Afghanistan: New U.S. Administration, New DirectionsCrisis Group Asia Briefing N°89, 13 March 2009 Page 3
unarmed civilians, until agreements break down andinsurgents once again target security institutions.
Focus on generalised regional solutions at this time:
Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian states will allplay a major role in Afghanistan’s future, but sepa-rate bilateral negotiations are likely to be moreimmediately productive than attempting a regionalpackage deal brokered by the U.S., which wouldbe difficult to obtain now, and probably have littleimpact on the ground.
Pulling out:
Withdrawing international troops withthe threat that any regrouping of jihadis or al-Qaedacan be countered by air power and special forceswould simply return the country to the control of jihadis. Air power has not proven successful againstinsurgents or terrorist bases. Neglect would allowthe region to descend into further chaos, as it didin the 1990s.
Find the right Pashtun:
Putting in power a toughPashtun leader to rule with an iron fist would inflameethnic tensions within Afghanistan, reignite a proxywar among regional powers and return the countryto an even worse cycle of violence.
Arm the villagers:
Afghanistan is awash with weap-ons and armed groups. Creating unaccountable localmilitias – based on false analogies with Iraq – willonly worsen ethnic tensions and violence.
II.
THE INSURGENCY AND ITS ROOTSA.
A
FGHANISTAN
T
ODAY
The Taliban
1
holds sway over much of the countrysidein the south, east and centre of Afghanistan, and isincreasing its presence in the west. It also carries outterror attacks in major population centres.
2
It aims to
1
The many networks involved in the insurgency act with vary-ing degrees of allegiance to the Taliban leadership, from itsold rival Hizb-e Islami, which appears to have little operationaltie-in with the Taliban, to the more closely linked Haqqaninetwork and below this various individual commanders andcriminals. The term “Taliban” is, however, the name underwhich the vast majority of the anti-government violence iscommitted, and will be used throughout this paper. For previ-ous Crisis Group analysis on the insurgency see Crisis GroupAsia Reports N°158,
Taliban Propaganda: Winning the War of Words?
, 24 July 2008; N°123,
Countering Afghanistan’s Insurgency: No Quick Fixes
, 2 November 2006; and N°62,
Afghanistan: The Problem of Pashtun Alienation
, 5 August 2003.
2
The Afghan government says twelve districts out of nearly400 are completely out of its control while the United Nations
demoralise the Afghan population and wear down thepatience of the international community. The insurgents’strategy is not to use indiscriminate violence but ratherto prevent citizens from accessing already limited gov-ernment services, and to target and isolate the inter-national community, the Karzai administration and thoseassociated to them. An increasingly bold focus on dis-rupting the road network – including the Kabul-Kandaharhighway, which was the U.S. flagship project – suggeststhe insurgents’ enhanced strength.The use of allied, primarily U.S., air power has causedsignificant civilian casualties, which have in turn high-lighted President Karzai’s lack of authority over foreignforces, fuelled Taliban propaganda of a “foreign inva-sion”, and produced an upsurge of nationalist and anti-U.S. sentiment.
3
Such tactics are at least partly a resultof having too few soldiers on the ground: there are cur-rently 35,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, compared to150,000 in Iraq, a smaller country. As a deputy com-mander of NATO forces in Afghanistan noted “Whenyou’re spread kind of thin, sometimes the cavalry has[to have] wings”.
4
Accounting for around 82 per cent of the world’sopium, narcotics production in Afghanistan is both asymptom and driver of the conflict.
5
While nearly allof it is grown in the southern provinces, at the veryheart of the insurgency, the general increase of pro-duction also denotes the government’s failure totackle many high-level national networks involved,including those with ties to local powerbrokers whomforeign forces accept as allies against the Taliban.Although narcotics financing of the Taliban has receivedmuch international attention, it is these links to osten-sibly allied powerbrokers that more immediatelyimpede stability, rule of law and the growth of strongstate institutions. Their widespread impunity
6
has pro-
Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) assesses some90 districts as extremely risky in terms of humanitarianaccess. “The situation in Afghanistan and its implications forinternational peace and security” (A/63/372–S/2008/617), 23September 2008, p. 6.
3
In the first nine months of 2008, 2,983 bombs were dropped,up from 2,764 during the same period the previous year. JimMichaels, “Airstrikes in Afghanistan increase 31 per cent”,
USA Today
, 5 November 2008.
4
Ibid.
5
This is a 2007 statistic, with the 2008 figure not yet available.“Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008”, Executive Summary,United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), August2008, p. 1.
6
There have been some high-profile cases in the U.S., withfour Afghan “drug lords” now jailed: Haji Bashir Noorzai,Mohammad Essa, Khan Mohammad and Haji Juma Khan.Thomas Schweich, “Obama’s Men in Afghanistan”,
Globe
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