What after 2014 in Afghanistan?

"Reconciliation in Afghanistan is an urgent need for Afghans...it is no less important for our own stability."

This was to have been a column on the consequences for Afghanistan and its neighbours of President Barack Obama’s decision on American troop levels to be maintained in Afghanistan. Two events, meaningful in different ways, however, need to be discussed as a prelude.

The first was the release of five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in exchange for the release of the one American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, that the Taliban were holding. Welcomed, at first, by all shades of political opinion in Washington as a manifestation of the long-held American credo that ‘no man should be left behind’, the Republicans have now done a somersault and are using it as another tool to beat up on President Obama. Critically analysing the claim that Obama had broken the law by not notifying Congress, that Bergdahl was a deserter for whom the high price of releasing five high-value terrorists should not have been paid, that Qatari guarantees notwithstanding these Taliban leaders would return to the battlefield, etc. is beyond the scope of this column but one conclusion can be drawn. Virtually every action that Obama now takes with regard to Afghanistan will be the subject of vehement criticism in a highly-polarised Washington. This will apply in particular to proposals for funding the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and providing budgetary support to the Afghan government,

Another facet: when the exchange was first proposed in 2010 the main rationale was it would be a confidence-building measure that would push the ‘moderate’ Taliban towards reconciliation. One hopes that once the dust settles, this will again be viewed as the secondary if not primary purpose of the exchange and will be pursued accordingly by all parties.

The attempted assassination on June 6 of Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the leading contender in the presidential election, underlines the difficulties that lie ahead as the Taliban intensify their operations. The number of attacks will be higher than during the first round of the elections. Will the ANSF be able to ensure a relatively peaceful election?

It is almost certain now, despite Dr Ashraf Ghani’s vigorous campaigning, that Dr Abdullah Abdullah, having secured endorsements from such leading Pashtun power brokers as Sayyaf, Qayum Karzai, Zalmay Rasoul, Agha Sherzai and from 110 members of Parliament and 66 senators, will emerge the winner in June 14, 2014. In one sense, this is a good thing. It gives substance to the claim that ethnicity is no longer the determinant of voting patterns or alliances in Afghan politics. But there is no doubt also that Dr Ghani is the competent and no-nonsense administrator that Afghanistan sorely needs at this time of economic security and political stress.

His competence and command of the facts was apparent in his Skype interview on May 30 with the Atlantic Council in Washington. He cited facts and figures to establish that the economy would be the principal problem for the new administration. GDP growth at zero per cent this year, overwhelming dependence on foreign aid continuing, more needing to be done to meet the accountability requirements of the Tokyo Agreement, were some elements that he emphasised along with the reforms he proposed.

Today, Afghanistan’s GDP is estimated to be $19 billion, of which 60 per cent is foreign aid or foreign presence generated. World Bank estimates that 64 per cent of the Afghan budget is financed by the US, 26 per cent by other donors with 10 per cent coming from local revenues. Now the economy and therefore, local revenues are shrinking. It committed in the Tokyo Agreement to raise local revenues from 9.6 per cent of GDP to 15 per cent by 2016. At this juncture, it appears to be an impossible task.

The Americans and other donor countries can afford to provide larger dollops of economic assistance from the savings that will be made from the withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan. There seems, however, to be little appetite to do so.

In an article designed to show that USAID was monitoring aid more carefully, the USAID administrator, Rajiv Shah, acknowledged that, “Afghan government revenues are starting to slow, signalling basic gains in infrastructure, education and business are at risk”. He could not, however, promise that US aid would be jacked up, suggesting merely that the administration would request Congress to keep aid levels close to the level of the last decade. That is clearly not happening. This year Congress cut the level of assistance to half of what was requested.

Overcoming donor fatigue and donor misgivings would require generating confidence in the quality of governance in a country that stands 175^th out of 177 on the corruption index. Perhaps utopian, given the nature of Afghan politics, but the ideal solution would be for a partnership, following the election, between Abdullah and Ghani, with the latter being given a free hand to bring about the needed structural reforms and austerity measures. This could mitigate the economic travails that lie ahead.

In the meanwhile, let us realistically recognise that as economic hardship increases, the poor Afghans will seek opportunities outside Afghanistan’s borders. Despite measures we are currently taking to curb movement into Pakistan, ours is the only border towards which the Afghans will gravitate in a desperate search for livelihood. Reducing this flow is an imperative.

Let us also recognise that if reconciliation does not begin, the prolonged civil strife primarily in provinces bordering Pakistan will bring further refugees and these will have among them adherents of the TTP. This will enhance the security as much as the economic problems we face in Balochistan, K-P and Fata. Such an influx will, as past precedents show, increase the number of cross-border illicit and criminal activities. Apart from the security problems, Pakistan’s economy will also take another hit that we can ill afford.

Reconciliation in Afghanistan is an urgent need for Afghans, but what we have to recognise is that it is no less important for our own stability. We must do all we can to push all parties towards such talks and we must then be ready to do what we can to assist, even while it remains an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led process.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2014.

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