Afghanistan

Here's an article I wrote on Afghanistan a few weeks ago. Do feel free to leave comments.

Afghanistan: beyond the military quagmire

The number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 has crept well past the 200 mark. Every announcement of a fatality is met with sadness as well as frustration. Our troops are severely under-resourced and the Government‘s disastrous handling of the war has left sections of the public wondering why our troops continue to be deployed in a seemingly unwinnable war.

Surely, if the goal of going into Afghanistan was to prevent the country slipping once again into breeding ground for terrorists and to ensure against attacks on British soil, then a military strategy alone cannot stabilise Afghanistan. Without working, legitimate machines of government and civil society, without enforcement of the rule of law, without sustained development, Afghanistan will disintegrate once more and worse still, destabilise neighbouring Pakistan, triggering a regional crisis.

In 2005, Afghanistan ranked 117 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Now the country flounders at 176, with only Iraq, Haiti, Myanmar and Somalia worse off. The Government has been marred by allegations of corruption. Huge wealth has been amassed by the Karzai family, especially the President’s brothers, Mahmoud Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai (who is Chairman of the provincial council in Kandahar and is blamed for the much of the corruption). The political elite are dominated by warlords who in the nineties were responsible for the violence, human rights abuses and lack of order that culminated in the rise of the Taliban. They cannot be the long term solution for the country, nor will ordinary Afghans have much faith in the system whilst their grip on power remains.

The Afghan Government has done little to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans who continue to suffer from lack of education and healthcare, poor public services and infrastructure, inequality and lack of security. The low turnout in the presidential elections can be attributed as much to despair at the Afghan Government as Taliban led fear and intimidation. The international community has remained neutral vis-à-vis choice of candidate hoping to ensure that the election is seen as independent from foreign interference. However, once the outcome of presidential elections is determined, the West must do more to exert influence on the Afghan Government to curb corruption and cronyism, improve on its delivery and integrate the disillusioned Pashtuns.

Afghanistan is made up of a patchwork of different ethnic groups: Turkoman, Uzbek, Tajik, Nuristani, Farsswa, Aimaq, Hazara and Pashtun tribes. The Tajiks represent 25% of the population and they dominated the Northern Alliance. When the Taliban were toppled, the Tajiks were given the most important ministries and continue to dominate key posts. However, the largest ethnic group are the Pashtuns who constitute 40% of Afghans, living in the south and east, but also spread across the border into northwest Pakistan. Despite being Pashtun himself, Karzai has alienated the Pashtun tribes, who feel increasing support for the resurgent Taliban. If the Pashtun tribes can be fairly accommodated and given a legitimate voice within Afghan politics, it would add legitimacy to the institutions of Government and pull the rug of support from under the Taliban and stem the rise of extremism.

The argument has recently been made that in order to marginalise the extremists, the international community may need to negotiate with the so-called “moderate” Taliban movement i.e. those marginalised groups who do not share the extremist ideology but have sided with the Taliban as they feel aggrieved for losing power in recent years or are frustrated by the lack of development bad governance and sense of unjust persecution in their areas. However, such a strategy should be tread very carefully indeed. There can be no accommodation with extreme elements that are ready to kill our troops and committed to returning Afghanistan to an Islamist state.

The Afghan economy has grown since the fall of the Taliban regime, fuelled by development aid especially for construction and power generation. An August 2009 Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the US Senate, stated the scale of the development problem in Afghanistan: “Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan is not a reconstruction project—it is a construction project”.

Agricultural and rural development has to remain a priority for donor countries in the years ahead. Over 75% of the Afghan people live in rural areas where agriculture is the primary activity and contributes to 50% of the GDP (if one excludes opium production). However growth of the agricultural sector is curtailed by the deterioration of technology, infrastructure, roads, rural institutions, education, natural resources such as forests and rangeland, irrigation and water supply as a result of conflict, drought, exploitation and lack of maintenance. Access to finance needs to be improved. The setting up marketing infrastructure and a regulatory environment that limits post-harvest losses may help galvanise private sector investment. The country’s potential for exports in commodities such as dried fruit, nuts, grapes, and other orchard crops needs to be enhanced - prior to the years of conflict, Afghanistan was the leading exporter of pistachios and supplied 20% of the total global market for raisins.

Then there is the issue of poppy production. Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s opiates, and drugs account for half of the country’s real GDP. There has been success this year in reducing dependency, with a 33% reduction in poppy growing in Helmand province and a 22% reduction across the rest of the country. This has been due to a number of factors: governor leadership; a more aggressive counter-narcotics offensive; sustainable alternatives and terms of trade more favourable to legal crops and the successful introduction of food zones to promote legal farming.

Finally, the development of the natural gas sector in Afghanistan can be an important source of future revenue with nearly 50 billion cubic meters of proven natural gas reserves in the country.

Conclusion

We should have a proper exit strategy in Afghanistan. We need to be clear as to our objectives and what will then be considered a success in Afghanistan. Of course the training of the Afghan army and police must be intensified so that they are able to take over the security of the country. The war effort has to be reinforced with swift deployment of correct equipment and sufficient personnel to Helmand province. However, a military strategy alone will not secure the future of Afghanistan. Its government must have legitimacy, civil society has to be able to prosper, and the economy must develop to a level of self-sufficiency.

Our troops must not have died in vain. Our mission in Afghanistan needs to have laid the foundations for peace, development and long-term stability. There is still time to turn things around.