Karazai faces acute dilemmas

The POST, Sun, October,08, 2006.

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema

Sensing the widening gulf between President Musharraf and President Karazai, President Bush held a dinner in White House during the last week of September. The three leaders not only agreed that without sincere cooperation it is impossible to defeat extremism and terrorism but they also acknowledged that the partnership between Pakistan and Afghanistan is good for the regional stability. Indeed President Bush played an important role in bringing the two leaders together and bridging the disagreements between President Musharraf and President Karazai.  It was also agreed in the troika meeting that two loya jirgas along their mutual border would be held.

The issue of who is responsible for the upsurge of the Taliban activities in Afghanistan has led to accusations and counter accusations between the Pakistani officials on one hand and Afghan officials and commanders of ISAF forces on the other. Pakistani officials’ agreement with Waziristan was not only initially dismissed by the Afghan regime as pro Taliban but was also interpreted as an unfriendly act which could help the Talibans. The Karazai regime claimed that after the accord that Taliban attacks have increased. After the Bush dinner the Afghan President appeared to have softened his position.

While it is a welcome step that the two leaders have agreed to joint efforts to check the rising tide of terrorism in Afghanistan, one should not ignore the imperative need to resolve the dilemmas confronting the Karazai regime. Among the innumerable dilemmas confronting Karazai include how to extend the writ of his government beyond Kabul, how to control the warlords, how to check the increasing poppy cultivation and drug trade, how to improve its image of corruption especially before the donors, how to retain the American as well as the support of the international community.

To extend the writ of the government beyond Kabul would require help of all the well wishers of Afghanistan and would require long terms policy pursuits. Help from all concerned and the writ could only be extended over some time. The Afghan regime need well trained and disciplined police as well as the army. This implies that the law and order situation needs to be improved first inside Kabul. Having attained this objective, the regime should try to go beyond Kabul gradually. Many countries have not only offered help to assist Afghanistan in training both police and army but many have already done so. But the number of trained manpower is not really sufficient and undoubtedly it needs to be rapidly increased. In this connection Pakistan along with many other countries are regularly contributing.

The dilemma of how to control the warlords is certainly an acute problem. For years Afghanistan has remained divided and ruled in parts by various warlords. A warlord maintains a private army and to do so he needs money. Money can be procured either through proper and legitimate means or though illegal means. The procurement of money through illegal means is an easy pursuit and less time consuming than efforts directed to procure money through legal means. Hence one finds that many warlords are still indulging in illegal means even after having become the members of Afghan parliament. So what can be done? Increasing stakes of the warlords in the united Afghanistan may be able to pay desired dividends.

Perhaps more important than the warlords is the need to curb poppy cultivation and control the drug barons. According to an Australian Institute the drug economy is now equals to 50-60% of Afghanistan’s GDP and around 87% of the world’s heroin comes from Afghanistan. Two factors seem to have been causing the upsurge of drug economy. Since the rural areas have no financial system, the drug barons are the main money lender to poor formers. Second, the Afghan government has not yet been able to convince the poppy growers to cultivate a substitute crop. Poppy is a cash crop which fetches good money. No other crop can earn as much as it is done by poppy cultivation. To deal with this dilemma, Karazai could learn from Pakistan as Pakistan has been a success story in the poppy eradication drive and opt for a comprehensive package deal for the poppy growers.

Linked with drug related dilemma is issue of corruption in Afghanistan which needs urgent attention of the Karazai regime. Not only the leaders are deeply involved in overall corruption that has plagued the country since the advent of Karazai regime, but a number of police and other officials are intimately involved in administrative corrupt practices. To make things worse they are also deeply involved in drug trade. It is also reported that some drug barons are actively supporting Karazai.

The drug barons have also links with the Talibans and reportedly the Talibans have also access to drug funds. The recent rise in Taliban activities and the ineffective handling of Karazai regime despite the active support of many countries is invoking strong concerns. How can Karazai regime deal with this problem in some convincing way when it is a well known fact that drug barons are actively supporting Karazai regime. The linkage between drugs, politics and upsurge of Talibans have complicated the situation in Afghanistan which is unlikely to produce desired result by just curbing and controlling only one of these three elements.

Finally the dilemma of how to retain support of the donors and military personals of NATO and ISAF forces in Afghanistan. The donors would like to see that their money is justifiably spent on developmental projects. To facilitate and to accelerate development pursuits, security and stability are the essential requirements. To acquire reasonable level of security and stability implies that Karazai must seek help during the reconstruction stage from all the donors and neighbors. Instead of earning the goodwill and continuous help of the neighbors, the Karazai regime appears to be employing the strategy of diversion and indulging in the blame-game especially with regard to Pakistan. Besides, it is imperative that the international community raises the number of their forces in Afghanistan. The existing contingents along with the newly trained Afghan forces would face considerable difficulties. The problem requires the deployment of more troops of NATO and American force.

Pakistan has been cooperating with the Afghan government in a rather comprehensive way but the Afghan regime has been almost regularly putting blame on Pakistan for their own ills. Inability to effectively resolve their own internal problems, in many ways, seems to be the cause of diversionary strategy. The recent source of Afghan blame game is the resurgence of Talibans and the inability of the Afghan regime to check it effectively. The Afghan regime continuously blames Pakistan for Talibans upsurge even in those provinces which are far away from the Pakistani border. Pakistan, on the other hand, has not only posted more than 80,000 troops in the tribal area but has also been employing a political strategy in order to check infiltration of sympathetic elements from Pakistani side. While the recent agreement with the Grand Jirga is one such constructive step but the regime in Kabul, without giving much thought, dubbed it as an agreement with Talibans.

The question that is being asked by many Pakistanis is why Afghanistan keeps blaming Pakistan for something which it has not done. Many Pakistanis are not just suspicious of increasing Indian influence over Karazai regime but many are now convinced that Karazai has adopted the Indian tactics to consistently put the blame on Pakistan even if you are convinced that Pakistan is not involved. They openly advocate that enough concessions have been given to Afghanistan and what has Afghanistan given in return. They argue that Afghanistan is following the advice of the Indians and using Pakistan as a scapegoat for its own inabilities to check the rising tide of Talibans. 

Blaming Pakistan is no recipe for resolving the internal problems. Diversionary tactics, at best, can only buy sometime. Perhaps the more rewarding approach is to develop cooperative and friendly relationships with Pakistan. This would not only serve the interest of the two countries but would also enable both of them to undertake joint cooperative mechanism to deal with problems that may crop up periodically. Karazai also needs to shed the tremendous Indian influence. Allowing the establishment of four Indian Consulates in a country like Afghanistan itself reflects the enormity of influence India enjoys over Afghanistan.

The writer works for Islamabad Policy research Institute.