at night, because they moved away from the road up into the mountains where the reception was poor. Finally they had to explain to the Taliban that they needed to stay within the coverage range to reach a deal.

Perhaps the Taliban don't trust their rank and file to turn off their phones.... Or maybe they just want to show how much damage they could do and how present they are in different parts of the country. Mobile telephone operators are among the best informed people about the territorial penetration of the Taliban. Setting up a cell phone tower anywhere in Afghanistan requires the consent of whoever "controls" the territory, or at least has the power to blow up the cell phone tower.

I have not yet been able to conduct a systematic survey of where the four mobile phone companies in Afghanistan (Afghan Wireless, Roshan, Etisalaat, and Areeba) pay the Taliban or other powerholders taxes/extortion/bribes to protect their phone towers, but one friend in the business says that the companies have to pay the Taliban in most of southern Afghanistan, right up to Kabul province. As evidence, I received a copy of this document:

The document in question is an official letter in Pashto from the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" in Saidabad District of Wardak Province, about an hour outside of Kabul (if the traffic is not too heavy). The text in full (translation courtesy of Mohammad Omar Sharifi, an Afghan Fulbright scholar at Columbia University):

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

Wardak Province

Taliban military group in Saidabad District

Number: Date: ______________________________________________________________________________ To: Communication Tower authorities in Saidabad District, Rig Rashan area,

Salam Alaikum, May mercy of God be upon you,

As you continue to operate in the area, we are expecting you to provide financial support for the Taliban stationed in Saidabad district. If you cannot, then you should stop your work. Otherwise you have no right to complain in the future (we are warning you of future incidents). You can contact us by this number: 077 581 0513.
From Taliban authorities.

Success of Islamic society is in piety and obedience

The actual recipients of this note appear to have been Chinese. They passed it along to their Afghan colleagues. The number given is from the Areeba company, which Taliban are said to prefer because the top-up cards are less traceable or cheaper. I have been told that Taliban (or people claiming to represent them) sometimes call up mobile phone companies and claim that they are right at a tower with explosives, which they will detonate unless money is immediately transferred to their mobile phone. This is a new technology that enables migrant workers to send cash home without going through either a hawala or Western Union.

What to make of this? It has contradictory implications. My inquiries thus far indicate that Taliban (or people claiming to be Taliban) can launch profitable small military operations (blowing up cell phone towers) or at least make credible threats of doing so in most of the area south of Kabul and as far west as the southern part of Herat province. This does not mean that Taliban "control" these areas. No authority "controls" most of these areas. But Taliban, insurgents, or criminal armed groups can operate there with impunity. They can infiltrate. If these groups can also be coordinated (a big question), they have much greater capacity for disruption than they have shown thus far.

On the other hand, their behavior is nothing like al-Qaida. I have not seen any such documents emanating from Ayman al-Zawahari's office giving his cell phone number. The document shows that some Taliban, at least, are trying to operate within the administrative structure of the Afghan state, even if they are trying to subvert it (or extract money from the private sector operating with its consent). Protection of cell phone towers in Wardak is an eminently negotiable issue, unlike, say, replacing the nation-state system with an Islamic caliphate or ending all US influence in the Muslim world.

In fact, the official police do such a poor job of protecting anything, that the Afghan government is now recruiting former Taliban fighters to provide security in some areas of Helmand province, since they are less corrupt. "Talking to the Taliban" need not mean abolishing Afghanistan's constitution, turning the country over to al-Qaida, seeking "moderates" rather than "extremists," or closing all the country's schools for girls. The Taliban, like every other group that has held power in Afghanistan the last thirty years -- and quite a few of those who had power before that -- committed many atrocities and human rights violations. The legacy of injustice, fear, mistrust, impunity -- infinitely aggravated by the involvement of outside powers including al-Qaida -- cannot be overcome with a few phone calls. But it might help.

On July 14, 1992, I published an article in the Asian Wall Street Journal entitled "Toward Peaceful Afghan Diversity." I observed:

New communications technology can promote national integration without centralization. During the turnover of power in April [1992], when the Soviet-backed government of Gen. Najibullah finally fell to the mujahedeen, commaders of all ethnic groups and regions negotiated directly via satellite telephones given to them by the U.S. These instantaneous communications were key to forestalling more serious conflicts and may yet help Afghanistan build national political networks without bringing all powerholders to Kabul.

Of course satellite telephones never approached a 10% penetration rate, so perhaps I was premature. But Roshan defines its mission as helping Afghans "nazdik shodan" -- "to get close" or "stay in touch." Maybe now the telecom advertising geniuses can get to work on public information for national reconciliation. Read more on this article...

Rubin: Points on an Integrated Strategy for Afghanistan

Below is a think piece I did for a discussion a couple of months ago. I don't even entirely agree with it myself any more, but I still think it poses some questions that need to be thought through. I don't have time right now to publish this as an article, so I am just posting it here in the hopes it will spark additional thoughts. It would benefit from pictures, links, and clarification of some points -- but after all blogs are an open-source environment: so let the redrafting begin...

Desired end state: Afghanistan is stable and secure within the normal range for a poor country without the presence of large numbers of foreign troops. The Afghan government has access to all or nearly all of the territory and is able to finance its recurrent costs from domestic revenue. Question: Does Afghanistan aim to finance all recurrent security costs from domestic revenue, or will it rely permanently on subsidies of the armed forces, police, and intelligence apparatus? If the former, how will it either raise sufficient revenue to pay security costs or lower recurrent security costs so that domestic revenue can pay them? If the latter, how will Afghanistan obtain secure, predictable funding for its security forces? The nature and origin of this funding will have major political implications. What is the time frame for a transition to sustainability, whether through contractual subsidies or relative self-sufficiency?

Conditions for Security and Stability. Security and stability of the Afghan state depend on the relations of the state to: (1) its neighbors, other major powers, and transnational entities (al-Qaida, the drug industry, international financial institutions or corporations) concerning what role Afghanistan and its territory and resources will play in the international balance (or imbalance) of power; and (2) Afghan communities and other social strata such as Islamic clergy and educated professionals (“intellectuals”). The two are interdependent, as foreign states and transnational entities dissatisfied with the orientation of the Afghan state can offer resources directly to disaffected communities and strata, while both the state and social groups in Afghanistan can use access to international resources to strengthen their bargaining positions. This process of simultaneous bargaining on (at least) two levels constitutes the context within which to consider political, ideological, and ethnic struggles over control of the Afghan state and its various constituent parts. The current instability is due to a combination of international contestation of the current political dispensation and the failure to integrate key communities, which remain accessible to and at times integrated with the state’s opponents or competitors.

International Strategic Identity of Afghanistan. The current territory of Afghanistan was not demarcated by a strong state that consolidated control of the territory using resources it mobilized, but by neighboring empires that agreed to subsidize the state in order to stabilize their frontiers. Security and stability of this Afghan state has required a high degree of strategic consensus among neighbors and great powers, combined with a flow of foreign aid that subsidizes the state in such a way as to reinforce its legitimacy and capacity. This strategic consensus broke down in 1978-79. The events of 2001 appeared to reinstate it, with the formation of an international consensus around the implementation of the Bonn Agreement and the reconstruction effort launched at the Tokyo conference. In practice the Bonn Agreement, by bringing together the Northern Alliance and the supporters of the former King, His Majesty Zahir Shah, established a government supported by a coalition of the U.S. and its allies with Iran, Russia, and India, which had been the supporters of the Northern Alliance. Pakistan, al-Qaida, and the Taliban were the big losers but were under pressure at that time.

Since that time the following trends have frayed or destroyed that coalition and enabled Pakistan and its Taliban clients to make a comeback:

• The U.S. shifted its focus to Iraq and then to Iran, significantly lessening pressure on Pakistan.
• Pakistan became concerned that, in the absence of a threat from Taliban and al-Qaida, the U.S. would realign itself with India (a concern reinforced by the U.S.-India nuclear deal), possibly confronting Pakistan not only with India to the East but with an Afghanistan hosting a U.S.-India alliance to the West.
• NATO took over command of ISAF, which has moved into being much more of a combat force than originally conceived, while the Coalition has maintained its “kinetic” mission, and troop levels have increased.
• The U.S.-NATO military presence, which is looking more permanent, plus the U.S.-Afghan Strategic Partnership, have aroused suspicion in Russia, Iran, China, India, and Pakistan that the US is using the issue of terrorism in order to maintain bases on the Asian mainland (rather than the reverse), threatening Russian, Indian, and Chinese interests in Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia (including access to oil and gas), surrounding Iran with the aim of “regime change,” and aiming at weakening Islamic Pakistan.

As a result the international military presence that the Afghan government and most Afghan people consider, even if reluctantly, as necessary for the stability of Afghanistan and its protection from regional competition, has provoked additional instability, as various neighbors retain and even reinforce their ties with political groups and militias in Afghanistan in order to pressure the U.S. and NATO and discourage a long-term presence.

Afghanistan faces the following strategic alternatives:

1. Strengthen the strategic partnership with the U.S. and rely above all on that bilateral relationship, including a long-term U.S.-NATO troop presence, to deter interference by neighbors and assure that the U.S. will subsidize the Afghan security forces as a subsidiary of CENTCOM;
2. Return to the historic policy of bi-tarafi, announcing that Afghanistan seeks strategic partnerships with all those helping it, including Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, and India, and assure that Afghanistan is not the base for threats real or perceived to any of these. Therefore:
• Begin discussions with each of these, regardless of objections from other powers; the award of the Ainak copper mine contract to China could be a step in this direction.
• Plan to phase out the NATO and Coalition presence within an approximate time frame and replace it with a combination of Afghan security forces and international non-aligned forces, whether a U.N. peacekeeping operation or a multi-national force from Islamic or non-aligned states outside the region; this will depend on settlement of the insurgency and elimination of al-Qaida sanctuaries in Pakistan. A more modest alternative would be at least to end the full freedom of action currently accorded to the Coalition, so that all military operations would be subject to a bilateral agreement with a sovereign Afghan government.
• Establish frameworks for the resolution of bilateral issues with all neighbors and other stakeholders; whereas alternative (1) might be consistent with resisting changes in the status quo on the Durand Line, though the U.S. and NATO have thus far resisted being dragged into this issue; alternative (2) would require a plan for reducing or ending the longstanding tensions with Pakistan over the border, mutual subversion, transit trade, India-Pakistan conflict (including the use of Afghan territory and population for fighting in Kashmir), the Tribal Agencies, and the presence of al-Qaida leadership. Any agreement on the border should also include the administrative integration of FATA within Pakistan so as to eliminate military-controlled terrorist sanctuaries. Alternative (2) would also require either a settlement of U.S.-Iran conflicts or an agreement on a modus operandi to insulate Afghanistan from those conflicts.

Insurgency, Terrorism, and Internal Security. Domestic stability and security requires a settlement/defeat of the insurgency, the integration of dissident tribes, clans, and social strata in the south and east in such a manner as not to provoke a destabilizing reaction from groups in other regions of the country and their foreign allies. These in turn require elimination or curbing of external sanctuary for Taliban, al-Qaida, and Hizb-i Islami, as well as agreement by anti-Taliban regional powers to accept the terms of a settlement of the insurgency rather than responding with resistance or subversion. Political settlement of the insurgency must be done in such a way as to make clear that it is part of a strategy for stabilization, not realignment. International alternative 1 (alignment with the U.S.) is likely to make any steps toward political settlement of the insurgency appear as a realignment in the interests of the U.S. and Pakistan, and will therefore provoke a reaction. International alternative 2 (regional and global non-alignment) will facilitate confidence building measures, though it might lower the military capacity of the forces in the country.

Internal political settlement of the insurgency (contingent on settlement of its external factors) will require some political integration of former insurgent elements. The current structure and functioning of political institutions in Afghanistan constitutes an obstacle to such a settlement. Not only is the administration unitary and highly centralized around the Office of the President, but the National Assembly and Judiciary’s powers appear in practice to be subordinate to the executive. There are virtually no mechanisms for institutionalized power sharing according to the constitution and law. The unitary, centralized administration means that there is no mechanism for territorial power sharing. The presidential system means there is no mechanism for power sharing in the central government through coalition formation. The weakness of the National Assembly and provincial councils and the lack of a structural role for political parties means that political participation through forming parties to contest legislative elections. In practice individuals formerly aligned with insurgent groups (political or tribal) can be appointed to posts n the unitary, centralized administration, but their only official role is then to implement the policies of the central government. Patronage and the exercise of local power take place through informal means, i.e. corruption. To settle the insurgency sustainably, negotiations must lead to the strengthening of inclusive institutions, not just the cooptation of individuals by enabling them to benefit from “corruption.”

In the first instance this requires strengthening the institutional role of the National Assembly. As the NA has proposed a number of the measures mentioned above (subordinating the Coalition to a bilateral agreement under Afghan sovereignty, a negotiated settlement with the Taliban), some Taliban sources claim that enabling the NA to fully carry out its constitutionally mandated role would provide greater opportunities for political integration.

The role of provincial, district, and local administration and elected bodies is even more important. The immediate impetus to insurgency in the south often came from the abuse of office to create and maintain tribally-based patronage networks. While tribes or clans could be abused or dispossessed, partly because the Coalition empowered certain tribal militias, which took power at the expense of others, but also because in such a centralized system there is no accountability of the government to the governed, but only to the higher levels of government. Especially in an atmosphere of scarcity, insecurity, and lack of rule of law, the competition for power becomes a competition to grab resources, and those who lose turn for support to the state’s opponents.

The many local and tribal disputes resulting from misgovernment over the past several years will have to be settled; even more important for the medium and long term is the reconstruction of contractual, consensual, and accountable relations between communities on the one hand and the administration on the other. This is the task of the newly established Independent Department of Local Governance in the Office of the President. The constitution provides an institutional framework for this task through the mandate of elected councils at all levels, but much work is needed to make these institutions function.

Domestic Security. The failure of the government to provide and protect domestic security and justice is a major reason its legitimacy has declined. The capture of the police and judiciary by factional and indeed criminal interests has made Afghan people see domestic security institutions as threats rather than protectors. Reform and restructuring of the security and justice institutions must be integrated into the reconstruction of governance. The domination of Afghanistan’s economy by illicit activities (mainly the drug trade) has been a driver of the corruption of these institutions. Transforming the criminalized economy (see below) is one major strategic piece. The government now must decide whether it is still possible to reform the police and the MoI within the current institutional structure, which provides for a totally centralized structure with no local accountability, or whether to empower communities to take responsibility for their own security. Security on roads, at borders, at markets, and in towns and cities will remain a governmental responsibility. Can the MoI be reformed, or will it have to be demobilized and a new one created, along the model used for the AMF and the ANA?

Political Elites. A central political question for establishment of domestic security and governance is how the government should relate to the de facto power holders – “warlords,” commanders, militia leaders, factional or ethnic leaders, strongmen – that have emerged over the past several decades. In some cases they overlap with more longstanding social elites (landlords, religious figures, big families), but in other cases they are “new” men who emerged in the war. Among the alternatives are:

1. Coopt and transform these leaders by appointing them to official functions; this requires establishment of a set of criteria to determine their eligibility, such as DIAG, accounting for past crimes, cutting ties with the drug trade, and mechanisms for monitoring. The guidelines do not appear to be clear and are affected by political and economic interests. This would be facilitated by programs such as do not now exist for helping them establish legitimate businesses or professions consistent with their status, providing they integrate themselves into new institutions.
2. Remove these leaders and either “hold them accountable” for their past actions or just sideline them, as the government and its partners build new institutions or revitalize pre-existing ones.
3. Use essentially political criteria for dealing with them: do they ally with the government and international forces in the counter-terrorism operation?

Elements of these policies are already in existence, in electoral vetting, DIAG, the senior appointments board, the civil service commission, and the action plan on transitional justice, but each policy area establishes them ad hoc through bargaining between the government and various donors. The various elements of the policy are not integrated into a common approach.

The government also needs to develop a strategic approach to the ulama and spiritual leaders. Policies on judicial reform and education are particularly important to this. For instance, in development of the judiciary does the government want to build a parallel secular judicial elite or transform and upgrade the qaziat? What tools does the government have to influence the religious authorities?

Economic Development. The economic development strategy includes investment in infrastructure for production and connectivity to domestic and international markets (roads, pipelines, electricity, water); investment in human capital (education, health); social protection; transformation of the criminalized economy; and regional and global integration. The basic strategic choices made about Afghanistan’s international strategic identity will affect decisions on which infrastructure to make a priority. The decision on the size and mode of financing of security services (and the rest of the public sector) will determine what rates of growth and extraction of public resources are need to finance the desired end state. Sectoral decisions on how to achieve the desired growth and human development will have to be consistent with the overall strategy. The transformation of the illicit (especially narcotics) economy while increasing the standard of living requires the integration of counter-narcotics into the governance, security, and development strategies.

Counter-Narcotics. Counter narcotics tools, including crop eradication (negotiated or forced), alternative livelihoods and other development programs, interdiction, law enforcement, anti-corruption measures, border security, anti-money laundering programs, and any other should not be considered as parts of a counter-narcotics strategy developed in parallel to strategies for other policy areas. Counter-narcotics tools should be considered as various forms of sanctions and incentives in the political negotiation over the future of the Afghan state and economy among government, its international backers, strongmen, communities, and various transnational forces including the drug industry.

With respect to the narcotics industry, it is vital to bear in mind that poppy production is not considered a criminal activity by the current social consensus in Afghanistan, whatever written laws (that no one reads) may say. Communities decide to devote a portion of their resources to poppy cultivation, even though they know it is un-Islamic and illegal, because they believe they need it for their own security and welfare. Poppy cultivation provides cash incomes, credit, finance, access to land, and employment. It is not considered deviant or anti-social behavior but a regrettable adaptation to insecurity and poverty. An attempt by the state to use threats or force to stop cultivation is not seen as legitimate action against criminals (deviants), but as an attack on a hard-pressed community that would not have made such a choice if alternatives were available.

One goal of counter-narcotics policy is to gradually transform participation in the narcotics industry into a crime, so that it can be handled through law enforcement. But this first requires a political process of legitimating the power of the state, including its adherence to the international counter-narcotics regime, through a political process. Technical assistance and capacity building can strengthen legitimate institutions, but they cannot make institutions legitimate.

Afghan experience shows that is possible to curb poppy production through political agreements between the state and communities, but that such agreements are sustainable only if the state and its supporter s offer adequate benefits to convince communities that it is safe to shift from the illicit activities they wish to leave. Communities need other livelihoods, such as jobs, not just other crops. They do not need the same level of gross cash income from licit economic activities as from illicit ones in order to be secure.

As currently planned, communities will agree to phase out poppy production over a period of years, as part of its overall contribution to security and development. The government similarly agrees to provide a range of public services over the same period. This policy is not a simple exchange of aid for ending poppy production, which international experience has shown is ineffective and vulnerable to defection from both sides. These agreements would define a comprehensive political, security, and development agreement between the state and communities – a local version of the Afghanistan Compact. Just as counter-narcotics policy is an integrated and cross-cutting theme of the Compact, so it will be a cross-cutting theme of these local compacts.

Taking the idea of a gradual transition seriously involves several components, including establishing the status of the crop during the agreed transition, investment in infrastructure (physical and institutional for development), and interim measures such as price supports or subsidies to provide economic support to communities undergoing the transition.

Investments would be required to create and strengthen licit institutions that would provide the public goods previously provided by the drug industry, including credit, extension services, marketing, and employment in industries of transformation. Some of these programs could be implemented through the National Solidarity Program.

But the benefit of those investments would not be felt in full for years. Until then other programs are needed to provide rural communities with support and incentives to pursue other livelihoods. These could include a program of price support for key commodities throughout the country (not only in poppy growing areas) and subsidies, if it is possible to administer them in existing conditions.

Finally, alternative livelihoods are not just or even mainly crops. In order to create more jobs, the countries that constitute the main market for illicit drugs manufactured from Afghan raw materials should enact legislation providing for preferential treatment for other Afghan exports, such as textiles. Such tariff treatment would encourage investors from Asian countries to move some operations into Afghanistan in order to capture those market segments.

At some point in the process of implementing these political agreements with communities, the social consensus would shift to seeing poppy cultivation as anti-social deviant behavior. At that point it would be appropriate to introduce crop eradication for those who continue to grow poppy despite collective agreements not to do so.

Implementation. No strategy can be formulated or implemented within the current institutional structures. There is increasing call for a higher level of coordination, but effective implementation of that coordination would require delegation of budgetary authority over expenditures to a collective body presided over by the coordinator, along the model of the ARTF. The pursuit of bilateral and parallel institutions by donors prevents the empowerment of Afghan institutions and implementation of a coordinated strategy. That does not mean that all projects must be implemented by the Afghan government. The Afghan government does not currently have the capacity to develop and implement all the projects that are needed. The most important element of coordination is not mechanism of implementation, but mechanism of decision making. The JCMB and the consultative groups now have purely consultative functions and no budgetary functions. The Compact and ANDS institutional structure, however, could be adapted to make it much more an executive rather than solely a monitoring body for the implementation of the Compact. This would be consistent with the needs of a integrated strategy.

The current security and development structures should also be rethought. PRTs were a response to the inability to expand ISAF. An expanded ISAF should focus on security, while an expanded UNAMA should focus on the provincial and regional coordination of political, governance, and development strategy. The UN, unlike NATO, is a multifunctional organization that includes agencies with all the relevant expertise.

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