Afghan Mess

Ahmed Rashid, the esteemed journalist on Central Asia, addresses "The Mess in Afghanistan" in the NYRB. He surveys many recent documents that shed light on the situation in country there, including several reports by Human Rights Watch.

In a telling passage, he writes:

The US is now determined that elections go ahead by June, as stipulated in the Bonn agreement of December 2001. But almost all other key forces—the UN, most European and NATO countries, Western and Afghan NGOs, as well as many Afghans—have pleaded with the US to postpone them for at least a year. That much time is needed, they say, to increase security, build more infrastructure, strengthen the central government, and complete important building projects. However the final decision rests with Karzai. UN officials recently told me that too many parts of Afghanistan are still a war zone, and at least half of Karzai's cabinet would prefer to delay the elections. "The security situation has to improve and real reconstruction must start before elections can be held," Vice President Amin Arsala told me in December. Karzai himself acknowledges that the country has reached no more than "only 40 to 50 percent of the administrative ability that a government in a country like ours should have." Still, Karzai and some who are close to him strongly supported early elections, cooperating with the Americans in upholding the image they are trying to project of a stable, post-conflict state where free and fair elections can be held.

Is it fair to conclude that the elections-by-the-summer-no matter-what stance is in part driven by domestic political considerations in the US, so Bush has something positive to tout prior to the election? Probably.

Rashid's conclusion is part somber analysis, part clarion call:

That the Taliban are returning in force two years after their defeat is testimony enough that the West's support and strategy for rebuilding Afghanistan have so far been a failure. The war against terrorism is still to be won in the Afghan mountains and deserts and among the Afghan people as well. Their nation, the largest and most tragic victim of terrorism, is not being rebuilt. Until that happens there is little incentive for al-Qaeda or extremists elsewhere to lose heart.

The urgency of the Afghan situation was emphasized by Kofi Annan in a UN report issued on December 3. "Unchecked criminality, outbreaks of factional fighting and activities surrounding the illegal narcotics trade," he said, "have all had a negative impact." He warned that "the international community must decide whether to increase its level of involvement in Afghanistan or risk failure."

While lip service abounds about the West's "commitment" to reconstruction, little is being done to address the crippling problems that plague Karzai's regime. The US promises a stepped up military campaign for this coming spring, but whether that is the right prescription remains to be seen.