No clear path in Afghanistan —Najmuddin A Shaikh

No clear path in Afghanistan —Najmuddin A Shaikh

While all leaders are clear that abandoning Afghanistan is not an option, there appears to be a growing sentiment that some way should be found to enable NATO forces to declare victory and leave

The preliminary count in the Afghan election has been completed by the Independent Election Commission: President Karzai won 54.6 percent of the vote, while his principal opponent Abdullah Abdullah won 27.8 percent. Under international pressure, Karzai has not declared victory and his people have indicated that they will wait until the Electoral Complaints Commission — UN-appointed and headed by a Canadian — has completed its investigations and certified the results.

This body has thrown out results from 83 polling stations, “quarantined” those of 600 others, and called for a recount from another 10 percent. What this means in practice was spelt out by the EU monitors who said they believed that the tally included 1.5 million suspicious ballots, or more than one of every four votes cast. According to them, 1.1 million suspicious votes belonged to Karzai and 300,000 to Abdullah.

Essentially, one-fourth of the total votes cast have been called into question. More importantly, while the recount or cancellation of some or all of these votes may not change Karzai’s clear lead, it could leave Karzai with less than 50 percent of the total vote, necessitating a run-off election between the two leading contenders.

IEC officials have said that the recount or quarantine of votes ordered by the ECC will take time, not just weeks but perhaps months. If the recount does put Karzai under the magic 50.1 percent, a runoff election will have to be held but given the weather conditions in Afghanistan this would mean having to wait until April.

Afghanistan then would have no legitimate government for the next seven months — a period that could be critical, given the spread of the Taliban insurgency and the need therefore to formulate and implement aggressive policies to check their advance. The International Council on Security and Development (formerly SENLIS) has now said that there is a permanent Taliban presence in 80 percent of Afghanistan, an advance from the 72 percent they had estimated in December 2008.

In Europe and more importantly in the United States, public support for continued engagement is Afghanistan is dropping rapidly. By September 1, 300 foreign troops had been killed in Afghanistan, the highest loss suffered in one year. There is no doubt that the misgivings about continued engagement in Afghanistan have only been strengthened by the election fraud and the prospect of there being no legitimate Afghan government in power.

The voices of those like conservative George Will, who proposed that the threat of an Al Qaeda attack should be handled by using drone and other aerial attacks from offshore facilities, are now gathering force. They are drawing strength from the recent success in eliminating, through the use of offshore Special Forces, an Al Qaeda leader in Somalia; the killing of the Jemaah Islamiyah leader Noordin Mohammad Top, the alleged mastermind of fatal bombings in Bali and Jakarta by the Indonesian forces presumably with assistance from American intelligence; and the drone attack in Pakistan which killed the Uzbek Najmuddin Jalolov and the Pakistani Ilyas Kashmiri.

So far, the balance of opinion seems to be that these successes notwithstanding, only a sustained presence on the ground in Afghanistan and the building of Afghan capacity could prevent the country from becoming once again a safe haven for terrorist groups. It is not clear however for how long this self-evident truth will remain the determinant of policy.

There are already indications that some unrealistic notions are being entertained. Prime Minister Brown has talked about completing the training of a 134,000 Afghan troops by the end of 2010 even though he is well aware that of the 89,000-strong Afghan National Army, only 7 battalions or some 8,000 soldiers were considered ready for independent operations according to a Pentagon assessment late last year.

The British have already joined the Germans, the French and the Italians in asking the UN Secretary General to convene an international conference on Afghanistan by the end of the year at which the principal objective would be to quicken the pace at which Afghan forces were asked to take over security responsibilities, allowing NATO forces to withdraw.

While all leaders are clear that abandoning Afghanistan is not an option, there appears to be a growing sentiment that some way should be found to enable NATO forces to declare victory and leave. No leader in Europe or even in the US is in a position to make the case to domestic public opinion for standing firm in Afghanistan, particularly when there is no legitimate government, even though most of them realise the disastrous consequences for the region of an untimely disengagement. One thing that could perhaps turn the tide is a resolution of the election imbroglio.

At a recent international conference where Afghanistan was one of the principal subjects, I had suggested that Karzai’s principal opponents — Abdullah Abdullah, Bashardoost and Ashraf Ghani — be persuaded in the larger interest of the country to accept Karzai’s re-election in return for Karzai’s agreement to set up an Advisory Council consisting of these four and another two Afghans of impeccable integrity to decide on all appointments, and another body of Afghans selected by this Advisory Council and vested with wide judicial powers to tackle the problem of corruption. It did not elicit much of a positive response possibly because for the moment it seems that Abdullah Abdullah is standing out against any coalition with Karzai.

Another close observer of the Afghan scene has proposed that Karzai be persuaded to convene a Loi Jirga which could then appoint a government that could provide governance until fresh elections were held. Again this would run against the sorry experience of past Loi Jirgas when the nomination for participation was found to be a clearly tainted process.

Yet others have proposed that the time-honoured practice of bribery should be used to wean away the foot soldiers of the Taliban. It was calculated that the Taliban have some 15,000 soldiers getting around $10 per day and perhaps $75 a day for planting explosives. If the Americans were to offer $20 per day to each of them, the total cost would be less than $120 million annually, a small fraction of the $65 billion that the American defence budget provides for the war in Afghanistan. Cynically, it is said, as was done during the days of the Afghan Jihad, that while “you cannot buy an Afghan you can rent him”.

Others however know that this was what could have been done in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 but cannot now be done successfully because the intelligence is not good enough and because the Taliban are seen to be in the ascendancy. Nothing but a long sustained effort to clear and hold areas and provide good governance will create the ambience in which the weaning away of the Taliban from their hard line leadership can be attempted.

I see no alternative to the option I have suggested. Will the West be willing to push for it? Will the Afghan contenders have the sagacity to accept it as a way of making the best of a bad bargain? Certainly Abdullah Abdullah should know that in a fair election Karzai will win, particularly if he is the only Pashtun and if he has his alliances with Fahim, Dostum and Khalili. Surely he should know that this may be the only way to break the stranglehold that corrupt warlords now have on the administration and to relieve the frustrations of the people whose suffering at the hands of the corrupt administration is as great as it is at the hands of the oppressive Taliban.

The writer is a former foreign secretary