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October 25, 2008
Afghanistan on the Edge
While Iraq has stabilized significantly due to a successful shift in U.S. strategy, including the “surge” of American troops, many of the challenges once found there have regrettably migrated to another hotspot: Afghanistan. Today, Afghanistan is entrenched in a slugfest with terrorists, insurgents and drug traffickers. The country is struggling to embrace democracy, develop economically and build a sustainable civil society following three decades of turmoil.
But while Afghanistan is not in as bad a shape as Iraq was in the summer of 2006 when Iraq was in a dangerous, seemingly irreversible downward spiral, Afghanistan has not yet completely escaped that fate.
Indeed, in September congressional testimony, top Pentagon brass gave a very sobering assessment. For instance, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said he is “not convinced we’re winning” and “time is running out to stabilize Afghanistan.
Focused attention and a concerted effort by the United States and its coalition partners, especially NATO, will be required to keep Afghanistan from looking – indeed, falling – into an Iraq-like abyss.
AFGHANISTAN ASSESSED
Despite the current challenges in Afghanistan, there has been real progress since U.S. and coalition forces invaded in the weeks after the attacks of September 11th, according to the Bush administration.
Beginning in late 2001, the United States and its partners helped topple the Taliban, ending their repressive rule over large parts of Afghanistan and its support for Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda acolytes.
Since then, with international assistance, President Hamid Karzai’s government has set about building infrastructure, providing education, doling out health care and establishing security services such as the Afghan police and army.
For instance, before 2002, Afghanistan had only tens of miles of paved roads and fewer than 1 million children attended school. Today, there are more than 1,000 miles of road and 6 million kids attend school – one-third of them are girls.
In support of this effort, 60,000 coalition troops, including 30,000 Americans with overwhelming firepower, provide security, working alongside Afghanistan’s 60,000-man national army and 80,000 police. In fact, according to Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher, “Broad swaths of Afghanistan are hardly recognizable in contrast to where they were in 2001.” While this is undoubtedly true, especially considering Afghanistan’s constant state of turbulence since the Communist coup and Soviet invasion in the late 1970s, much work remains to be done.
The Muslim country of more than 30 million has no shortage of needs: Illiteracy exceeds 70%; more than half live in poverty; unemployment hovers near 40%; and life expectancy averages the mid-40s, according to the CIA.
A September State Department Travel Warning cautioned that no part of Afghanistan should be “considered immune from violence … Afghan authorities have a limited ability to maintain order and ensure the security of citizens and visitors.”
The report also noted the “number of attacks in the south and southwestern areas of the country continue to be high as a result of insurgent and drug-related activity.” More than 100 attacks took place in Kabul, and an additional 4,400 attacks occurred nationwide since last September.
Insurgent and terrorist attacks are at an all-time high, and rising – they are up 30% from 2007. Deaths of U.S. and NATO soldiers are also at record levels, already exceeding last year’s total. By some estimates, the central government may control as little as 30% to 50% of the vast country.
Moreover, issues of governance (especially competence at the local level and widespread corruption), the rule of law, respect for human rights, hunger and the availability of basic human services are still problems.
Making matters worse, the drug trade may account for up to half of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product of $8 billion – and international political, military and economic aid and investment have been insufficient to deal with the wide-ranging challenges. A lawless, failed state that could host a range of bad actors is a distinct possibility.
For their part, Afghans are frustrated, too. An outcry has erupted over accidental civilian casualties attributed to coalition military operations – which the insurgency has been quick to seize upon for propaganda purposes.
The JCS chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, recently told Congress that “a new, more comprehensive strategy” is needed in Afghanistan that “covers both sides of the border.” The other side of the border in this case: Pakistan. Indeed, while Afghanistan, an ethnically diverse country the size of Texas, still faces an array of difficult obstacles, perhaps the biggest hurdle to peace and stability comes not from within, but from without.
PAKISTAN PROBLEM
What happens in neighboring Pakistan, especially in the tribal areas along the border, may have as much of an effect on Afghanistan’s future as anything that happens in Afghanistan itself.
Pakistan, a teeming country of 160 million people, is, by some measures, in peril itself. The Muslim state is beleaguered by religious fervor, militancy, poverty and economic woes. Unbeknownst to many, it is one of the world’s most terror-afflicted countries, as evidenced by the horrific attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad in September.
Indeed, the Taliban and al Qaeda have taken refuge in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the 1,500-mile Afghanistan-Pakistan border, from where they plot, train and launch operations.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said this year that the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area is a “clear and present danger to Afghanistan, to Pakistan and to the West in general, and to the United States in particular.”
Indeed, a number of plots, including attacks in the United Kingdom and the foiled summer 2006 liquid-explosives conspiracy against airliners flying from Britain to the United States and Canada, were hatched by al Qaeda in Pakistan. Moreover, U.S. intelligence has been confident for some time that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, are located in Pakistan’s unruly border regions, under the protection of tribal leaders. The situation has become even dicier as Islamabad goes through a difficult political transition. With the recent resignation of President Pervez Musharraf, a seeming ally of Washington on terrorism, the course his successor Ali Asif Zardari, the widower of slain presidential candidate, Benazir Bhutto, will take is open to question. However, Zardari’s early rhetoric regarding terrorism has been encouraging.
With the change in government in Islamabad, it is not even clear who – or even which government organization – is currently calling the shots regarding security operations along the Afghanistan border. Many experts assert the Pakistani military under Gen. Asfaq Parvez Kayani – not the elected political leadership – is now directing and controlling the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda in the FATA. (Supporting this notion are the high-frequency visits to Pakistan of senior U.S. military officials such as Adm. Mullen.) Adding to the challenges, American cross-border Special Forces raids and Predator drone strikes into Pakistan have raised political hackles in Islamabad, potentially jeopardizing counterterrorism cooperation in the border area or leading to an unintended engagement between U.S. and Pakistani forces.
Making matters worse, Pakistan’s controversial Directorate for Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI), a military entity that helped establish the Taliban in the 1990s, is reportedly still supporting them to retain influence in Afghanistan, which has caused lots of bad blood with both Kabul and Washington.
TALIBAN TROUBLE
Unfortunately, the Taliban have found a welcome sanctuary – and kinship – on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border among the ethnic Pashtun tribes, which dominate that region.
The Taliban are no match for American or NATO forces on the battlefield, suffering huge losses when confronting coalition forces head-on. But the Taliban appear to have taken some pages from the Iraq-insurgency playbook.
They have turned to asymmetric tactics, such as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), car and suicide bombings, and attacks on civilians, to advance their goal of regaining control of Afghanistan. Indeed, the Taliban are reportedly setting up a parallel government in some areas of the country.
Like in Baghdad, the insurgency has also increasingly turned its sights on the Afghan capital, where attacks are sharply up, hoping to generate propaganda-worthy news and undermine confidence in the government at home and abroad. Taliban forces are not large in conventional army terms, ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 dedicated combatants, but their size is significant relative to the number of coalition forces – not to mention the force-multiplier effect of their guerilla and terror tactics.
State-sponsorship also helps the Taliban thrive. Beyond Pakistan, based on recovered Iranian-made weapons in Afghanistan, Iran is believed to be providing arms to the Taliban, too, just like it has supplied Shia insurgents in Iraq.
Unfortunately, the Taliban also find fellow travelers in other militant groups such as Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Pakistani terror groups – not to mention al Qaeda.
AL QAEDA ASCENT
While al Qaeda lost its training camps in Afghanistan with the 2001 U.S. invasion, its leadership and operatives have taken a renewed interest in their old haunt, especially since they began taking a pounding in Iraq.
Though far fewer in number than the Taliban in Afghanistan, al Qaeda sees the unsettled country as a potential soft spot, as it probes the Muslim world for new safe havens that will provide training and operating bases.
Indeed, al Qaeda looks for targets of opportunity that will allow it to score real military – or perceived propaganda – victories against the United States and the West, leading to a boost in morale, notoriety, fund raising and recruiting.
Like the Taliban, al Qaeda is also coordinating its efforts with antigovernment groups in Afghanistan.
And while there is limited awareness of al Qaeda’s Iraq veterans making their way to Afghanistan, some are believed to have done so, bringing tactics and techniques with them.
Regrettably, al Qaeda, the Taliban, warlords, insurgents and criminals are finding funding for opposing Kabul and coalition forces in Afghanistan’s biggest export: opium.
NARCOTICS NETWORK
According to the CIA, Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium. In fact, poppy cultivation and opium production are at near-record levels, impeded only by a recent drought. Like elsewhere, poverty, high-profits and widespread corruption impede effective governance and counterdrug efforts, allowing the bulk of Afghanistan’s opium to find its way to Russia and Europe as deadly heroin. The Taliban, al Qaeda and other militants profit from the drug trade by taxing local farmers and extorting narco-traffickers for providing protection services for cultivation, production and shipment.
No small business, American and United Nations analysts estimate the $4 billion Afghan drug trade provides 40% to 60% of the Taliban’s operational funding.
This near-endless source of revenue allows the insurgents to plan, train and operate, including buying weapons, providing subsistence, gathering intelligence, bribing officials, renting safe houses and running camps.
LONG-TERM EFFORTS
So where does this difficult assessment leave us?
While more U.S. and, perhaps, NATO troops will likely flow into Afghanistan in the months to come, Adm. Mullen warns that more boots on the ground are not the ultimate answer: “We can’t kill our way to victory [in Afghanistan].… [I]t is my professional opinion that no amount of troops in no amount of time can ever achieve all the objectives we seek in Afghanistan.”
Indeed, the JCS chairman is very likely correct.
Foreign troops can provide the security, that is, the breathing room, needed to address the political, economic and social challenges that often accompany conflict. But troops alone will not solve these issues.
While the surge in Iraq was a key element in achieving today’s relative stability, there were other factors, such as political progress, economic development and buy-in among the people for a better life that also made a big difference.
As Assistant Secretary Boucher noted recently: “With sustained resources and effort, we have every prospect of securing a stable, democratic and lasting ally in Afghanistan and an important linchpin for the region.”
But it will take time. Afghanistan is clearly a long-term project for the international community. Considering the stakes for the United States in terms of geopolitics, radicalism, terrorism and narcotics, failure is not a good option – to say the least.
But just like in Iraq, where America has shed much blood and spent much treasure, it is the Afghans who will have to ultimately step up to wrest back their country from those such as the Taliban and al Qaeda who seek to subjugate them.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Brookes is a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation and is a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.
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