Afghanistan’s Turbulent Past Could Once Again Become Its Future

Lt General R K Sawhney, Distinguished Fellow, VIF

Sushant Sareen, Senior Fellow, VIF

More than a decade after the US and its allies ousted the monstrous Taliban regime and gave the people of Afghanistan a level of stability and progress that they had not known in decades, it seems that things could well be coming a full circle. Ironically, someone who is perceived to be a prodigy of the Americans who has been fostered on Afghanistan through an election that was marred by ‘industrial scale fraud’ is likely to be person who is going to push Afghanistan towards instability and conflict, undermining the achievements for which a very heavy price in men and money was paid not just by Afghanistan but also by the international community. Worse, the new President of Afghanistan is not just seeking security from, but also appears to be mortgaging Afghanistan’s future to, the very country – Pakistan – that has been responsible for sabotaging the efforts of the international community to bring peace to Afghanistan.

Although the political transition from the former President Hamid Karzai to his successor was botched by the horribly rigged electoral process that catapulted a political light weight like Ashraf Ghani to the Presidency, there was some hope that the formation of the National Unity Government would help in getting over the bitter taste left by the stolen election. But it increasingly seems as though Ashraf Ghani is not going to live up to his side of the bargain, especially in terms of sharing power with other stakeholders and building a consensus on critical political, security and foreign policy issues.

By all accounts, even though Dr Abdullah Abdullah has been made the Chief Executive (a post that enjoys no constitutional sanctity) and had been promised a fair share in distribution of cabinet berths, Ghani appears to be manoeuvring to reduce Abdullah and his supporters into mere embellishments with no real power and no say in anything. This power grab by a man whose own legitimacy is in question is already causing a lot of heart burn and is likely to make cohabitation very difficult. Some Afghan analysts are of the view that the unilateral shifts affected by Ghani in foreign and security policy by literally agreeing to become a vassal of the GHQ in Rawalpindi – his ‘calling on’ the Pakistan Army Chief during his recent visit to Pakistan left no doubt about which way he is swinging – has only added to the sense of disquiet inside Afghanistan.

Already under strain, if the fragile political arrangement breaks down, political stability will become the first casualty, something that will work to the advantage of the Taliban and their backers across the Durand Line. Ashraf Ghani’s detractors believe that he is going all-out in trying to appease Pakistan in the fond hope that with a ‘friendly’, even compliant, government in Kabul, Pakistan will not only assist in a rapprochement with the Taliban but also stop all overt and covert hostile action inside Afghanistan by its proxies. In other words, Ghani’s play is to give the Pakistanis everything they want in return for them ensuring his own survival in Kabul.

In the quest to buy his insurance in Rawalpindi, Ashraf Ghani is engaged in striking closer relations with Pakistan’s allies, namely China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He apparently has come to believe that financial support from these countries will compensate for any loss of assistance from countries like India and even some Western countries and therefore pave the way for an economic transition from an aid dependent to a self-sustaining economic model. Clearly, for Ghani, getting Pakistan on board is the key to successfully making not just the political but also the economic and security transition.

On the face of it, Ashraf Ghani’s kowtowing to Pakistan may appear to be making the best of a bad bargain. But this policy shift is likely to crumble when pitted against the reality of the Taliban. By casting his lot with Pakistan, Ghani will end up playing the Pakistani game in which he will either become a puppet or worse become redundant and therefore expendable. The Pakistani insistence on giving the Taliban a stake in power is quite simply unworkable because any power sharing agreement with the Taliban will not be worth the paper it is written on. Given that the Taliban leader claims to be Amir-ul-Momineen (leader of the faithful), he just cannot and will not accept such an arrangement and will sooner rather than later make a grab for total power.

Even if Pakistan is able to somehow bulldoze Mullah Omar into some kind of power sharing agreement with the Ashraf Ghani regime, it isn’t clear how this will wash down in the rank and file of not just the Taliban but also the anti-Taliban forces. Chances are that a large section of the Taliban fighters will repudiate Mullah Omar if he shows any flexibility, which in any case he doesn’t need to because he is pretty much sure he is on the winning path. The real question will, however, be what the Pakistanis will do if Mullah Omar refuses to any deal with Ghani. Will Pakistan declare war on the Afghan Taliban? Highly unlikely. And even if they do, it will in all likelihood mean prolonged instability in the entire swathe of territory straddling the Durand Line and even beyond. This means that the economic dividend being dreamed by Ghani and also by the Pakistanis – pipelines, trade and transit, energy corridor, minerals and what have you – will go up in smoke.

For their part, the anti-Taliban forces, which comprise the bulk of the army and other security agencies are also not going to take kindly to any major concession to the Taliban which leaves them marginalised and irrelevant in the scheme of power. Given that Ashraf Ghani has very little purchase with the Army, there is a strong possibility that he may not be able to bring the military to accept any Faustian bargain with the Taliban. There is also bound to be unease in the Afghan Army over Ghani agreeing to use Pakistani military training facilities for the Afghan officers and soldiers. This effectively means asking the Afghan military to take training from the very people who are responsible for supporting, supplying and providing sanctuary to the terrorists against whom the Afghan Army is fighting. Even if he is given the benefit of doubt and his intentions are not questioned, it is difficult to disregard that Ashraf Ghani is sending completely fuzzy signals to the security forces about who the enemy is, who they have to fight and how they have to fight. The more uncharitable assessment of Ghani’s plans for the Army would be that he is bartering the interests of the Afghan people and state for his own political survival, which too is doubtful.

Actually much of what Ghani is trying to do has been tried by his predecessor with very little to show for it. But while Hamid Karzai could afford to see his outreach to Pakistan fail because he had the benefit of US-led International forces propping up his government militarily and monetarily, much of this support will not be there for Ghani. In other words, he doesn’t have too much slack to play around with. A few wrong moves, some of which he has already made, and before he knows it, the entire edifice could start to crumble. His expectations of the Chinese, Saudis and Turks bailing him out are unrealistic. Worse, the Americans and other Western countries are losing interest in Afghanistan. Even though the Americans are assuring their watered down presence until at least 2016, there is a good chance they may leave much sooner. And the day they leave, the gravy train that had been propping up the Afghan state could stop abruptly. As far as the Americans are concerned, it seems they have no real problem with the prospect of the Chinese calling the shots through the Pakistanis in Afghanistan. Whether this tack will work and the Chinese will play ball in the way the Americans would like them to is another matter.

As far as India is concerned, Ashraf Ghani has made it quite clear that he has no use for India and has relegated it to the fourth circle of his priority countries. Frankly, part of the blame for this sort of relegation must be borne by India, especially the previous government which rooted for Ghani over Dr Abdullah partly because they were taken in by his smooth words professing eternal friendship, partly because they bought into the nonsense of backing a Pashtun, and partly because they somehow believed that Abdullah was getting too close to the Pakistanis. It is of course another matter that who India rooted was hardly important because things were going to be decided not by India but by the Americans and others who had decided to back Ashraf Ghani over Abdullah. But to the extent that India’s stance rubbed its friends the wrong way, it has been a bit of a setback. The worst mistake that was made by the UPA government was its extreme reluctance to provide the weapons and equipment that the Karzai government wanted to bolster its defence against overt and covert aggression from Pakistan. Ostensibly this was done because Manmohan Singh and his advisors were more mindful of Pakistani sensitivities than Afghan requirements. This disastrous policy not only created an impression that India was an unreliable partner, but worse, convinced some Afghans that if India too is giving more credence to Pakistan than to Afghanistan, then perhaps the Afghans are better off by dealing with Pakistan rather than relying upon India. Already India has a terrible reputation of not standing by its friends and this impression has only got strengthened in the backdrop of developments in Afghanistan.

All this is not to suggest that India has no cards to play. But before India plays any cards, it must understand that it was always a bit of a marginal player in Afghanistan. Partly for reasons of geography, military and economic strength - simply put, India isn’t quite America – and partly for reasons emanating from the way India conducted its Afghan policy – riding piggy back on the Americans and even giving in to them on its principled objection against delinking of Taliban from Al Qaeda – it was going to play at best a marginal role in determining the course of events in Afghanistan. To be sure, India’s development effort and its soft power earned it tremendous goodwill in Afghanistan. But this was never going to be worth much in the face of use of hard power by the enemies of Afghanistan. There was a time, in the early years after the ouster of the Taliban that India could have played a more pro-active role and tied the Afghans closely with Indian interests. But back then, the Americans wanted to keep India’s role limited to keep the Pakistanis happy. By the time the Americans realised that the Pakistanis had outplayed them with their treachery, and they wanted India to commit itself to Afghanistan, it would have been foolish for India to clean up the mess that the Americans were leaving behind.

While India did share a close relationship with the Afghan security establishment and there was cooperation on intelligence matters relating to the terrorist threat that both countries faced from the same source, this was a normal state to state relationship between two friendly countries and wasn’t directed against any third country. And yet, Pakistan created a bogey out of this which it then used to justify its sponsorship and support for the Taliban. What was most galling was the manner in which the specious narrative of Pakistan found subscribers in the West who spoke about an India-Pakistan proxy war in Afghanistan. These people never bothered to ask as to how come if a proxy war was being fought, then diplomats and citizens of only one country were on the receiving end of terror attacks while those of the other country strutted about as though they owned Afghanistan. If India had actually been involved in a proxy war, surely there would have been some retaliation against Pakistanis in Afghanistan, but this never happened.

The fact, however, is that India has a vital interest in Afghanistan. This interest is essentially limited to seeing Afghanistan become a stable and secure country. Historically, instability in Afghanistan has destabilised India. For stability in Afghanistan it is important that it doesn’t become a base for international or regional terrorists. This is an interest that India needs to protect, something it can do despite limitations of geography. India has enough friends in Afghanistan who share the same interest and regardless of what Ashraf Ghani does, India can continue to play a role in Afghanistan, directly or indirectly. The simple logic of Afghanistan is that there will always be people who will reach out to India for help and assistance. When this happens, India should be ready to play the role that it needs to for stabilising Afghanistan. In the meantime, India needs to build its economic strength and its military muscle. Most of all, India needs to pay attention to border security and beefing up its security grid not just along its western borders but also its other land and sea borders.

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Published Date: 24^th November 2014, Imagesource: http://i1.tribune.com.pk

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

Afghanistan: Between Brinkmanship and Statesmanship

Lt General R K Sawhney, Distinguished Fellow, VIF

Sushant Sareen, Senior Fellow, VIF

The worst fears about Afghanistan appear to be coming true. For more than a year now, there was a virtual consensus, not just in the international community but also within Afghanistan, that the future of the country was critically dependent on a credible presidential election in 2014. So much so that the prospects for relatively smooth security and economic transition was also contingent on an orderly political transition from President Karzai to his successor. But despite a fair, clean, transparent and untainted election which was accepted by all stakeholders being a sine qua non for a stable and secure future of Afghanistan, the election was subjected to what the front-runner Dr Abdullah Abdullah has called ‘fraud on an industrial scale’. This monumental folly has now put the entire future of Afghanistan at stake and while efforts are underway to resolve the dispute over the elections, the damage has been done.

All is, however, still not lost. If efforts at damage control go beyond merely papering over the deep differences between the leading candidates and their supporters, and are successful in bridging the widening chasm of suspicion and distrust between them, then Afghanistan still stands a good chance of pulling back from the brink. Despite the anger and resentment caused by the electoral fraud, the two main candidates have displayed remarkable sense of responsibility and maturity by not letting things spiral out of control. But whether they can rein in their supporters indefinitely is something that will depend on their political sagacity and skill. Afghans as a people can be amazingly pragmatic and some of this is manifest in the way both Dr Ashraf Ghani and Dr Abdullah have agreed to back off from a headlong confrontation. The attitude of the leading Afghan politicians, when juxtaposed with the behaviour of Pakistani politicians where the opposition is virtually on the war path against the government and challenging an election that has been internationally recognised as credible, generates a lot more optimism about Afghanistan than it does about Afghanistan’s tormentor, Pakistan.

Frankly, Dr Abdullah’s rejection of the verdict that emerged after the run-off election is entirely understandable. Not only did he establish a clear lead over his nearest rival, Dr Ashraf Ghani, and came within sniffing distance of the 50%+1 vote in the first round, he also managed to get endorsements from most of the candidates who did not qualify for the run-off. Add the votes polled by losing candidates like former foreign minister Zalmai Rassoul, the religious leader Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf and the influential Pashtun leader Gul Agha Sherzai, all of whom endorsed Dr Abdullah in the run-off, and it was clear that he would romp home easily. His candidature received traction among not just the non-Pashtun Afghans but also among large sections of Pashtuns who saw in him a leader with not just potential to end the feckless governance under outgoing president Hamid Karzai, but also lead Afghanistan out of the impending crisis that loomed against the backdrop of the withdrawal of foreign forces.

According to Dr Abdullah’s supporters, there were other clear advantages that their candidate enjoyed over Dr Ghani. They point out that Dr Abdullah’s credentials of having fought against both the Soviet occupation and the Taliban tyranny were well established. Compared to him, they say, Dr Ghani was comfortably living in the USA when Afghanistan went through its worst period in recent history. They also feel that at a time when Afghanistan faces the real threat of another Taliban offensive, Afghanistan would probably be better off with Dr Abdullah at the helm. Politically, Dr Abdullah not only is seen as a charismatic leader but also as someone with the knack to build bridges across ethnic communities. Dr Ghani, on the other hand, was seen as stand-offish, less than even tempered and someone with an intellect that refused to suffer fools, a quality so critical for success in politics. For all his erudition, brilliance, administrative skill and, most of all honesty, Dr Ghani would probably have to make concerted efforts to take people along and build consensus across communities.

The most critical factor in favour of Dr Abdullah is his standing and credibility among the leadership of the Afghan National Army (ANA). Although the ANA has no Bonapartist tendencies of the kind displayed by the Pakistan Army, and the officer class still looks up to the civilian leadership, given the size of Tajik footprint in the ANA, it would not be prudent to leave Dr Abdullah out in the cold or to antagonise and humiliate him and his supporters. If ever a situation developed where Dr Abdullah and his supporters disassociated themselves from lending support to an Ashraf Ghani led dispensation, there was a good possibility that the ANA’s loyalties to the government could be severely tested. At a time when the ANA needed to be strengthened to confront the threat posed by the resurgent Taliban, any such division could well sound the death knell of the post Bonn accord system that prevails currently in Afghanistan. In other words, seen from the prism of security, Dr Abdullah emerged as a better bet over Dr Ghani. This is even more so in the light of the fact that while some Pashtuns might have voted for Dr Ghani, it is unlikely that the Pashtuns as a whole or even the anti-Taliban Pashtuns would rally around him against the Taliban in the same way as the non-Pashtuns and anti-Taliban Pashtuns would around Dr Abdullah. It is also important to factor in that Dr Abdullah’s supporters, both within the government i.e. ANA and outside of the government have the firepower and determination to resist the Taliban, something that cannot matched by those supporting Dr Ghani.

The security dimension of the political equation has acquired even more salience in light of the emerging Pakistani strategy. The much hyped Operation Zarb-e-Azb that the Pakistan Army has launched against the Jihadists of all persuasions based in North Waziristan is aimed more at pushing the war inside Afghanistan and securing Pakistani territory than against jihadist terror groups. By pushing into Afghanistan notorious terror groups like the Haqqani Network, TTP and pro-Taliban groups like the one led by Gul Bahadur, the Pakistanis are trying to fill the vacuum that is expected to result from the drawdown of foreign forces. Once the Taliban capture territory in parts of South and East Afghanistan, it will vastly improve their negotiating power, and perhaps even their prospects for extending their malevolence across the country. The massive spike in terror attacks coupled with Taliban offensive in some areas in South Afghanistan to capture territory from which they had been ousted a couple of years back, is a clear indication of what the Pakistanis are trying to do. Small wonder then that they are not particularly bothered about which of the two leading candidates gets to stay in the Arg.

All these things were known before the election process started. And it is precisely for all these reasons that an above board election was so important. A lot of the blame for the electoral fraud perpetrated during the run-off is being heaped on the outgoing President Hamid Karzai who wants to continue playing a role in the affairs of state. Karzai knew that he wouldn’t get much lift from Dr Abdullah. He was more hopeful about Dr Ghani and that’s why he used (or misused) his influence and contacts to ensure an outcome that favoured his favourite. The only problem was that the sheer scale of the fraud exposed the entire exercise. For Dr Abdullah, who had been cheated in the last presidential election, this was the second time an election was being stolen. Naturally, he refused to accept the result. Even more than him, his supporters were outraged and all set to push things over the edge, what with demands for declaring a parallel government and forcibly occupying the Presidential Palace.

In a remarkable display of restraint and statesmanship, Dr Abdullah did not let matters spiral out of control. This was a huge political risk he took because there was a good chance that his supporters might have abandoned him and taken matters in their own hands. Thankfully this did not happen. Meanwhile, the Americans, jumped into the act to put things back on the rails. Apart from Karzai, the Americans must also share their part of the blame for the election mess. There is talk that the Americans went along with the fraud partly because they considered Dr Ghani to be their man and partly because as a Pashtun, Dr Ghani would be more palatable for the Pashtun community and as such would serve as an effective counter to the predominantly Pashtun Taliban. It is of course another matter that the Americans should have understood that if a Pashtun Karzai failed to turn the Pashtuns against the Taliban, there was no reason or guarantee that Dr Ghani would succeed.

Be that as it may, the Americans managed to get both the leading candidates to agree to a formula for resolving the fracas over the elections. Here credit must be given to Dr Ghani for also displaying statesmanship in accepting the formula worked out by the Americans. It is easy to disparage the leading candidates by saying they had no choice but to agree. But anyone with even a modicum of understanding of Afghan character knows that just as they have an enormous capacity for being pragmatic, they also can be extremely bloody minded, obstinate and obdurate when they want to be regardless of the consequences.

As things stand, the situation remains fragile. Both sides have agreed to a complete audit of the votes polled and have agreed to whatever result emerges from this audit. But already there are serious disagreements on what constitutes a valid vote and how the invalid or fraud votes will be filtered out. Given the magnitude of fraudulent voting, it is unlikely that the result of the run-off will change. The problem is that whether the result remains the same or it changes in favour of Dr Abdullah, it will cause its own problems. Fortunately, this has been already gamed and a sort of power sharing formula has been worked out. Under this formula, the winner will become President and the losing candidate will become the chief of the executive council, a sort of de facto Prime Minister. The grapevine is that in the government of national unity that will be formed, important ministries like Interior, Foreign, Finance and Defence will be farmed out to the de facto PM who will appoint his people. A couple of years down the line, the constitutional reforms will be undertaken which will make the position of Prime Minister de jure. There are indications that Dr Abdullah has reconciled to heading the Executive council.

It is still not clear how this formula will play out. There are also questions about how the supporters of the rival candidates will take this formula. The enormous heartburn caused by the electoral fraud will need a lot of political sagacity to be put behind so that Afghanistan can move ahead. But apart from the statesmanship that the main political leaders are displaying, one important reason why things are not beyond retrieval is that the Afghans have no desire to see their country descend into political chaos. Nor for that matter do they have any intention of splitting their country along ethnic lines. They may mobilise politically along ethnic lines, but an ethnic division is a big no-no for every Afghan. But the new government will have to ensure that the kind of fraud that took place this time is never repeated. This means that the incoming government will have to undertake deep reforms in the election system so that the democratic urgings and aspirations of the Afghans are fulfilled in full measure.

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Published Date: 5^th August 2014, Image source: http://assets.nydailynews.com

Afghanistan Is Far from Being Lost: A Situation Report From The Ground

Lt General (Retd) R K Sawhney, 

Distinguished Fellow, VIF

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

First Impressions: Uncertainty, yes; but also Optimism about future

The creeping sense of despondency, even defeatism, over the future of Afghanistan post 2014 that seems to have set in among a section of the strategic community and top policy makers in New Delhi is not just ill informed but also quite unnecessary. Regardless of the line being plugged by some Western boy-scout journalists and analysts who tend to view the world from a Political Science 101 perspective in which everything is seen and evaluated from what is ideal rather than what is real, Afghanistan is not lost. While it is true that the US-led international forces haven’t really succeeded in pacifying the country and eliminating the Islamist insurgency, the tendency to heap the blame of their failures (which are really the result of closing their eyes to Pakistani shenanigans and double-game in the War on Terror) on the Hamid Karzai led dispensation is to say the least disingenuous.

Notwithstanding all the problems that the Afghan state faces – fragile security situation, weak economic base, governance deficit, fledgling institutions, pervasive corruption etc. – a Taliban takeover that many in India and rest of the world fear is by no means inevitable. If the international community continues to support the Afghan government with monetary and military assistance for at least another decade i.e. until 2025, then not only will the Taliban be defeated, but Afghanistan will be able to realise its potential of emerging as a fairly stable and relatively functional democratic state. Indeed, there is a far greater chance of Afghanistan pulling through than there is of its tormentor Pakistan getting out of the self created terrorist hole that it finds itself in. The caveat is, of course, that the international community doesn't abandon Afghanistan and undermine its tremendous achievements of the last decade. Compared to Afghanistan, pumping money into Pakistan to stabilise it is going to prove utterly counter-productive. Counter intuitive though it may sound, the fact is that pulling the plug on Pakistan rather than Afghanistan is what could lead to better results in terms of reining in and ultimately eliminating the jihadist terrorist networks in the AfPak region. This would force Pakistan to change its strategic policy framework. Continued support to Afghanistan is not throwing good money after bad; pumping money into Pakistan is.

To be sure, Afghanistan faces monumental challenges. Interestingly, even top Afghan officials don't try and gloss over the enormous problems that confront their country. But unlike the outsiders who appear to be all set to throw in the towel because they think these problems are insurmountable, the Afghans are showing remarkable resoluteness in improving their capacity and ability to grapple with the problems that their country faces. There is undoubtedly a growing sense of uncertainty that seems to gripping many Afghans. But this isn't so much because the Afghans have given up but more because it is being fuelled by the growing apprehension among the Afghans that the rest of the world is in the process of giving up on them. There is palpable concern among Afghans that the international community is getting ready to cut and run and even turn its back on Afghanistan and write it off as a bad nightmare. More than anything else, this faux conjecture that the Afghan state will not be able to hold its own against the Taliban onslaught after the withdrawal of the Western troops’ which is causing more damage than anything that the Taliban and their patrons across the Durand Line have thrown at the Afghan state. Senior Afghan officials and politicians are mindful that they need to demolish this conjecture and change the narrative in order to re-instil confidence among the public within Afghanistan and without. If they manage this, worsting the Taliban won’t be very difficult.

More difficult than getting rid of the Taliban, however, will be the task of nation building, which is still pretty much a work in progress. The institutions of state and society in Afghanistan –army, political system, judiciary, civil service, civil society etc. – are still in their infancy and therefore vulnerable. They need time to grow and strike deep roots. Any premature or hasty and ill-thought out pulling out of support, whether for reasons of political correctness, a Faustian strategic bargain, simple exhaustion with involvement in Afghanistan or even financial problems back home, will pretty much mean pushing back Afghanistan into chaos. Apart from institutions, the Afghans need to start thinking of putting their economy on more solid footing. This means steadily lowering the dependence on foreign aid and assistance and becoming self sufficient. Afghanistan has enough going for it to be able to manage without external hand-outs. But again they need time and political stability in order to develop their capacity to be able to gain economically from their mineral wealth and their geographical location at the cross-roads of Middle-East, Central Asia, South Asia and China.

Herat Dialogue: a peek into what people, local and foreign, are thinking

The Second Herat Security Dialogue organised by the Afghan Institute of Strategic Studies offered an excellent insight into not only how the international community perceives the situation in Afghanistan but also how Afghans – politicians, officials, academics and students – see their country and its future. Even though the sense of uncertainty about the future was pervasive among the participants, both locals and outsiders, there was an underlying hope and even confidence that things would work out. The tantalising prospect of Afghanistan emerging as not just a bridge between different regions but also a regional trade and transit hub for pipelines, power lines and highways clearly suggested that Afghanistan need not be a basket case economy forever. Add to this the potential for exploiting minerals – copper, gold, oil and rare metals – and there was no reason why Afghanistan couldn’t emerge as a fairly prosperous country. One session of the Herat Dialogue dealt with the need to rediscover Afghanistan’s syncretic Sufi roots and traditions of tolerance which could be a potent antidote to the poison of radicalism being spread by Al Qaeda and Taliban. But quite understandably, these positive factors seemed to be dominated by the concerns over how the security and political situation would unfold in the coming months.

No one really subscribed to the possibility that the state would collapse like a house of cards after the drawdown. A return to the Taliban rule of the 1990s was also rejected, as was the probability of another civil war breaking out. At the same time, it was openly and readily acknowledged that while the situation was evenly balanced for now, it could deteriorate very fast and spiral out of control if the political setup started unravelling. In fact, how the politics plays out in the coming months will be just as critical in deciding the future of Afghanistan as the military and monetary support from the international community. If both these things work out, then Afghanistan will remain stable; but if even one of these two cornerstones collapses, then the whole edifice could come crashing down.

The Presidential elections due in April next are being seen as a make or break event. It is not just about who wins the election, but even more importantly the credibility of the elections that will determine the future course of events in Afghanistan. Ahmed Wali Masood, who is the brother of Afghan hero Ahmed Shah Masood, pulled no punches in declaring that if the elections fail because of widespread fraud, then everything will collapse. At the same time, he was emphatic that a credible election could prove transformational. This was the theme that echoed throughout the conference. Western delegates were very clear that the continued financial and other support would be contingent on legitimacy of the process. Any repeat of the kind of fraud that marred the last Presidential elections or any delay in the election – there are apprehensions that President Hamid Karzai may manipulate the process to protect his interests and remain relevant – will not be acceptable to anyone anymore. While there is enough realism that the polls process will not be ‘perfect’, what is important from both the Western as well as Afghan perspective is that the process should be ‘good enough’ for everyone to accept the outcome. As far as the international community is concerned, any result that is accepted by the Afghan people will be acceptable to it. The bar is being deliberately set pretty high so that even if the halfway mark is reached, the elections will be a resounding success.

Apart from the credibility of the election process, there are some apprehensions about how the politics will play out the day after the results are declared. In other words, the effect, impact and repercussion of who wins and who loses is also something that is being keenly discussed and debated. Will the non-Pashtuns (some of whom are feeling sidelined by the Karzai administration) accept another Pashtun President? Will the Pashtuns agree to embrace either a non-Pashtun or even a half-Pashtun President who is closely identified with the non-Pashtun ethnic groups and rides into power on the strength of a united non-Pashtun vote and a divided Pashtun vote? Will pre-election ethnic and political alliances become a fault line that tears the country apart post elections or will the reality of results lead to a readjustment and accommodation between the main political players and ethnic groups? These are questions that to which there is no clear answer as yet. For their part, the Afghans believe that if the poll process is clean, then people will learn to live with whatever result emerges from the election.

One of the factors that is seen to be a game-changer in Afghanistan is what an Australian academic called ‘the democratic urgings of the new generation’. Alongside, he pointed to the effect of globalisation on Afghanistan which would make turning back the clock to the Taliban medievalism extremely unlikely. While a former Taliban representative who is currently a member of the High Peace Council made a strong pitch for an accommodation with the Taliban – he claimed the Taliban were neither radical nor revolutionary but simple traditional people! – and warned against excluding or ignoring them, he was not only challenged by the young Afghans but practically hooted out. Some Western delegates spoke in favour of the ‘reconciliation’ process but not if it endangered the progress made during the last decade in Afghanistan. Those in favour of the ‘peace process’ wanted that the Taliban demonstrate on ground the claims they made in international conferences about how much the movement has changed over the years and how the mistakes they made in the past would not be repeated. What was however not clear was how the democratic system could co-exist with a movement that brooked no dissent and whose leader claimed to be the Amir-ul-Momineen (Leader of the Faithful).

Politics and the Presidential Elections

Sitting outside Afghanistan it is easy to dismiss the forthcoming Presidential elections as something of an irrelevant and unnecessary distraction from the looming security situation. But clearly this is a line of thinking that is utterly misplaced. The Afghans have placed a lot in the store of the elections. If well conducted, with minimum fraud and maximum participation, the elections could prove to be a major stabilising factor. On the other hand, if the polls are marred by irregularities like the 2009 elections, then they could just as well prove to be the nemesis of the Afghan state. That all shades of political opinion (except for the Taliban) have a stake in the elections is borne out by the sheer number of candidates – 27 – who have thrown their hat in the ring. Of course, not all these candidates – in the Afghan context, a more appropriate term is ‘ticket’ which includes not just the presidential candidate but also his running mates – are serious contenders.

It is generally agreed that the two front-runners are going to be the former foreign minister and the runner-up in 2009, Dr Abdullah Abdullah and President Karzai’s finance minister, Ashraf Ghani Ahmedzai. Dr Abdullah has roped in a faction leader of the Hizb-e-Islami, Mohammed Khan and the Hazara leader Ustad Mohammed Mohaqiq as his running mates. Ashraf Ghani has the Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and a Hazara leader Sarwar Danish on his ticket. Interestingly, Ashraf Ghani has not taken any Tajik as one of his running mates, something that goes a little against conventional wisdom wherein every ticket must have both a Pashtun and a Tajik (the two largest ethnic groups) to stand a winning chance. The other serious contenders are the former foreign minister Dr Zalmai Rassoul (he has roped in one brother of Ahmed Shah Masood as his running mate and a firebrand Hazara lady lawmaker as his 2^nd Vice President nominee), President Karzai’s brother Qayyum Karzai, the Pashtun strongman from Kandahar Gul Agha Sherzai, the former mujahideen commander Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf (with the Herat strongman and Tajik leader Ismail Khan as his running mate), former Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and finally Hashmat Ghani Ahmedzai, who is the brother of Ashraf Ghani.

With such an array of tickets, it is expected that the polls will go into the second round where Dr Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani will battle it out. Supporters of Dr Abdullah are quite confident that he will be able to win the elections in the second round. He has apparently been working double time since his engineered defeat in the last Presidential elections in 2009 to sew up his alliance. Equally importantly, he is making a strong pitch to reclaim his Pashtun heritage (from his father’s side) and thereby attract at least some Pashtun vote to his side. His supporters claim that he is likely to win a fair amount of votes from the South. They are also of the view that many Pashtuns have come to the conclusion that they got a raw deal from a Pashtun President and a non-Pashtun might be more compelled to cater to their needs than a Pashtun. By managing to unite all the important leaders (except for Dostum and Ahmed Zia Masood) of the erstwhile Northern Alliance behind him, Dr Abdullah is reasonably confident of winning the overwhelming majority of the non-Pashtun vote from the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. What is more, the choice of Dostum as running mate by Ashraf Ghani is seen as a big positive for Dr Abdullah because many Pashtuns will not be inclined to vote for a ticket with Dostum on it. Many of the candidates in the first round, for instance Sayyaf-Ismail Khan, are likely to endorse the Abdullah ticket in the second round.

Ashraf is quite popular among the intellectual crowd in Kabul but whether he will be able to win mass support is somewhat uncertain. By not including a Tajik on his ticket, Ashraf might have made a smart play for the Pashtun vote which with the Uzbek and some Hazara votes, could well turn out to be a winning combination. But many of his detractors wonder if he will be even able to reach the second round, partly because the plethora of Pashtun candidates is expected to badly split the Pashtun vote bank which increase the possibility of another candidate like Zalmai Rassoul sneaking in for the run-off election. Ashraf’s own brother is also a candidate and could cut into his potential votes. The other big problem for Ashraf and any other candidate who depends on the Pashtun vote is that the climate of fear and insecurity that is hanging over the elections could result in a low voter turnout in the Pashtun belt, something that will work to the advantage of the non-Pashtun candidates by neutralising the numbers edge of the Pashtuns. Conversely, there is also a fear that the fragile security situation in the Pashtun areas could be exploited to repeat the vote fraud and stuff ballot boxes like last time. Some political observers claim that while the Centre, West and North of the country will be where the voting will take place, the South and East is where the fraud will be perpetrated. In any case, according to them, the geography of voting has changed and even in a free and fair election the South and East will account for only around 40% of the votes.

There are also questions being asked on who President Karzai will endorse. For quite some time he has been keeping his options open and hasn’t quite let it be known who he is backing among Ashraf, Rassoul and his brother Qayyum. Members of the opposition believe that Karzai’s endorsement is more a liability than an asset for the candidates, but there are apprehensions that he might once again misuse the state machinery to give a leg up to his favourite candidate. At the same time, by not coming out clearly in support of any candidate – he first appeared to back Sayyaf, then indicated that Ashraf was his candidate, later hinted at Rassoul and after his brother threw his hat in the ring some thought he was backing Qayyum (though sceptics argue that in Afghanistan, brothers are generally never favoured) – he has caused a lot of heartburn among those who were looking for his endorsement. As a result, he has lost the confidence of his friends. He has also riled his non-Pashtun opponents by trying to divide their ranks by offering bribes and blandishments. In the final analysis, Karzai will back the candidate who he thinks will receive the support of the Pashtuns because the only way he remains relevant in the future politics of Afghanistan is by positioning himself as the leader of Pashtuns. There is also some talk of Karzai wanting to replicate the ‘Putin option’ by manoeuvring a light weight favourite into the Presidency and then becoming a candidate in the next election.

While fraud is one of the uppermost concerns regarding the elections, money is expected to play a major role in these elections. Fears are also being expressed that the polls will sharpen the ethnic divide because voting will primarily take place on ethnic lines. But these fears are somewhat overstated because efforts are being made by almost all the candidates to woo voters of other ethnic groups. There is also a realisation among top candidates that winning the election is the easy part, retaining power and running the country a much more difficult task. No wonder then that some people close to Dr Abdullah are claim that if he wins the election, he could very well appoint Ashraf Ghani as his finance minister. Similar appointments could be made if Ashraf or Rassoul win the elections. In a sense then, even though politics in Afghanistan is crystallising along ethnic lines, it is also slowly maturing to a level where after the heat and dust of elections is over, the politicians make new alignments to run the government and the country.

While the Afghans appear to ready to live and adjust to whatever result is thrown up by a credible election, there is a lot of apprehension about Pakistan playing the role of spoiler. Afghan political analysts say that if Dr Abdullah wins, the Pakistanis will try and provoke the Pashtuns and Taliban to not accept the result and undermine the government. This is quite simply because the Pakistanis cannot countenance a strong Tajik presence in the government in Kabul. Even if Ashraf Ghani or Rassoul win, the Pakistanis will continue to create instability in Afghanistan using the Taliban and Gulbadin Hekmatyar. Interestingly, some top Afghan politicians believe that Pakistan neither wants the Taliban to hold complete sway in Afghanistan nor do they want any kind of negotiated settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The suspicion about Pakistani intentions is so high that the Afghans are convinced that even if the Taliban were to enter into a dialogue, the ISI will create a counter force to keep Afghanistan destabilised. One possible reason for such a policy is that the Pakistanis want to push the war that is being waged inside their country into Afghanistan, even if this means reigniting the civil war in Afghanistan. If this is indeed the Pakistani policy, then it is clearly a very short-sighted and less than inelegant policy because instability in Afghanistan will inevitably spill over into Pakistan and destabilise an already tottering state.

The Security Matrix

Even though many analysts around the world have convinced themselves that the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) will crumble after the withdrawal of the ISAF in 2014, this doomsday scenario is somewhat exaggerated. There is little doubt that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have serious problems of personnel, training, equipment, logistics, and intelligence. But meeting the Defence Minister, some of the top leadership of the ANA and also a few of the young officers, is quite a revelation. There is absolutely no panic among the top brass. On the contrary, it exudes a level of self-assuredness and quiet confidence that immediately dispels all doubts about the ability of the ANSF to hold their own against the enemy.

Unlike the Pakistani generals who are so full of bluff and bluster but who fizzle out the moment a fire-fight breaks out and the army starts bleeding, the Afghan Army Chief is very matter of fact in its appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of their army. There is a disarming honesty in the way the Afghan Defence Minister and top brass explain the security situation. No bombast, no spin and no brushing under the carpet of inconvenient and troubling realities. And yet, a level of confidence that can only come from faith in the fighting capability of the troops that immediately reassures the interlocutor that this army will not crumble if it continues to receive military, financial and political support.

Ever since the ISAF has transferred the security responsibilities to the Afghan Army, it has proved its mettle. Senior generals proudly claim that even though the Pakistanis opened the floodgates for the Taliban to launch fierce attacks since April this year, there is not a single engagement in which the Afghan troops have shown their back to the enemy or yielded territory to them. They have in fact opened up areas from which the ISAF had withdrawn. For instance, in Nuristan, the ANA has moved in and is in the process of opening the road for normal traffic. No doubt, the ANA has been taking serious casualties – in the last six months, around 800 dead and some 2000 injured. But morale remains fairly high. What is more, the dictum that armies that bleed emerge as solid fighting forces stands quite true for the ANA.

Senior officials say that they haven’t lost as many men in fighting as they have lost in IED explosions and suicide blasts. In other words, it is not so much the fighting prowess of the Taliban terrorists as it is their classic terrorism tactics that is causing casualties. At one level, this means that the ANA is more than a match for the Taliban; but at another level, unless the ANA can find a way to counter the IEDs and Suicide attacks, they will continue to suffer grievously. Unfortunately, there is as yet no solution that has been found to this problem. One of the reasons why the ANA officials are requesting the international community to supply them with Tanks, Armoured Personnel Carriers as well as reliable mine breeching equipment, is that it would minimise the casualties caused by IEDs. But so far, their requests have fallen on deaf ears.

The ANA brass, while quite confident of holding their own against the Taliban, is seriously worried about being unprepared to handle any external aggression by the Pakistan army on side of the Taliban. They say that on their own the Taliban can only carry out acts of terrorism but cannot over-run the country like last time unless they have the support of the Pakistan army. This, more than anything else, is the real worry for the Afghan security establishment, and it is precisely this worry that no one – US, India, Europeans, or any other country – is willing to address. The Afghans want tanks and artillery so that they can take on a Taliban offensive supported by the Pakistan army. But even fairly obsolete equipment is being denied to them. They complain that the Americans promised them this equipment but have not only reneged on these promises, but worse, have destroyed whatever Soviet era tanks and artillery the Afghans possessed. As a result, the ANA has been reduced to a glorified paramilitary force which is in no position to handle any conventional threat from across the Durand Line.

Although Western writers have made a lot about the high attrition rates in the ANA, this isn’t something that worries the Afghans very much. They admit that there is a fair amount of attrition, but say that the new recruits more than fill the gap. The attrition is not much because of desertion as it is because of many soldiers not renewing their three-year contracts – this rate has gone up to almost 50% in recent years. But if service conditions improve, then the ANA will not only be able to attract new recruits but also retain the trained manpower. Training is yet another issue on which is occupying the attention of the brass. Even though Afghans are natural fighters, modern armies need an officer corps to lead the men into battle. While the ANA has refurbished its own academy, a number of young officers are being trained in India, and frankly they are turning out to be a real asset for the ANA – smart, crisp, brimming with confidence that the Indian Army instils in its officer corps. Although Pakistan has been offering training in its own academies, there are not many takers for this offer. One big reason is that young officers feel that if they train in Pakistan their loyalty will forever be suspect and they will always be treated as ISI agents, which will affect their careers, and worse, their reputation and self-esteem.

Apart from the equipment that ground forces need, the ANA is also feeling the pinch on managing its logistics. Until now, they have been largely dependent on the Americans. But after the withdrawal, they will be pretty much on their own. The US is in the process of supplying the Afghans a few C130 transport aircraft. Arrangements are also being made to provide choppers which can be used for medical evacuation and supplies, in addition to playing a combat role. Some mortars and light artillery is also in the pipeline. The Afghans are also toying with the idea of converting some old passenger aircraft into transport aircraft for the army. India too has promised to supply and refurbish some AN32 transport aircraft. Of course, like in everything else, the Indians have been lagging behind in delivery, a point that was put forward by Afghan officials in a very polite manner.

India’s Enigmatic Policy

In recent years, India’s approach and policy on Afghanistan is so afflicted by self-doubt, strategic confusion and perhaps even an element of towing the line that is set not in New Delhi but elsewhere that it has all but lost the plot in a country which in many ways is critical for India’s own security. So taken in is India with the inherent limitations it faces in Afghanistan – geographical, financial, diplomatic (the inability to use Iran as a conduit to Afghanistan) and military – that it has neglected the advantages it enjoys, which to an extent neutralise the limitations. No surprise then that even though there is tremendous goodwill for India, the Indian officials are virtually imprisoned in fortress-like compounds with their movement restricted because of the real threat of terrorists targeting them. There have been around three bomb attacks on the Indian mission in Kabul, Indian consulate in Jalalabad has recently been targeted, the consulates in other cities are also in the cross-hairs of terrorists (believed to be working under instructions of the ISI), Indian Army doctors have been killed and guest-houses where Indian officials stay have been attacked. On the other hand Pakistan is, to put it mildly, hated in Afghanistan and yet their officials strut about like they own the place. Surely, something is seriously wrong with the way India handles its affairs.

Threats aside, the Indian policy is also steadily making India marginal in Afghanistan. What is really infuriating for the Afghans is that India has not just adopted a defeatist approach and seemingly reconciled to the possibility that the Afghan state will not survive very long after the withdrawal of foreign troops, but worse, that India is increasingly following a policy under which it is showing more understanding for Pakistan’s concerns rather than for Afghanistan’s needs. The way the Afghans see it, if even a strong country like India is ready to kowtow to Pakistan’s aggressive, if also disastrous, policy in Afghanistan, then perhaps the Afghans would be better off striking their own Faustian pact with the proverbial devil. India’s pusillanimity has touched such ridiculous levels that recently the Indian Foreign Secretary was advised not to visit the Jalalabad consulate lest it send out a very aggressive signal about India’s Afghan policy! That she ignored this advise goes to her credit. Her visit boosted the morale of the Indian officials who are working under enormous stress and in a very difficult and dangerous environment in places like Herat, Kandahar and Jalalabad, not to mention Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul.

Even more galling is the line that is being peddled in some quarters, advocating that India, along with other countries, should create a sort of funding agency and which then lets Pakistan implement the development projects in Afghanistan! This, according to their thinking, will go a long way in reassuring Pakistan that India’s only interest in Afghanistan is to stabilise that country. Pakistan, they say, will very graciously give credit to India for the funds it gives for a school, or hospital or any other project. Their argument, which is not just specious but also ridiculous, is that India’s strategic interest lies in a peaceful Afghanistan and if this sort of policy helps to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan then it achieves the purpose for which India is assisting Afghanistan’s reconstruction.

It is precisely this sort of defeatism and dissembling policy prescriptions that appear to be behind the refusal of India to supply some of the defence equipment that the Afghans have requested. Strangely, India has always insisted that unlike other countries which always gave Afghanistan what they thought the Afghans needed and never bothered to find out what they Afghans actually wanted, India always let the Afghans give their wish list. However, when it comes to defence cooperation, India seems to have adopted the approach of other countries and rather than fulfilling the Afghan wish-list, India has taken it upon itself to decide what the Afghans need. Much of the stuff that the Afghans have requested for – old tanks, artillery pieces and some old aircraft – is no longer used by the Indian Army and can be easily refurbished and given to the ANA. But the great strategists sitting in high offices are chary of fulfilling the Afghan request because they think that if the Afghan government collapses then all this equipment will fall in the hands of the Taliban.

Why this logic is faulty is because: one, this risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy because by not helping the Afghan state India would be creating conditions for the Taliban to capture power; second, even if this stuff was to fall into Taliban hands, who would they use it against? They aren’t going to lug it across Pakistan to target India across the Radcliffe line. If anything, they might actually use it against the patrons across the Durand Line. The real reason therefore seems to be that India doesn’t want to provide any support to the Afghan government that rubs Pakistan the wrong way and provokes it to intensify the sponsorship of terrorism not just in Afghanistan but also India. The flip side of this faulty reasoning is that even though India has desisted from providing the Afghans with the weapons they need for their protection, Pakistan has not stopped the export of terrorism. This begs the question as to why India should be bothered about Pakistan's concerns when the Pakistanis show no consideration whatsoever about Indian concerns.

What India seems to have forgotten is that the Afghans are fighting not just for saving their country but also the region from being destabilised by the radical Islamist terror groups. While the Pakistanis keep tom-toming how they are fighting for securing the world against terrorism, the fact is that it is not the Pakistanis but the Afghans who are fighting this fight. If countries like the US and India cannot fight shoulder to shoulder with the Afghans, then the least they can do is to give them the wherewithal to fight on their own. If truth be told, the enemy of the Afghans is also the enemy of India. The war that the Afghans are fighting is also India’s war. The choice before India is simple: it can either fight this war on its borders or help the Afghans fight this war inside Afghanistan. India would also do well to remember the immutable principle of international politics: to inspire faith in your friends and favour them; and instil fear in your adversaries. India needs to apply this principle while forging its Afghan policy. This means that it is no longer enough to rely upon just soft power and developmental assistance to secure Afghanistan against the onslaught of the barbaric and medieval Taliban. India must also use its hard power (without putting boots on the ground because that would be counter-productive) to assist Afghanistan.