“Is Afghanistan A Narco-State?”

So asks Thomas Schweich, for years the lead US official on counter-narcotics in Afghanistan, and answers not so favorably for either the US or the Afghan governments. As close to the horse’s mouth as you would get it on CN policy. A definite must-read for those interested in the subject, and a piece that is sure to raise eyebrows -or hell- both in DC and Kabul.

Is Afghanistan a Narco-State?
(New York Times Magazine)

Residents of Kabul Protest Government’s Inaction on Behsud - UPDATES

Some updates about yesterday’s demonstrations here against government’s inaction on the Behsud conflict -now that the dust (of the demonstrations, not yet of the conflict itself) has somewhat settled:

Kot-i Sangi to Deh-Mazang

According to reports and eyewitness accounts, the demonstrations started in Dasht-e-Barchi area but it was only in Kot-i Sangi that the numbers really began to swell. People in a giant human wave in thousands joined the rally that stretched unbroken between Kot-i Sangi and Deh-Mazang, with the entire avenue clogged (one source put it at 300,000 strong.) In what is surely an unprecedented practice in Afghan public and political culture, the thousands-strong rally proceeded and concluded without incidents. One of the organizers told me that there were around 5,000 women in attendance in yesterday’s rally. An eyewitness recounted that women were leading the demonstrations. Besides the IDPs and former residents of Behsud/Behsood -who were present in the largest numbers- people originating from several other provinces also joined the rally. The constituency, however, is reported to have been primarily Hazara.

Halt at Deh-Mazang

By mid-morning the rally had arrived in Deh-Mazang on its way towards the center of the city and offices of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan -UNAMA. And then it stopped.
There are varying and conflict accounts of why the rally stopped. I will list all of the accounts that I have heard- many of which cannot be substantiated:

1. The president personally ordered the rally to be stopped, calling on all of the government’s security forces (including the ANA) to halt the progress of the march in Deh-Mazang. Based on yesterday’s presidential order calling on the Kochis to temporarily evacuate Behsud, and indications of compliance from the Kochis, the government had earlier asked for the rally to be cancelled, and when this was not done, it took measures to stop it before it reached the city center. Security and peace in the city was cited as one of the reasons for the rally to stop.

2. The leaders of the demonstrated struck a deal with the government and called off the demonstrations. Again unconfirmed, this is a variant on version # 1 above, albeit this one implies that the government offered some sort of deal or was able to persuasively sell its solution of temporary evacuation of Kuchis out of Behsud to the leaders of the rally. Other variations of this account go further and blame the demonstrations organizers and leaders as having been “bought off” and co-opted and thereafter calling upon the people to go home. The leaders spoke to the rally and invited them to stop the march, stating that should the government not keep its promises or continue its policy of inaction in Behsud, a bigger rally will be organized in the future and that will go onwards towards the city center to make its demands heard.

3. According to an unconfirmed report by ANSO (Afghan NGOs Security Office), when the demonstrators arrived at Deh-Mazang area and close to the Kabul Zoo, ‘violence’ and ‘armed demonstrators’ were reported. ANSO: “There are various unconfirmed incidents of violence being reported, including a report of armed demonstrators in the area of the Kabul Zoo. NGO should suspend all movement in the city.” I have not been able to corroborate reports of violence or armed demonstrators through any other sources and all of the media (TV, radio, print -including even the BBC Persian Webpage which has finally decided to break its implicit gag-rule over the matter) are unanimous on the non-occurence of any incidents in yesterday’s rally.

Besides the 3rd account which is unlikely in view of the media reporting of the event, it is likely that a combination of 1 and 2 was at play in halting the rally at Deh-Mazang -a carrot and stick approach, if you may.

(More to come on yesterday’s demonstrations.)

For now, here are links to pictures of the event and some reporting:

1. Exclusive pictures from the demonstrations

2. After Progress in Talks, Mohaqiq Ends Hunger Strike, Calls Protesters Back Amid Emotional Scenes

Residents of Kabul Protest Government’s Inaction on Behsud

Today thousands of residents of Kabul engaged in a peaceful demonstration to protest the Karzai government’s inaction on the conflict in Behsud.

(This post may come out of the blue for many readers abroad who are used to hearing about the Taliban and the conflict in the South of Afghanistan. I promise another post in the near future about the conflict between the settled people of Behsud in Central Afghanistan and the nomads that has been going on for the past many weeks.)

*
(I did not attend the demonstrations, but know many people who did, and hope to update with more accurate information as I speak to them. This initial post is based on anecdotal information, and what I have heard on the television -which, save for two TV channels out of 10: Farda TV and Ariana TV- has been surprisingly little.)

*

Photo of today's demonstration via Quqnoos.com

The Demonstration

The march started around 7:00 a.m. Tuesday morning in Dasht-e-Barchi area of West of Kabul and proceeded towards the city center and the offices of the UN’s Assistance Mission in Afghanistan -UNAMA. Several news agencies have put the number of demonstrators at “thousands”. By mid-day, Farda TV reported that the demonstrations were over and no incidents had taken place. Farda TV also aired footage of the demonstrations showing people in thousands marching in large thoroughfares of the city, advancing towards the center of the city.

Footage also showed police in riot gear standing around, and in some cases lining up on the main streets at a distance from the demonstrators, blocking their advance. Faced with the riot police, some among the demonstrators encouraged those at the head of the demonstrations to sit down and not advance any further, avoiding contact with the riot police and keeping a distance of 15 meters or so.

It was hard to read many of the placards and banners held up by demonstrators on TV screen. Those that I could read included:
“We oppose ethnic conflict and those who support/encourage it”
“The government should stand with defenseless civilians of Behsud”
“We want Justice”

White City

All expatriates and UN employees were told to stay put, with the UN offices announcing a “white city” -an oxymoronish term that says no UN vehicles (which are all white) are to be seen on the roads. Many embassies also followed suit, with employees in some cases working from home. Government offices, however, were open and working, along with most of the Afghan NGOs.

Suicide Bomb

Around 6:30 a.m. a suicide bomb went off near the Babur Gardens in Guzar-gah area which is close to the Deh-Mazang roundabout and the road that leads to the ruins of Darul Aman palace. All indications are that the incident was unrelated to the demonstrations, though it does ensure that the demonstrations are not the headline of the day, as no one was hurt or injured in the demonstrations, while the suicide attack took the life of the bomber and injured five three people. (By early afternoon the BBC English site for South Asia had reported the suicide bomb but had yet to do a story about the demonstrations -same with BBC Persian site). Tolo TV and Ariana TV reported that the bomb exploded when the attacker on foot was spotted by the police and he set off the bomb. At the time of the explosion the demonstrators had yet to reach the Deh-Mazang roundabout, and their advance was not interrupted by the incident.

Presidential Order

President Karzai reportedly signed an executive order yesterday to the effect that the Kochi nomads temporarily pull out of the Behsud area. I do not know yet whether the Kochi nomads have complied or not (see update 1 below). The order came after a full-scale armed conflict -with light and heavy weaponry in use- has been raging on in Behsud area for the past several weeks. Waves of IDPs -I have heard in hundreds- have descended on West Kabul and Dasht-e-Barchi area. (I will try to visit the area in the near future to conduct some first-person interviews with the IDPs and hear their stories.)

Following the order, a spokesperson for the Directorate of National Security came on TV this morning to announce that there was no more any reasons for the demonstrations to go on and that it should be cancelled. He also stated that the responsibility for any incidents that may interrupt the city’s calm and security will be borne by the organizers of the demonstrations.

Fact-finding Commission

Earlier the government had appointed a fact-finding commission to gather information and suggest workable solutions to the problem. The commission followed at least one previous such commission with the same mandate. Little is known about the results of the recent commission’s work, and there seems to be a consensus that it was a failure as it has not resulted in a peaceable solution to the conflict. A similar commission was appointed last year around the same time when the Kochi nomads entered settled areas inhabited by people of Behsud/Behsood. At the time last year UNAMA issued a statement and a bulleted list of solutions that both sides found unsatisfactory and one-sided.

Update 1

- According to Pajhwok news, following the presidential order of yesterday Kochis have began evacuating villages in the Behsud area. (link)

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Related News

1. Huge protests in Kabul by Hazara community

2. Returning Nomads to their Home

3. (Video) Behsoud people claim being attacked by Kuchis

Obama in Afghanistan, Books, and Karzai’s Secret Love Life

I know this is no proper way to resume blogging after a months long hiatus -by a mere links referral- but there has been some excited developments in Afghanistan as of late (including the touchdown of Sen. Obama an hour or so ago here) and I just did not want to miss on that opportunity to do a post.

> 1. Obama Lands in Afghanistan
Of course Senator Obama has his own reasons for visiting Afghanistan and much of it has to do with the allegations made by the Republicans back home about his lack of experience on foreign policy. All the same, one hopes that upon his visit to a country whose fate is so intertwined with the US elections he will get an opportunity to assess things close up and perhaps, just as he had done on a number of critical issues of domestic policy in the US, be able to present some real alternatives and innovative ideas -because, as is increasingly clear, the present course is a road to nowhere.

Bloggingheads: Obama and Afghanistan
Robert Wright of Bloggingheads.tv and Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network debate the politics of the war in Afghanistan.

> 2. Rebuilding Afghanistan, One Book at a Time
Nancy Dupree, an old and celebrated hand in the Afghanistan Aid community laments the debilitating shortage of books and access to information in Afghanistan

> 3. And on the lighter side: Karzai has a lover
I love how the wapo has spotted this.

Article in the National Geographic about the Hazaras of Afghanistan

National Geographic magazine has dedicated this month’s feature to a comprehensive article about the Hazaras of Afghanistan by Phil Zabriskie. Here is the link.

I have not read the article yet, but am a little skeptical about the title: “The Outsiders: Afghanistan’s Hazaras.” I hope Mr. Zabriskie has taken his time to do justice to the subject matter and study well the Hazaras and the many complexities that they offer for serious scholars, anthropologists and political scientists, and that the title is not too telling of the content.
The article devotes a good many paragraphs on how the Hazaras fared under the Taliban -a serious topic which has not been explored in ample detail yet- and how they have fared since.
The article also features Steve McCurry, back in Afghanistan with his camera and deliverying a delightful series of photos. (The reader would recognize McCurry as the photographer responsible for those famously haunting eyes of Sharbat Gula, a photograph titled simply “Afghan Girl” that was named the most recognized photo in the history of National Geographic magazine.)
Maybe I will do a post on the article once I have read it.

Afghanistan Study Group Report

Since just about everybody concerned about matters Afghanistan-related has by now heard of the Afghanistan Study Group Report and its ominous “failed state” and “forgotten war” forebodings, and is scouring the internet for the report PDF file, here it is:

The report is in reality a compilation of three studies commissioned by the Afghanistan Study Group (itself modeled on the Iraq Study Group) headed by a high-powered duo (former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired General James Jones) and backed by a number of illustrous DC think-tanks (CSIS and the Atlantic Council among them).

No promises, but I may do a post about the report contents and recommendations once I have gone through it myself.

The Case of Perwiz Kambakhsh and Afghanistan’s Ongoing Culture Wars

There has been another very disturbing development in the case of Parwiz Kambakhsh, the young Afghan student of journalism who has been sentenced to death by a primary court in Northern Afghanistan for the crime of propagating “blasphemous” literature: the upper house of Afghanistan’s parliament has just delcared its decision to uphold the death sentence. The case will continue on its way through the labyrinth of more courts and legislative bodies, until one of these days it finally finds itself on the president’s desk. Most likely, every court along the way will try their best not to be seen as the one that finally overturned the decision, and hence somehow supported Kambakhsh’s anti-Islamic stance.

By now the justice system here has become myopically focused on the vitriolic content of the distributed literature that was written years ago by an Iranian dissident writer and was put on the internet -it was not even written by Kambakhsh, who is himself a student and an aspiring journalist. Apparently other considerations, such as the very constitutionality of the decision to even try somebody for their opinion is out the window. Afghanistan’s constitution, which was really a craft of compromise when it was agreed upon, makes half-hearted nods both to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and at the same time to a vague and amorphouse category of Islamic principles and values. Now, one of these would have Perwiz Kambakhsh killed, and the other would respect his right to free thought and expression. And this is not even the first of it -soon after the constitution was ratified two journalists were dragged to the courts on similarly drummed up charges of blaspheming and insulting Islam -and it is bound to be not the last of them; unless of course journalists learn their lessons and define their own boundaries of what is allowed and what not, i.e. self-censorship. (Then it will be the turn for bloggers who have been rash enough to abandon anonymity in an environment like this. Maybe some people are already talking about learning them computer heads a good lesson as well -there is already the internet link in Kambakhsh’s case.)

But really, the equivocality of the constitution and the daily barrage on the media and the journalists is symptomatic of a more fundamental fact of the Afghan society: there is an ongoing culture war in Afghanistan. This is the same non-ending culture war that first reached tipping point in 1912 and became a warm war (the spark then was the lovely Queen Suraya’s bare arms in a western dress, and pictures of young Afghan girls in skirts and hats studying abroad in Turkey.) The same ongoing culture war has influenced the course of Afghan political history over the last century. Kambakhsh and other journalists are all victims of this war. In reality, everyone, including those who vye for his blood, know deep down that his transgressions are not grave enough to warrant the death penalty. But what these people also know is that there is more at stake than merely the neck of one or two young journalist (especially that they do not enjoy the same immunities that many other journalists in Afghanistan do, i.e. back-up of their embassies, etc.) So in effect these people are telling the likes of Perwiz Kambakhsh:
“Sorry pal, we know it is a bit extreme to put the hangman’s noose around your neck (figure of speech, in actuality we would prefer for you to be stoned to death) for this - distributing stuff that you did not write and may not even fully endorse, or even understand. You did not even publish it, and it is not proven that you held secret group meetings to proselytize and discuss it. And we are not particularly opposed to Will Durant -whose book is a key incriminating evidence in your case- either. But times are tough and we are in a war. Your death is a small price to be paid for what this will teach others. Next thing and we might even allow the elected MP Malalay Joya back into the parliament, and allow Tolo TV to air Shakira concerts. Now that would be a slippery slope we cannot allow this nation to go down, wouldn’t it? So we hope you will try to understand. And if you don’t, well, too bad.”

For some of these people, it is even a win-win situation whether Kambakhsh dies or lives. If he dies, well, lesson learnt, victory achieved, Islam saved, and journalists harnessed for good. If he lives, it will likely be the president who pardons him- the sentence will likely be upheld in a landslide vote in the lower house, and the supreme court’s only concern would be whether the sentence is harsh enough. Unless and until his legal advisors find a loophole (and one that is acceptible to the clergy too) on the grounds of which they can send the case back down, the president is facing a serious headache. He is damned if he signs off on the death sentence of a young journalist, and he is damned if he does not. In Afghanistan we call that being sandwiched between the two stones of a mill - or a rock and a hard place.

Of poppies and poverties

There seems to be a flurry of exchanges and posts and calls ahead of the next JCMB meeting in Tokyo (with counter-narcotics dominating the agenda) to prove that the ‎poor farmers in Hilmand are driven to poppy cultivation by poverty, and those who have ‎it so well in the north, center and elsewhere don’t really have to grow poppy. Case in point, the latest posts on ICGA Blog by the political scientist and ’super-academic’ Barnett R. Rubin. The cynic in me always manages to be alarmed by such heightened activity just as many a predator in the wild would by sudden movements. So here it goes…

First, all this talk about poverty and poppy just makes me think of ‎a common anecdote in the south that someone recently related to me that goes something ‎like this: Upon being asked how much he earned from his opium crops the previous year, ‎an illiterate Hilmand farmer said, after a long pause: “I dunno the rest of it but I know ‎that I bought 160 Sarachas among other things…” (Saracha is the name in Afghanistan of ‎a station-wagon like vehicle commonly used for passenger transport and as taxicab)

Now ‎this may well be an exaggerated number, not least because who in the world needs 160 ‎vehicles unless they want to open a full fleet limousine service for the drug barons of the south, but it goes to show the extent in the popular imagination of the wealth associated ‎with narcotics. And not to say that all farmers have an equal access to that wealth, in fact ‎I agree that the farmers get the smallest of the dividends from opium cultivation, but the ‎externalities from opium cultivation, and the ripple effects and the multiplier effects (on ‎consumption, for instance) of the opium wealth cannot but have an impact on the overall ‎welfare of the residents of Hilmand.

I agree with Mr. Rubin that UNODC is wrong if it ‎says that poverty does not have anything to do with poppy cultivation – but UNODC has ‎never said such a thing. In fact, what they have said could be interpreted more closely to ‎mean that poverty is no more primarily associated with poppy cultivation in Hilmand –‎the province that produces more drugs than the rest of the world put together, including ‎all of Afghanistan’s provinces with the exception of Hilmand itself- and that is an ‎assertion that I am comfortable with, especially if it is backed up with evidence from the ‎field and research, as UNODC claims it to be. Of course nobody, not Mr. Rubin, not the ‎UNODC is claiming that poverty is the only driver of opium cultivation, and neither is anyone saying that poverty is not a factor in poppy cultivation at all. I think nobody can make such over-‎generalized assertions with certainty and authority about any social and economic ‎phenomenon anywhere, not least in the muddle and shady enterprise that is the poppy ‎world of Afghanistan. ‎

By the way, none of this is to support eradication-only policies or to negate the importance of ‎building alternative livelihoods in order to wean farmers in the south off opium. It is just another ‎voice calling for moderation on both sides, on part of those who have taken it upon ‎themselves to defend the honest, poor, and never greedy poppy farmers of Hilmand (and ‎where does this motto come from: “greed is good” and that it is part of the human nature, ‎and that those idiot Marxists failed because they neglected this simple fact of the human nature?), and those on the ‎other side who are allegedly insisting that poppy and poverty are not related at all.

The danger in trying to associate poppy primarily with poverty in the south is to give the wrong impression that because poppy cultivation is largely a southern problem, then by logical inference poverty must also be a major problem only in the south, unlike those other provinces that are relatively or completely poppy free, and hence better off. That would have tragic policy implications in a land already mired by social justice issues and with just about everybody crying out foul over the way aid money and development budget is allocated by provinces.

By the same token, of course it would be wrong to completely dissociate poppy from poverty -that would in effect turn on its head the difficultly-achieved consensus on the importance of alternative livelihoods.

Let’s just say that poppy and poverty and politics are somehow linked together and that the Raison d’être of this sinister ménage à trois has to do with more than the simple fact they all share the beginning two letters of their names in the English language -and leave it at that. I for the life of me can’t seem to get my head around the many nuances of it, or the fact that the problem that everyone is trying to address seems to be growing exponentially as the years go by, and as more money is spent on putting an end to it.

There ‎you have it, my lowly two cents added to the billion dollar argument about a multi-billion ‎dollar industry.

Dr. Abdullah and the Return of the Ousted

Ever since being dropped from president Karzai’s cabinet as a result of the 2004 reshuffle, former Afghan minister of foreign affairs Dr. Abdullah has been uncharacteristically acquiescent. Uncharacteristically, I say, given the context of Afghanistan and third world politics. Usually in these settings such high profile dropouts are problematic, and the fact that Dr. Abdullah (and likewise his comrade in arms Marshall Fahim) have proved unwilling (or unable) to be more vocal or active in their opposition to the government only bears good tiding for the country, and bodes well for its political future.

Whether by the force of the circumstances (read American military force) or by the dictate of their own good senses, those who have been sidelined by president Karzai have chosen to abandon the age-old cycle of Afghan politics, and have actually stayed on the sidelines. Further, thanks to president Karzai’s famous personal distaste for sidelining others and his open embrace of assorted rivals and revolutionaries, including not a few undesirables, there are not many who have lost out, thus the absence of a ‘critical mass’ of powerful losers who could turn on the government. (Of course here we are talking about those in the broadly defined political mainstream of Afghanistan, and not the Taliban or those associated with Hekmatyar.)

That is, until recently. The formation of the United National Front (UNF) is a clear sign that those on the sidelines would like to be part of the action. Similarly, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, whose name has not been explicitly mentioned as part of the UNF line-up, has been making pronouncements about the state of Afghan affairs as of late. In fact, in a recent interview Dr. Abdullah raised important and barely veiled concerns about the current government’s performance, the “deteriorating security situation in an ethnically diverse country,” and what he called the government’s “shortcomings in strategic vision.” (Though when asked what he meant by lack of strategic vision, the answer was a muddled tautological mess.)

The recent surge in criticism and political posturing, coincide as it does with the rising tide of insecurity and other travails for the government, goes to show that the initial acquiescence of those who were ousted and marginalized, though partly inevitable in the face of American backing of the Karzai administration, has also been due in part to the fact that the government of Afghanistan was going through its probationary period. Now that its mettle has been tested, and by many an observer’s standards, it has not passed the test, the marginalized few see a clear opportunity in criticizing the government and posturing as an alternative leadership.

If these lines read like an accusation of opportunism, they are not. Quite the contrary: this is a welcome note.

Concerted political opposition is one of the few mechanisms by which democratic governments are held accountable. Even if election season is still far away; even if the current government has the wholesome political, military, and economic backing of the world’s sole hyper-power (and the few who are reluctantly going along, mainly to save face); even if political parties are so nascent in Afghanistan that they have not a hope or a prayer of winning nation-wide, cross-ethnic elections anytime soon; and even if there are far too many bad memories attached to the names of those who currently pose as alternatives; even so, the mere consciousness of an alternative, and a political opposition increases the ’supply’ in the ‘marketplace’ that is a democratic polity, and is bound to have a positive impact on the government’s performance. This is why political opposition -granted that it remains in the mainstream of national political discourse, eschews extremism, and does not resort to violence- is indispensable to the democratic process in Afghanistan and should be welcomed. This is also the spirit, incidentally, in which the criticisms put forth by the UNF leadership and by Dr. Abdullah more recently have to be used by the government as a laundry-list of its own failings to be addressed.

Another Prisoner Exchange Deal?

Moi Aussi!

A few days ago this blog asked whether the French government will follow suit and try to pressure the Karzai government -like the Italian government did earlier- into arranging a prisoner exchange deal. That deal led to the release of Italian journalist Daniel Mastrogiacomo, but only after the death of his Afghan driver, the release of five ranking T-word commanders (bear with me for a few more days), and was followed by the tragic death of his Afghan colleague Ajmal Naqshbandi, the imprisonment of the person who arranged the deal -Rahmatullah Henefi, an Afghan staff of the Italian aid group Emergency-, and the pulling out of Emergency from Afghanistan.

So far, France’s answer the the question above seems to be an unqualified Oui.

All jokes about French and their penchant for quick surrender aside, French president Jacques Chirac has reportedly appealed to president Karzai over a telephone conversation to “demand his support” for the release of two French aid workers held hostage for some two weeks now (the French aid workers are identified as Celine and Eric.) After the flak that the Afghan and Italian governments caught for negotiating with terrorists the first time around, and especially after the political fallout from Ajmal Naqshbandi’s death, president Karzai ruled out any future such deals. Against this backdrop, the “demand his support” clause from the French president can only mean one thing: just this one more time, please!

Who are you betting on?

Regardless of whether the deal goes through or not, the fact that both the Italian and French governments have so readily contemplated negotiating with the enemy and releasing dangerous prisoners begs one question: between the beleaguered government of Hamid Karzai and the resurgent terrorists in the south of Afghanistan, on whom are NATO’s European members placing their bets? If the answer is -as it seems to be on the surface- that they are standing by the government in Kabul, then the costs are clear. It may entail the deaths of even more hostages, and more troops on the ground. If, on the other hand, their faith in the Karzai government is faltering -as it seems to be in the case of the German Social Democrat leader Kurt Beck, for instance- then the doors are thrown open for negotiating with leaders of the extremist group that ruled Afghanistan until October 2001, embracing them, and bringing them into the fold of the Afghan government -an outcome that will mark the height of cynicism on part of the Afghan government and its international allies, and at the expense of the people of Afghanistan. This is the reality of the choice that faces the Afghan government and all its international allies in Afghanistan, and it is no easy choice. It is a choice about the life and deaths of the hostages currently held, and many more who will undoubtedly follow.

Domestic Political Vulnerabilities

Meanwhile, an Op-Ed in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal pointed to the political costs of “negotiating with extremists” for both the Italian and the British governments (and here you have to forgive WSJ for its stretched version of how the Brits “negotiated” with the “extremists” that are the Iranian government.) It is clear that many European governments who were persuaded one way or another by the Bush administration to join the fight in Afghanistan are politically vulnerable at home, and the extremists in Afghanistan, well cognizant of this vulnerability, are doing everything to exploit it.

Diverging Attitudes Within Afghan Government

Evidence also suggests rifts within the Afghan government over this issue, between those who deem the extremists as oh-not-so-terrible-after-all, and those who adopt a more uncompromising stance, ruling out all negotiations and opposing bringing them into the fold. While in a recent press briefly president Karzai openly admitted having spoken with leaders of the extremists (and there are still those in the government who think that Karzai is not being flexible enough on the subject), Foreign Minister Spanta reflected a different line of thinking in his complete rejection of talks with the extremists (saying that there are no “moderate” and “non-moderate” extremists, and that such distinction reveals ignorance about the reality in Afghanistan), and pledged an end to all hostage negotiations.

Musharraf’s Meltdown: “Yes, Indeed. Very Angry”

We live in tense times. It does not take a lot nowadays for tempers to flare high and expletives to fly. From foreign correspondents to military dictators, people in positions that are usually associated with civility and decorum are finding it easy to lose their temper and let forth volleys of emotion and abuse. These are the days of raw nerves.

The other day Afghanistanica quoted from a post by the journalist Jeane MacKenzie who had a “Khareji Meltdown” earlier after being told by a Mullah on a local radio station in Helmand that she, an American woman, is too old for marriage. Her retort, just before a storming out and a slamming of the door, came in this form:

“I hate this country and every single person in it. Including you.”

Now we learn that the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had a meltdown of his own on an American television program, lashing out at president Karzai for his Afghan counterpart’s continued criticism of Pakistan’s lack of cooperation in the war against the T-word (moratorium still in effect.) In a sweeping neglect of all the diplomatic niceties that usually exist between heads of state (though not so much between these two) Musharraf said that he was “yes indeed, very angry” at the Afghan president, that Karzai’s claims that Mullah Omar was in Pakistan were “absolute nonsense,” and accused Karzai of “total lack of understanding” about what was going on.

If similar exchanges in the past are any indication, we are awaiting an ever more colorful retort from president Karzai within the week. Late last year both leaders found themselves on American television programs, and prodded on by their hosts, let forth generously with mutual allegations and criticisms. Once, in a particular show of bravado during a speech in Afghanistan, president Karzai quoted a Farsi poem* inviting his Pakistani counterpart to meet him “on the battleground” so that he may experience true Afghan Ghairat and bravery for himself.

Needless to say such exchanges, besides revealing the sophomorish attitudes of both these political upstarts, do no good to the two countries’ national interests and their fight against a common enemy.

—
گر ندانی غیرت افغانی ام
چون به میدان آمدی میدانی ام

Karzai Criticizes New Front, Alleges Outside Backing

Since the announcement of its formation in mid-March, the United National Front has generated a lot of buzz. Thanks to early reports on BBC Persian and a few non-media sources here and there, this blog was one of the first to pick the story, and try to make sense of its oddball composition and line-up. (Read previous posts Old Guard Lining Up… and Update on New Front… )

Now, returning from his trip to New Delhi where he secured Afghanistan’s membership into SAARC, president Karzai has joined the fray. BBC Persian reporter Marzia Adeel reports that while the press conference was nominally held to mark the president’s trip to India and the regional summit, most of the journalists peppered him with questions about the new political front that has decidedly postured itself at odds with Karzai’s policies.

Responding to questions about the new front, the president was quick to accuse it of enjoying the backing of Afghanistan’s neighbors through their respective embassies in Kabul. While the president did not name any names or offer any evidence to back his claims (save for saying that Afghanistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Directorate were investigating possible links), his comments are sure to bring the new group under scrutiny and perhaps even cost them politically. And for good reason: certain faces among the UNF’s leadership have well-established, time-tested, and undeniable links to regional stakeholders such as Iran, Pakistan, India, the Russian Federation, and some of the CIS nations.

The president also used some ’spin’ in attacking one of UNF’s stated goals to instate gubernatorial elections for Afghanistan’s provinces, saying that such an arrangement would be tantamount to federalism (he did not explain how), and that that was not a route that the people of Afghanistan wanted to go down again (he did not say when they had done so before.) In regard to UNF’s other goal of changing the constitution in favor of a parliamentary system in Afghanistan, the president invoked the mandate of the people (an oft-invoked genie these days) in that their representatives voted in the constitutional Loyal Jirga in favor of a strong unitary and presidential form of government.

Furthermore the president choose the occasion to admit that members of his government have met with Taliban representatives and that he has had personal audiences with them. This is most certainly in response to another point on the UNF agenda, i.e. its stated willingness to negotiate with the Taliban. With the Taliban’s cycle of spring insurgency well underway and suicide bombings taking place at unprecedented frequency and proximity to the capital, UNF’s placatory moves could be seen as a more attractive alternative to the Karzai government’s failure to negotiate with the Taliban to curb violence.

So far so good. The president has done well in choosing to confront the reality of the new front and responding to their stated goals and criticisms of the government instead of ignoring it like he has been doing for the past couple of weeks. The cynical wheeler-dealers that constitute the new front bring to mind other such disastrous mass marriages of convenience during Afghanistan’s lost decade (1990s) i.e. the Islamabad and Mecca pacts. Then too leaders and figures who were sworn enemies of each other had come together by the force of circumstances and united by their common designs on the people of Afghanistan. Now, marginalized and confronted by new realities (read the frightening episode of “National Amnesty” debate where for a while it seemed likely that the bill would not go through and they would remain prone to accountability for their deeds) some of the very same figures have come together again. Lastly, the new group is aggressively promoting itself as a multi-ethnic and broadly representative grouping. In reality, this could be vacuous posturing as the UNF is not all that representative.

While the formation of new political parties is widely recognized as one of the most urgent needs of the political system in Afghanistan, the truth is that groups like UNF simply don’t cut it. Instead of such old-guard, top-down, wheeler-dealer line-ups, genuine efforts by civil society groups in Afghanistan should be encouraged.

Karzai Steps Down, Citing Frustration with Pakistan

For the full report, which I was regrettably too busy to post here when it was leaked out two days ago -as would have been more appropriate- please click here.

***

Pakistan, Pakistan:

Notwithstanding the veracity of the explosive news above (and remember, you read it first here on Safrang), or the fact that it is outdated by two days, in truth there seems to be apparently no end to the Afghan government’s litany of frustrations with Pakistan.

Yes, there is no denying the fact that Pakistan is -whether actively or passively- complicit in Afghanistan’s security travails. Yes, nobody can seriously question the fact that elements within Pakistan’s security and intelligence establishment have strong sympathies for, and time-tested ties with, the Taliban. Yes, it is true that Pakistan has lost significant ground in post-Taliban Afghanistan and does not enjoy the hegemony that it once did there. And yes, the anachronism of “strategic depth” has been relegated to the dustbin of history with the advent of a new government in Afghanistan that has aligned itself -both regionally and internationally- along lines that are less than beneficial to Pakistani national interests. (For a more detailed account of Pakistan-Afghanistan relationships read my earlier post here.)

All this and more is true of Pakistan, and to the extent that the Afghan government and its American allies pressure Pakistan for greater cooperation in these areas, they are correct.

But lately it is beginning seem like Pakistan is becoming the great scapegoat for all that is wrong with Afghanistan, whether or not they are related to the security situation, the Taliban insurgency, or Pakistan’s role in supporting named insurgency. Note, for instance, Nicholas Kristof’s recent interview with president Karzai. Virtually all of the questions and answers in the interview come down to one thing: Pakistan. Even where Nicholas Kristof tires of hearing about Pakistan and asks about Afghanistan’s economy and the Taliban’s treatment of women, the answers invariably go back to Pakistan’s role.

In one particularly interesting exchange, the president says that the Taliban’s treatment of women was motivated not by their religious conservatism, but was rather a calculated piece of Pakistani “colonial” policy that was aimed at breaking the will of Afghan men, and thereby of the Afghan nation, till they ultimately submitted to Pakistani rule. Continuing this thread, the president accuses Pakistan of continuing its “colonial” policies to date -ostensibly in the form of the insurgency- before retracting his statement on grounds that the upcoming Peace Jirga between the two countries is forthcoming and any such comments would further erode relations. All the same the president sticks to his line and goes on to say that Mullah Omar is in fact Pakistan’s colonial “stooge,” as opposed to a religious fundamentalist bent on establishing an Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan and making Shariah the law of the land. At least for this writer such revisionism of recent history is new and amusing. One need not attribute to the Taliban outlandish motives in order to see that they were and are bad news for Afghanistan. Taliban’s treatment of women was wrong even on their professed religious premises, and should be confronted on those grounds - and not because it was -as the president claims- an effort by Pakistan to humiliate Afghan men and their Ghairat and honor.

The truth is that there are many things wrong with Afghanistan today, and not all of them are because of Pakistan. Corruption, for instance, and the fact that it is institutionalized and widely tolerated, is one among the many serious shortcomings of the current Afghan government and it is doing enormous damage to its legitimacy and capacity -perhaps more than the Taliban insurgency has done. Pakistan has nothing to do with official corruption in Afghanistan, and it is time the president and others at the highest levels of the Afghan government took responsibility for this problem and vowed to confront it. And yet all public pronouncements coming from the government, like the interview above, are centered on how Pakistan is to blame for the Afghan government’s failures.

While finding a perfect alibi and an excuse in Pakistan has helped the Afghan government not get much flack for its shortcomings and failures, the truth is that very soon Afghanistan will have far bigger problems on its hand, and it will not be because of Pakistan or the Taliban. Pakistan, while complicit and culpable in Afghanistan’s instability, should not become the center of Afghan government’s imagination. By limiting itself to holding Pakistan responsible, and -however sincerely- trying to set confront all of Afghanistan’s troubles by seeking their roots in Pakistan, the Afghan government suffers from extreme myopia and lack of imagination and is in fact searching for a silver bullet to Afghanistan’s problems - in the form of greater cooperation from Pakistan. Tragedy is, very soon Pakistan may hopefully succumb to international pressure and take tougher action against Al Qaeda and Taliban elements in its soil, and the Afghan government will then face a crisis of purpose, no longer having Pakistan to blame or combat.

[The link to Nicholas Kristof's interview with president Karzai above is to NY Times Select which you will need a subscription to access. The full interview is available on Barney Rubin's Afghanistan listserve, which if you have not already subscribed to, you should get out from under that rock and do now.]

Update on New Front + Evolving Hazara Leadership

Here is a bit of correction and an update on the previous post about the formation of the new political front by discontents from among Afghanistan’s old pro-communist and Jihadi figures:

According to Pajhwok Afghan News reports, the front, officially called the “United National Front” does include some “warlord”-designates such as former Herat governor and current Energy minister Ismail Khan, Uzbek strongman and advisor to Karzai on security matters Rashid Dustum, and current speaker of Wulusi Jirga (lower house of Afghan parliament) Yunus Qanooni.

Looking at the updated line-up of faces, it seems that the group takes in just about everyone of significance in Afghan politics who is not already co-opted by the government of president Karzai. Two conspicuous absences from the new front are Sayyaf and Muhaqiq, both with sticky ‘warlord’ epithets, and both powerful current MPs with illustrous Jihad credentials.

What explains these absences?

In the case of Sayyaf, he is already co-opted by the Karzai government and operates in locksteps with the administration, but serves his role more usefully if he is publicly seen as an independent MP.

As for Muhaqiq, well, his political career is in dire straits. He has offered himself many times over to the altar of Karzai, but has no takers. He has shown his willingness to gladly throw his lots with anybody (even bitter former enemies like Sayyaf with a long record of proven and documented atrocities against Muhaqiq’s hazara constituency), and at times, he has sought the graces of the government after being sacked from the cabinet as Karzai’s initial Minister of Planning. Owing to a number of miscalculations (most notably joining forces with Sayyaf in the parliament) Muhaqiq’s popularity among the Hazara people has been sliding.

It is against this backdrop that his absence from the United National Front can be explained: Mustafa Kazemi, the new front’s speaker and an instrumental figure in its founding, is styling himself as the unopposed leader of the “Shi’a” of Afghanistan, a dubious group designation that may work well in Iraq, but is virtually meaningless in Afghanistan. It is clear to one and all that politics in Afghanistan will continue to be driven along ethnic lines and not religious or ideological ones for a long time to come. While Mr. Kazemi is not an ethnic Hazara, he does share the Shi’a persuation of Afghanistan’s third largest ethnic community, and he is planning to capitalize on this common denominator to represent them under a new banner.

From the look of things, and from the record of Mr. Kazemi, he should not have any illusions about the Hazara people rallying to his banner. Not because the Hazara people have better alternatives for leadership (as stated above, both Muhaqiq and Khalili have virtually lost their popular support among the majority of Hazara people), but rather, because in what seems to be an interesting and rare social phenomenon in Afghanistan, the Hazara people as a whole are sliding away from personality-based leadership and what Max Weber would term “traditional” roots of legitimacy in their political thinking. Among the urban-dwelling Hazara for a long time, but increasingly also among other Hazara living in central regions, leadership models of yesteryear are eroding in allure and politics is becoming increasingly “issue-based.”(For statistical data on how political thinking has evolved among the Hazara and the very important role played by civil society groups in shaping this new thinking, refer to the Asia Foundation’s A Survey of the Afghan People 2006.)

Old Guard Lining Up to Form New “National Front”

BBC Persian reporter Dawood Naji writes from Kabul about the formation of a new political front that brings together what would otherwise be an unlikely cohort of yesteryear’s communist party ranking members (Khalqi and Parchami) and their later Jihadi successors.

The list of founding members features a motley crew composed of known faces from both extremes of the ideological spectrum in Afghanistan: deposed defense minister and the inheritor of Shura-y Nizar Marshall Fahim, comrade Gulabzoy (who has since prefixed his name with “Sayed Mohammad”), friend Nurulhaq Ulumi, former president and head of Jamiat-e-Islami Rabbani, and the group’s speaker Mustafa Kazemi with a dubious political pedigree of his own.

“The National Front,” as the group is called, clearly comprises a powerful bloc within both houses of the Afghan parliament. It is clear that the primary raison d’etre for the newfound unity (”brotherhood” or “camaraderie” take your pick) is the simple fact that within the new political configuration in Afghanistan, people of both above stripes see themselves increasingly marginalized.

Interestingly enough, the new grouping has decidedly shut out figures with the indisputable honorific “Warlord” such as Sayyaf, Muhaqiq, Dustum, and a few others. While the latter mostly sport longer beards and tightly wound turbans, and wear their Jihadi pride on their sleeves, Mustafa Kazemi and crew prefer to go with closer trims and more urbane styles. That in itself ought to place them ahead in the game as far as the American powerbrokers are concerned.

The article in BBC Persian also points out that many of the figures in the new line-up of the “National Front” were disgruntled with the results of the constitutional Loya Jirga, and specifically with the strong presidency. To the end they fought for a parliamentary form of government and an office of the Prime Minister and were clearly unhappy when things turned otherwise. When asked whether the new front would struggle for such structural reforms as the shift to a parliamentary form of government, Mustafa Kazemi deferred to the constitution and change that would be consistent with the stipulations of the constitution. His comrades, however, strongly endorsed such structural reforms.