AFGHANISTAN:While al-Qaeda has been curtailed, weak rule and threats from Pakistan pose problems
IT WAS a milestone the Obama administration would prefer to forget. Although little noticed at the time, the US and its allies in late November exceeded the nine years and 50 days that Soviet troops spent in Afghanistan before their ignominious withdrawal in 1989.
After much talk of deadlines over the past year, 2010 ends with the nagging sense that the day international forces leave Afghanistan remains far in the future.
Despite Obama’s attempts to appear upbeat when unveiling his recent review of strategy in Afghanistan, his assessment left several unanswered questions and the impression that the US and Nato-led missions there are, in many respects, running to stand still. Tellingly, every mention of signs of progress in the report came with a caveat noting that the gains are “fragile” and “reversible”. A year ago, Obama outlined his three objectives in Afghanistan: to deny al-Qaeda a safe haven; to reverse the Taliban’s momentum; and to bolster the capacity of the Afghan government and security forces so they can take responsibility for the country’s future. His new strategy involved extra funding and the deployment of 30,000 additional troops, bringing the number of US soldiers on the ground to 100,000.
Twelve months on, many of the ingredients fuelling the insurgency – a weak government with threadbare credibility in Kabul; festering political grievances; poor security; and the continuing presence of militant safe havens in Pakistan – remain stubbornly in place.
With limited progress made, and the loss of Gen Stanley McChrystal, who resigned in June after Rolling Stone published comments he made criticising the Obama administration, and envoy Richard Holbrooke, who died following emergency surgery just weeks ago, Obama’s much trumpeted counterinsurgency strategy appears to be fraying.
In the background, in the minds of US voters, is the question Obama knows will grow louder over the next year – why are 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan, at an annual cost of more than $100 billion? The most recent poll found a record 60 per cent of Americans believe the war is not worth fighting, and only 45 per cent approve of Obama’s handling of it.
As far as Obama’s three objectives go, al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan has certainly been diminished, but many of its leading figures are believed to be living over the border in Pakistan’s tribal badlands, along with a growing constellation of often overlapping militant groups including a homegrown Taliban.
In many respects, the challenges posed by nuclear-armed Pakistan, accused of clinging to a double game of nurturing some jihadi groups while battling others, appeared to outweigh those in Afghanistan this year. The situation was not helped by a weak coalition government in Islamabad and the impact of devastating floods that affected up to 20 million during the summer.
Questions remain over how much the US ally’s own long-term strategy in the region diverges from that of Washington.
The US military and the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), of which Ireland is one of more than 40 contributing nations, insist they are pushing back the Taliban in Afghanistan, pointing at gains in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. But the past year has also seen the insurgency prove its resilience and ability to regenerate as it spread northwards into regions once considered secure.
Two US intelligence reports, released before Obama announced his strategy review in December, seem at odds with White House claims. The documents suggest military progress is undermined by a feeble and corrupt Afghan government and Pakistan’s reluctance to crack down on militants hiding out on its side of the Durand Line.
A new report by Chatham House, scathing in its criticism of Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s regime, highlighted how “illegal land grabs, the political marginalisation of tribal and factional rivals and arbitrary detention have motivated Afghans to join or support the Taliban”. A recent BBC poll which surveyed public opinion in Afghanistan suggested that more Afghans feel that attacks against US or ISAF troops are justified than at any time since 2005.
Another grim assessment offered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that rising civilian casualties, internal displacement and poor medical care had created a dire humanitarian situation.
The ICRC said it expected fighting to increase in the coming year just as it had in 2010, which proved the deadliest year of the war since the Taliban were ousted in late 2001.
Few believe the Afghan army and police will be capable of taking primary responsibility for security anytime soon, and neither will the government in Kabul be ready to oversee those security forces. The Afghan national army may be meeting targets in terms of troop build-up, but the majority of recruits lack basic skills, including literacy.
The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, recently cautioned that “Afghanistan still lacks a cohesive national security strategy and the Afghan military and police remain dangerously fragmented and highly politicised”.
Concerns about the government of Mr Karzai, whom US diplomats have described as an unreliable and mercurial ally, have not abated. Members of his circle – including his brother, who heads Kandahar’s provincial council – have been accused of corruption. Outside Kabul’s hinterland, Mr Karzai’s authority is negligible, and his government the source of resentment exploited by the insurgents.
An embattled Mr Karzai recently told Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid that the so-called “surge” in the southern provinces had been “unhelpful,” turning cities into army outposts and alienating locals.
He also mused on the possibility of the war being ended through talks with Pakistan and Iran, arguing that Washington’s failure to curtail Islamabad’s support for the Taliban had left him with little choice but make his own overtures to Pakistan with a view to forging agreement with the Taliban.
There has been much talk about moves towards “reconciliation” with the Taliban this year. Indeed, Obama’s latest strategy review acknowledges the possibility of negotiation despite Washington’s previous reluctance to go any further than integrating low-level fighters who had peeled away from the insurgency. But the review does not address the prickly question of what “reconciliation” actually means, and what kind of Afghanistan is envisaged under such a scenario. Tentative efforts towards negotiation are already in train, but the process is fraught with difficulty. The discovery in November that an impostor purporting to be a senior Taliban commander had met Afghan officials was a reminder that “reconciliation” is likely to be long, slow and painstaking.
So back to talk of deadlines and the question of when US and ISAF forces can withdraw without igniting a wider conflagration. Washington has stressed that the pace of troop withdrawals planned to begin in July 2011 will be dependent on conditions at the time. A recent poll found that 54 per cent of Americans support the 2011 start date, while 27 per cent say they should begin before that. Another poll found that a majority of Afghans believe the international forces should leave by mid-2011 or earlier.
A more important date is 2014 – the year Washington wants to be able to hand over lead security responsibility to the Afghans. Hardly anyone believes they will be ready.
Wags in Kabul joke that “2014 is the new 2011”. Few dare predict what happens after that. In Afghanistan, there are no shortcuts.