Afghan Journal

Slamming the door on reconciliation with Taliban

Afghanistan’s National Security Adviser Rangeen Dadfar Spanta has said that the Taliban would have to lay down arms, accept the constitution in its current form and run for elections if they wanted a share of power.  If the Taliban thought they could get cabinet berths for the asking in return for a peace deal, they have another thing coming, he told the McClatchy newspapers in an interview.

If that’s the Afghan government’s stand,  a deal with the insurgents seems to be a non-starter. Imagine the Taliban agreeing to take part in a Western-style election  campaign under a constitution they have long denounced as forced on the country following their ouster in 2001. The idea of the Taliban – more known for their brutal methods –  knocking on doors seeking votes seems a bit far fetched at the moment. Last week’s reports of the Taliban stoning a young couple to death in rather barbaric fashion in northern Afghanistan on charges of adultery have only reinforced the image of a group unyielding in its interpretation of sharia  law.

Not that the Taliban themselves have shown any willingness for talks.  They have made clear there is no question of any dialogue until all foreign forces leave their homeland, and the country is returned to them as it was pre-2001. Indeed all the talk about talks and the conditions that go with it have come from the Afghan government and some of  its backers in Europe, and not the Taliban. So you have a rather odd situation -  the Afghan government is repeatedly urging the Taliban to come for talks but in the same breath setting conditions that only a fatally weakened interlocutor would accept.

And the Taliban look far from a weakened enemy. Not only have they extended their reach into the north and west from their  southern and eastern strongholds, they are striking at Kabul again, breaching the Ring of Steel or the security cordon that was thrown around the capital during the elections last year.  Talks seem the farthest thing on their minds, although arguably you could be adopting tough postures in public while keeping the door open in private for some kind of engagement.

Indeed Spanta said there wasn’t any serious discussion going on with the Taliban contrary to reports that emerged last year. There might have been some contacts, but it wasn’t clear even these  tentative contacts had any kind of backing from the top Taliban.  It was possible, though, to bring out the ”simple countryside”  Taliban into the mainstream since they were driven by   the presence of foreign troops and bad governance. But the top leadership remained steadfast in their refusal for any kind of engagement..

Spanta is known to be a bit of hawk on political reconciliation with the Taliban, but he is a key aide of President Hamid Karzai. And if he’s setting the policy markers in such clear and non-negotiable terms,  this war doesn’t look like its ending anytime soon.

Afghan crisis had five-star lining for MPs

By Hamid Shalizi

For Afghanistan’s recently elected MPs, a political crisis that threatened to stop some of them ever taking up their seats had a silver lining – they all moved into a five star hotel.

Nearly all 249 MPs booked rooms in one of Kabul’s most luxurious hotels, the hill-top Intercontinental, after President Hamid Karzai said he would delay the inauguration of parliament by a month.

The government will foot the bill for the stay by an army of MPs and their families’ – with full board – at the $150 to $400 a night hotel, hotel sources said. The move was to ensure they were together at one place so they could make collective decisions about the inauguration crisis, MPs said.

So for a week the hotel, more often home to visiting business groups and once the top tourist lodging in the Afghan capital, was packed with parliamentarians.

They packed the halls and conference rooms, debating, delivering long speeches then huddling in small packs in the smoke-filled coffee shop to dissect the latest moves.

An address for the Taliban in Turkey ?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has supported a proposal to open an office for the Taliban in a third country such as Turkey.  Such a move could help facilitate talks with the  insurgent group on reconciliation and reintegration of members back into society, and Kabul was happy for Turkey to be a venue for such a process, he said last week, following a trilateral summit involving the presidents of Turkey and Pakistan.

The question is while a legitimate calling card for the Taliban would be a step forward, the insurgent group itself shows no signs yet of stepping out of the shadows, despite the best entreaties of  and some of his European backers. The Taliban remain steadfast in their stand that they won’t talk to the Afghan government unless foreign troops leave the country. More so at the present time when U.S. commander General David Petraeus has intensified the battle against them and the Taliban have responded in equal measure.

Perhaps some elements of the Taliban may not be averse to the idea of a parallel engagement to the battlefield but then so amorphous and diffused is the nature of the group that it only complicates the picture further, as The Nation wrote in an editorial.

 Nevertheless, the idea of a representative office for the Taliban is a major step forward in efforts to seek a negotiated settlement of the Afghan conflict, says Strafor’s Kamran Bokhari. First, it gives the Taliban the political legitimacy they have been demanding for years, he says. Second with Turkey jumping into the fray, the idea may not be that far fetched. While Pakistan may not be most credible partner in seeking a settlement given its close ties to the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups, Turkey carries enough weight both in the United States and the Islamic world to be able to nudge the different players along.

It has already played a similar role with respect to Iran.

 But of course there is a lot of ground to cover before any of this can materialise including the act of setting up an office for the Taliban. They do not represent an organisation in the classic sense of the word and you can’t really tell who speaks for them.

WikiLeaks : Talks with the Taliban a non-starter

Afghan President Hamid Karzai may be pushing for talks with the Taliban in public as the only way to end the nine-year war, but in private he is as determined as the United States in opposing any place for top Taliban leaders  in a future government , the latest set of WikiLeaks documents show.  Those repeated calls for talks  are more aimed at sowing dissensions in the insurgent group than  any serious attempt for a negotiated settlement of the war. Indeed as The Guardian reports on the leaked comments on its website, so far as Karzai and the Obama administration are concerned, the only option open to the Taliban is surrender.

Which pretty much is a deal-maker, given that the Taliban having fought the world’s most advanced military formation to a virtual stalemate, have shown few signs of a compromise, much less  surrender.

“We have no illusion that Mullah Omar could ever join the government,” General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, is quoted as saying in a cable to Washington on 20 January 2009.  The general made the remarks during a conversation with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev who said he was concerned by Karzai’s bid to involve the Taliban in a post-war settlement.  Petraeus says Karzai’s position is more nuanced than that, and that the Afghan leader ‘s goal was to break up the Taliban, and reconcile some.

A year later another cable makes clear that the United States is remains fundamentally opposed to any deal with the Taliban. “There will be no power-sharing with elements of the Taliban,” Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan tells Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao citing the Taliban’s “unpalatable social programmes”and links with Al Qaeda.

Holbrooke said reconciliation should not be confused with reintegration of Taliban foot soldiers.  The reintegration programme is not a political negotiation designed to give Taliban elements a share of power, he said. The United States could not support any such deal.

In any case, he said, the Taliban themselves have shown no willingness to engage in talks.

The contours of an Afghan settlement

For all the talk of  seeking a political settlement of the Afghan war  with the involvement of the Taliban, it has not been clear even broadly what a final deal will look like.   Will the Taliban, who control or exercise influence over large parts of the country, take charge in Kabul ? Will the United States simply and fully withdraw all its forces from the country?  What happens to President Hamid Karzai who has been actively seeking reconciliation with the hardline Islamists ? What about the regional powers, not just Pakistan which obviously will play a central role because of its ties to the Taliban, but also Iran and India, both with rising stakes there along with the Russians and the Chinese to a lesser extent  ?

Selig Harrison, director of the Asia programme at the Center for International Policy, explores some of these questions in a must-read piece in Foreign Policy headlined “How to leave Afghanistan without Losing.”

As the title suggests, America’s exit strategy should be based on the premise that  while the Talban will have to be accommodated in any settlement, they must be contained.  Disengagement  from Afghanistan does not mean surrender to the Taliban, Harrison argues, even though the austere Islamist group has virtually fought a coalition led by the world’s most powerful military to a stalemate.  And the key to the containment strategy rests with Afghanistan’s neighbours.

Six of the seven regional powers with a stake in Afghanistan share the U.S. goal of preventing the return of a Taliban dictatorship in Kabul.  These  include such unlikely countries as Iran, Russia, China, and India besides the central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all worried that the extreme version of Islam espoused by the Taliban can only have negative consequences for their own countries, the  author argues.

The one country that supports a Taliban return to power, is Pakistan, which helped install and sustain the  regime that ruled from 1996 to 2001. Although given the manner in which militants groups inspired or tied to the Afghan Taliban have turned on the Pakistani state in recent years, you would have to think that security planners in Islamabad may have their own concerns of a fully resurrected Taliban just over the border.

Harrison suggests the following steps

from The Great Debate:

Obama, Karzai and an Afghan mirage

Last year, under the leadership of President Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan slipped three places on a widely respected international index of corruption and became the world's second-most corrupt country. It now ranks 179th out of 180, a place long held by Somalia.

According to a United Nations report published in January, Afghans paid $2.5 billion in bribes in 2009, roughly a quarter of the country's Gross Domestic Product (not counting revenue from the opium trade). The survey, based on interviews with 7,600 people, said corruption was the biggest concern of Afghans.

On the military front in a war more than halfway through its ninth year, attacks on U.S. forces and their NATO allies totaled 21,000 in 2009, a 75 percent increase over 2008, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) a week before Karzai's visit to Washington. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, noted that Taliban insurgents had set up a "widespread paramilitary shadow government...in a majority of Afghanistan's 34 provinces."

The Pentagon, also in advance of Karzai's visit (in the second week of May), reported that Afghans support his government in only 29 of the 121 districts the U.S. military consider most strategically important.

"The insurgents perceive 2009 as their most successful year," the Pentagon said. "The Afghan insurgency has. ..a ready supply of recruits drawn from the frustrated population, where insurgents exploit poverty, tribal friction and lack of governance to grow their ranks." As to corruption: "Real...change remains elusive and political will, in particular, remains doubtful."

In case all this has led you to the conclusion that the Afghan glass is half empty at best, that's not the way President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton portrayed it during Karzai's visit. Yes, there were difficulties ahead, they said, but overall things were looking up. "We are steadily making progress," Obama said. "Progress in Afghanistan is real," echoed Clinton.

Was this a matter of two leaders seeing a mirage, or a 21st century version of the "we see light at the end of the tunnel" assurance Americans heard during the Vietnam war? Or was it simply overdue recognition that Obama is stuck with Karzai no matter how unpopular he might be or how much credibility he lacks?

from Tales from the Trail:

Frankly, Mr. Karzai, the U.S. does give a damn

When two heads of state stand side-by-side in public, it's all about reading into the words they choose and the body language.

In the case of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. President Barack Obama the word "frank" came up a number of times.

In Washington-speak when political leaders describe discussions as "frank" and "very frank"  it usually means they didn't quite see eye-to-eye. And given the recent tensions between Karzai's government and the U.S. government that the visit sought to ease, the use of the word "frank" showed that not everything was agreeable.

"Obviously, there are going to be tensions in such a complicated, difficult environment and in a situation in which, on the ground, both -- both Afghans and Americans are making enormous sacrifices," Obama said at a joint news conference at the White House. "We've had very frank discussions."

Obama went on to say, "Our job is to be a good friend and to be frank with President Karzai in saying, 'Here's where we think we've got to put more effort'."

When Karzai took his turn at the question, he pointed out that this version of the U.S.-Afghan relationship was in its 10th year. "It's not an imaginary relationship.  It's a real relationship. It's based on some very hard and difficult realities.  We are in a campaign against terrorism together.  There are days that we are happy.  There are days that we are not happy."

"And definitely days have come in which we've had a difference of opinion.  And definitely days in the future will come in which we have difference of opinion," Karzai said.

from Tales from the Trail:

Holbrooke hits the airwaves in new push

When President Barack Obama snuck into Afghanistan unannounced last month, a notable omission on Air Force One was his special representative for the region, veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke.

Leaving out the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan on Obama's very first trip to Kabul as president raised a few eyebrows.

Was Holbrooke's star fading? Were frictions between his office at the State Department and the White House coming to a head? Would tensions with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has made a string of anti-Western comments over recent weeks, cause further problems for the Obama administration as it seeks to turn around the 8-year war?

But several U.S. officials say it is premature to write off Holbrooke's fortunes.

In fact, the veteran diplomat's profile has been raised in recent days, including his own trip to Kabul last weekend with U.S. General David Petraeus when they met up with Karzai.

Holbrooke appeared on MSNBC on Wednesday, declaring that tensions with the Afghan leader were over and that reports of friction were overblown.

In the coming days, Holbrooke will appear on several other news outlets. On Friday night, Holbrooke is giving an hour-long interview with broadcaster Charlie Rose on whose show he has appeared at least three times over the past year.

Another week, another shura for Afghanistan’s Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai seems to be making a habit of going to shuras, or meeting of local elders, across the country in recent weeks. After attending shuras in Marjah, Tirin Kot and Kandahar over the past month and a half, Karzai flew to Kunduz in the north this past weekend for another meeting with tribal elders.  The U.S. military took a group of journalists to the town to watch the Afghan leader in action, his presence at shuras being a part of a carefully choreographed “hearts and minds” campaign aimed at getting local support for NATO operations in the area.

That the security situation in Kunduz is of concern seemed apparent soon after we got off our military plane from Kabul.  Greeted by our German military hosts, we were bundled into heavy flak jackets for a bumpy 5 minute ride at breakneck speed from the airfield to the provincial reconstruction team base.  As we listened to the standard instructions on what to do during a rocket attack, we also learned the last time a rocket had hit the base was just the day before we arrived. Once seen as one of the safer parts of Afghanistan, Kunduz has emerged as a relatively new battlefront in the fight with the Taliban, who have made inroads into the area from their main strongholds in the south and the east. 

At the Kunduz governor’s compound the next morning, the tight security net left no illusions about who was coming to town that day, even if Karzai’s visit had been kept a secret for security reasons. Guards frisked everyone, bags and equipment were put before sniffer dogs and then examined piece by piece.  Once searched, tribal elders – some in bright green chapan coats, colourful turbans or traditional pakol hats – streamed in to the hall holding the shura. I marvelled at the quiet patience of the roughly 250 people assembled as we waited for Karzai to arrive. Finally, a clatter of helicopters overhead and then, in walked Karzai to a standing ovation and applause.  A few minutes later, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. and NATO commander of forces in Afghanistan, made a much quieter entrance and took a seat in the front row with the audience, clearly leaving the show to the Afghan president. 

There was no doubt Karzai was in his element at a gathering like this – joking, bantering and making promises to his captive audience.  Presented with a black turban and chapan coat, Karzai warmly praised the colour of the coat. When a few children dressed in glittery pink and blue scarves and outfits walked through the aisles, Karzai interrupted his speech to tell the girls — “When I finish my speech, I’ll come to see you, little girls”.  When a young man rose and made an impassioned plea for a university in the area, Karzai promised that would happen.  As a litany of requests poured in — from more hospital beds to building roads – Karzai listened and nodded intently.  When the shura was over, Karzai walked into the audience aisles, thronged by elders around him.

Back at the base, German troops waiting for Karzai to address them as promised didn’t have the same luck as the Kunduz elders.  Rockets had landed near the base and the visit was cancelled at the last minute due to security reasons and a tight timetable. Audible boos went around among troops dutifully waiting by the helipad when the announcement was made.  After starting with a flourish, the Karzai roadshow in Kunduz had abruptly ended.

Obama’s Kabul jaunt: Hello Afghans … and goodbye.

Press conferences at the presidential palace in Kabul can be tedious affairs but the frustration felt by the local press corp topped a new level when U.S. President Barack Obama came to visit Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday evening. Mainly because there wasn’t one — a press conference that is.

At around 4:30 in the afternoon, just when government ministries are wrapping up for the day,  a selected group of foreign and domestic journalists received a telephone call from palace officials: “Be at the palace at 5 o’clock.” That was it. No more details.

Having been to Karzai’s heavily guarded palace a number of times over the last two years, I am now familiar with the ritual. I emptied my pockets of anything unnecessary and rushed out the door.

Karzai’s palace, in the centre of the city, is probably the most heavily guarded and fortified compound in the country, bar a few foreign military bases dotted around the desert of course. Getting in, even if you are invited, is a long procedure.

After flashing our media badges half a dozen times to jumpy Afghan palace guards trained by a U.S. private security firm, a series of invasive pat-downs by palace officials in cheap suits, our belongings sniffed over by German Alsatian dogs, the same belongings then checked in two separate X-Ray machines, our mobile phones (and cigarettes) confiscated, we were finally in — two hours down.

Nothing unusual so far except that the palace media staff were particularly unforthcoming with information regarding the event. “We know nothing. You will find out soon,” one official told me. For security reasons journalists are normally given as little information as possible so as not to jeopardize a VIP visit. But this time it seemed even they didn’t know anything. I believed them.

When all the journalists were finally led into a grand room in the palace, not normally used for news conferences, we were pretty certain Karzai’s guest was not the Slovakian foreign minister. The U.S. flag behind the podium gave it away. “It’s got to be Obama. It has to be him,” journalists whispered to each other. With our connection to the outside world cut off now that our phones had been confiscated, all we could do was wait. Three hours down.