Afghanistan

//**Thinking more about Afghanistan: resources**//
BBC NEWS: Fighting for Peace NPR: Afghanistan, Five Years On | Afghan Study Group NYT: The President Who Would Be King | Afghanistan. Pakistan. Forgotten.

 //**From BBC NEWS: Afghanistan-Fighting for Peace**// http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/documentary_archive/6166086.stm A 2 part series: Do ordinary Afghans believes their country is on the right track? Why is Afghanistan still awash with guns and opium poppies?

 //**From NPR: Afghanistan, Five Years On** http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6353912 Five years after the war in Afghanistan began, the United States and other allied forces are fighting a resurgent Taliban. The battle lines have now shifted to villages, where the allies are trying to win over local residents with reconstruction efforts. Renee Montagne returns to Afghanistan for a series of reports.//

// http://www.thepresidency.org/pubs/Afghan_Study_Group_final.pdf// The Report Calls For:// //conflicts in the Executive branch.// //strategy for Afghanistan in coordination with the Afghan government.// //its military operations.// //operations where appropriate.// //development – in all provinces. Encourage the Afghan government to appoint an Afghan development “czar”.// //regional partners in the future sustainable development of Afghanistan.//
 * Afghan Study Group Final Report**
 * //Decoupling Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. legislative process and in the management of these//
 * //Appointing a U.S. government Special Envoy to Afghanistan.//
 * //Establishing an Eminent Persons Group that would develop a long-term, coherent, international//
 * //Appointing a high level international coordinator under a UN mandate.//
 * //Setting up a NATO compensation fund for civilian deaths, injuries or property damage resulting from//
 * //Developing a coordinated strategy in support of President Karzai’s national reconciliation efforts.//
 * //Creating a regional plan to effectively target the risks coming out of the border area with Pakistan.//
 * //Sequencing the core tools of counter-narcotics policy and integrate counter-narcotics and counterinsurgency//
 * //Increasing and accelerating investment in development – especially infrastructure and industry//
 * //Initiating a regional process to engage Afghanistan’s neighbors (including Iran) and other potential//

 //**New York Times**//**, February 6, 2008 Op-Ed Contributors //The President Who Would Be King//** By AMIN SAIKAL and WILLIAM MALEY Canberra, Australia AFGHANISTAN is spiraling downward. Terrorist strikes in Kabul and an assassination campaign against local officials, schoolteachers and religious figures in the southern provinces have illustrated the reach of the Taliban and the vulnerability of the government.

The common reaction of the United States and Afghanistan’s other foreign backers has been to call for more international troops and to reaffirm their commitment to the government of President Hamid Karzai. But this approach has done little to alter the situation, because the root causes of Afghanistan’s deepest ills lie elsewhere.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that Afghanistan’s 2004 Constitution is inappropriate and ineffective. The strong presidential system it embodies has not served the country well.

At the time, many historians and constitutional scholars warned that such a system wouldn’t work in a war-torn state with so many tribal and ethnic divisions. Presidential systems typically produce many disgruntled losers intent on challenging or undermining the victor. In addition, they can also put too much formal power in the hands of the winner, leading to personalized politics in which lesser politicians fight viciously over access to the president.

Yet, paradoxically, the actual powers of the president are often less than they appear on paper, while his responsibilities are heavy and the expectations that citizens have of him are unrealistic. It is all too easy to create a job that no one could do adequately.

This is precisely what has happened to President Karzai. A decent and incorruptible man, he has nonetheless grown increasingly isolated from the public. His position has been undermined by associates in the executive branch who lack his personal qualities, and by the allocation of ministries to various factions as political prizes.

The result is a corrupt and dysfunctional government in which senior positions are filled not on the basis of merit but by family, tribal, ethnic and factional connections. The president and his key advisers increasingly attract the blame for all the failures of Afghanistan’s transition; the presidential system is cracking under the weight of the burdens it is expected to carry.

Afghanistan does have a two-chamber Parliament, and although it is far from ideal, it has provided a venue for a range of voices to be heard. Unfortunately, the executive branch has seen no compelling reason to coordinate its functions with the legislative. The relationship is so tense that President Karzai and Muhammad Yunus Qanooni, the speaker of the lower house (the Wolesi Jirga), haven’t been on speaking terms for the last six months.

Given its history of weak state structures in ever-changing relationships with tight-knit tribal and ethnic societies, Afghanistan would be far better served by a more inclusive parliamentary system of government. This would mean a ceremonial rather than an executive president, a prime minister and other cabinet members drawn from the upper and lower houses of Parliament, and stronger local and regional governments that would make ordinary Afghans feel connected to the political system.

Such a decentralized system would ensure that the government had a working parliamentary majority that could hold the executive branch accountable. At present, Mr. Karzai really answers to a fractious cluster of foreign donors, not to elected Afghan legislators, a situation that has made the Afghan public understandably skeptical of the democratic experiment.

A number of President Karzai’s political rivals have argued in favor of a parliamentary system, and for this reason alone, it seems, his supporters have spurned the idea. This is a pity: constitutional questions of this sort go far beyond the turmoil of day-to-day politics, and deserve measured and thoughtful responses.

In Afghan tradition, the proper forum for considering changes of this scope is the Loya Jirga, or grand assembly. It was the 2003 Loya Jirga that finally established the present constitutional arrangements. There is now a need for another grand assembly to repair them. This might cost Mr. Karzai his job, but it could also save his country.

//Amin Saikal is the director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University and the author of “Modern Afghanistan.” William Maley is the director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the university and the author of “Rescuing Afghanistan.”//

 Afghanistan. Pakistan. Forgotten.** By JOE BIDEN THE next president will have to rally America and the world to “fight them over there unless we want to fight them over here.” The “over there” is not, as President Bush has claimed, Iraq, but rather the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 * New York Times, March 2, 2008, Op-Ed Contributor

That is where those who attacked us on 9/11 came from, where the attacks in Europe since originated and where Al Qaeda is regrouping. It is the real central front in the war on terrorism.

Afghanistan is slipping toward failure. The Taliban is back, violence is up, drug production is booming and the Afghans are losing faith in their government. All the legs of our strategy — security, counternarcotics efforts, reconstruction and governance — have gone wobbly.

If we should have had a surge anywhere, it is Afghanistan. And instead of eradicating poppy crops, which forces many farmers to turn to the Taliban, we should go after drug kingpins.

We also need to make good on President Bush’s pledge for a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. In six years, we have spent on Afghanistan’s reconstruction only what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq.

Afghanistan’s fate is directly tied to Pakistan’s future and America’s security. When President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan concluded that we were not serious about finishing the job in Afghanistan, he began to cut deals with extremists in his own country.

As a result, the border area remains a freeway of fundamentalism: the Taliban and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in Pakistan, while Pakistani suicide bombers wreak havoc in Afghanistan.

The recent Pakistani elections gave the moderate majority its voice back and gives the United States an opportunity to move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy. To demonstrate to its people that we care about their needs, not just our own, we must triple assistance for schools, roads and clinics, sustain it for a decade, and demand accountability for the military aid we provide.

If Afghanistan fails or Pakistan falls to fundamentalism, America will suffer a terrible setback. The candidates should tell Americans how they will handle what may be the next president’s most difficult challenge.

Joe Biden is a Democratic senator from Delaware.