Amin Saikal projects consequences of early ISAF exit plan and analyzes three key factors in Afghan Taliban's staying power

This analysis was published five days before the Koran burning incident at Bagram Airfield, which touched off widespread rioting in Afghanistan and 'green on blue' murders in the ANSF.

A grim future for Afghanistan
Amin Saikal
February 15, 2012
ABC (Australia), The Drum Opinon

The United States has announced that it intends to withdraw most of its troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than it had originally declared. This is in sync with an earlier French pullout, but confusing for the Afghan government and music to the ears of the Taliban and their supporters.Meanwhile, a leaked secret NATO report has presented a very grim picture of the situation in Afghanistan. It clearly establishes the links between Pakistan's notorious military intelligence, the ISI, and points to the Taliban's growing strength and alludes to the militia's ability to regain power. The report makes very uncomfortable reading for the Karzai government and Washington. Yet these are not altogether new revelations.

It is a presidential election year in the US. President Barack Obama wishes to be seen as having fulfilled his pre-election promise to end America's involvement in the trillion-dollar wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. An indication of an early withdrawal from Afghanistan could also mean that Washington is preparing for a military showdown with Iran over the country's nuclear program, as the US remains conscious of not allowing too many American troops to become Iran's target in Afghanistan.

As for the NATO secret report, it essentially confirms what some Afghanistan specialists (including myself) have repeatedly been saying: Pakistan's notorious military intelligence service, ISI, continues to leverage the Taliban and their affiliates, the so-called Haqqani network, with a clear aim of securing a receptive government in Kabul in the wake of the US-led NATO troop withdrawal.

It also reinforces the view that the Taliban, as fractured as they may be, are doing a lot better than the Karzai government in winning over an increasing number of the Afghan people, especially among the ethnic Pashtuns, who form about 42 per cent of the Afghan population, with even some of the people within the Karzai government ready to jump ship. This is for a number of reasons. Chief among them are three.

First of all the Karzai government has remained extremely weak, dysfunctional, corrupt and untrustworthy. Most Afghans do not know what it precisely stands for: is it a perverted form of a politically pluralist Afghanistan with an Islamic face, with which most Afghans cannot identify, or a kind of tribalised authoritarian Muslim Afghanistan, with some distorted democratic trappings, which have proved to be very confusing to most Afghans?

As for the Taliban's stance, it is easily discernable by the mostly illiterate, conservative Muslim Afghan population: defence of Islam, country and honour.

Secondly, the US and its allies have pursued a strategy that has been inappropriate for Afghanistan's conditions. The shift from counter-terrorism to counter-insurgency under president Obama has been more in name than substance.

In the absence of a credible Afghan partner on the ground, no strategy can achieve its objectives. The US and its allies have certainly sunk a lot of money and energy into building the Afghan National Army and Police Force.

It all looks good in terms of numbers, but their ability to grow as coherent national forces able to take over security operations from foreign troops is highly doubtful. They remain very much captive of the dynamics of the mosaic nature of the Afghan society, with little or no identification with a central government for which they could fight.

Besides which, like the Karzai administration (if one can call it an administration), they are penetrated, at all levels, by the Taliban as well as an array of foreign intelligence services, most importantly the ISI.

Thirdly, there is no regional consensus on Afghanistan. The US and its allies have not given this a top priority, largely due to US-Iranian hostilities and an American inability to rein in the Pakistani military/ISI.

As long as these factors remain in place, the Taliban and their Pakistani backers have good reason to remain hopeful about their chances of succeeding in the end, but a Taliban takeover of power also carries the serious risk of non-Pashtun Afghan population clusters taking up arms once again to defend themselves, with Iran, India and Russia providing support. This would be a development that could plunge Afghanistan into a wider bloody conflict.

The Taliban and their Pakistani patrons are aware of this, and this is a challenge that they may try to address by enticing Karzai and some of his ministers, who are more keen to protect their interests than those of Afghanistan, to join them.In this, the 10,000-20,000 troops that the US may leave behind to man a few bases in Afghanistan for 'above the horizon' operations until 2024 may prove to be of little use in saving what Washington claims to be the momentum of stability in Afghanistan.

Amin Saikal is professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the ANU. A new edition of his book Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival will be published in April. View his full profile here.