Beyond the Paris Conference:
Rescuing Afghanistan
out of its Dangerous Traps
The RAND Corporation
Keynote Address by M. Ashraf Haidari
July 18, 2008
Thank you for the kind introduction. I would like to thank Mr. James
Kallimani and my good friend, Mr. Dimitri Neos, Executive Director of the Center
for International Relations, for helping organize today’s discussion with you.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Before our discussion, please allow me to thank the many area experts and
researchers at the RAND Corporation for your significant contributions to
knowledge and information on Afghanistan . Your occasional papers have greatly
helped shape constructive policies towards stabilization and reconstruction of
Afghanistan .
At the outset, I wish to express the deep gratitude of the Afghan people and
government to our partner nations for their strong support over the past seven
years. Without their assistance, Afghanistan ’s liberation from the tyranny of
extremists and terrorists would have been unimaginable. We are particularly
thankful to the American soldiers and their families for helping secure
Afghanistan and making the world a safer place for all of us.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Today, there is much that we may talk about our recent history and the way
contemporary international events have affected the conditions in Afghanistan .
But I would like to discuss the key challenges facing the Afghan people now, as
we and our international partners strive to secure and rebuild Afghanistan .
I believe that four inter-connected challenges with domestic, international,
regional, and transnational dimensions impede the stabilization and
reconstruction of Afghanistan . Each challenge—which I will discuss in a
minute—feeds off the other and together they have engendered a vicious circle
that is destabilizing Afghanistan .
I would like to discuss briefly each of the four major challenges for the
sake of our discussion.
First, we are a country that is geographically landlocked, politically and
economically least developed, and unfortunately located in a predatory
neighborhood, where at least Pakistan sees a stable Afghanistan as a threat.
Also, our nascent state institutions are too weak, and we lack the requisite
resources to deliver basic public goods to our population of vulnerable groups
(e.g. returning refugees, IDPs, the disabled, former combatants, jobless youth,
the elderly, and women and children), all of whom are engulfed in poverty and
misery.
Second, one of the key challenges posed to Afghanistan ’s nation-building
process comes from a lack of aid resources and weak strategic coordination of
aid implementation by the international community. As your colleague, Mr. James
Dobbins, noted in his book, “Mismatches between inputs, as measured in personnel
and money, and desired outcomes, as measured in imposed social transformation,
are the most common cause for failure of nation-building efforts.”
I think Mr. Dobbins’ statement is exactly defining the direction we are
heading in Afghanistan today. As you know, too few troops and resources were
committed to our country from the beginning. At the same time, the invasion and
occupation of Iraq shortchanged our rebuilding priorities, robbing the new
Afghan state of much needed resources to establish our effective governance and
security presence across Afghanistan .
We know from one of the RAND studies that in the two years following
international intervention, Afghanistan received just $57 per capita in foreign
assistance, while Bosnia and East Timor received $679 and $233 per capita
respectively. We also know that per capita security assistance to Afghanistan
remains low with 2 foreign troops per 1,000 people compared to 7 per 1,000 in
Iraq and 19 per 1,000 in Bosnia .
I also think that international intervention in Afghanistan has suffered from
a lack of clear institutional framework for nation-building. We know that
despite international consensus and goodwill for the rebuilding of Afghanistan
from the beginning, the United Nations has remained a weak player in Afghanistan
. As you know, although the UN provides the most suitable institutional
framework for most nation-building interventions, the role of the UN Assistance
Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) remains one of political consulting, providing
good offices, and promoting human rights.
I think UNAMA was deliberately denied an operational role in the beginning,
perhaps, due to fears that donor fatigue would soon kick in, which would result
in undelivered pledges of assistance to Afghanistan . Therefore, a lead-nation
strategy was adopted, whereby major resourceful countries assumed responsibility
for the reform and building of Afghanistan ’s key state institutions. The
lead-nation strategy assigned the United States to reform and build the Afghan
National Army (ANA); Germany the Afghan National Police (ANP); Japan to disarm,
demobilize, and fully reintegrate (DDR) former combatants; Britain to fight and
eliminate narcotics (CN); and Italy to reform and build the judicial system.
However, we understand that except for substantive progress in the reform and
building of ANA, the other sectors have seen nominal or no progress, because
although progress in each sector depended on progress in other sectors given
their inter-connectedness, the lead nations neither established a collaborative
mechanism to ensure strategic coordination across their assigned tasks nor did
they bring enough resources to bear on implementing the reforms effectively. In
the end, the lead-nation strategy was discontinued, as the designated countries
reconsidered their roles as lead-partners, and reasoned that only we should be
the lead-nation with them as our major implementing partners.
International intervention in Afghanistan has also lacked the necessary
degree of local ownership of the nation-building process. Local ownership as
Afghans in the driver’s seat of the rebuilding process is mostly absent, since
most of the aid resources bypass the Afghan government and go to foreign
non-profit and private sector institutions. An estimated 40% of aid goes back to
donor countries in corporate profits and consultant salaries, some $6 billion
since 2001, according to a recent report by the Agency Coordinating Body for
Afghan Relief (ACBAR).
With resources diverted from our institutions, we can hardly retain
competitive employees for effective service delivery, and often lose them to
higher paid jobs with international organizations. So, it is obvious that weak
institutional capacity and underpayment cause widespread corruption in the
government system. Rife corruption in turn harms the legitimacy of the
government in the public eyes, which we know leaves a negative impact on both
governance and security across Afghanistan .
Finally, I think the international community has only paid lip service to
strategic coordination but never attempted to be coordinated. More than 70
countries, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations are
present in Afghanistan . Yet, they have consistently worked outside of the
Afghan government. For example, of all technical assistance to Afghanistan ,
which accounts for a quarter of all aid to the country, only one-tenth is
coordinated among donors or with the government. Nor is there sufficient
collaboration on project work, which inevitably leads to duplication or
incoherence of activities by different donors. This has seriously undermined the
Afghan government’s ability to build our capacity for effective governance and
implementation of the rule of law.
Third, Afghanistan would be far less instable if we were not geographically
cursed. Our political and economic stability or instability is closely linked to
the type of regimes in power in the region, those regimes’ particular regional
interests, their socio-economic conditions, and more importantly their relations
with one another and with major world powers such as the United States . Without
understanding and addressing the challenges posed by the regional dynamics, it
is extremely hard to achieve long-term stability in Afghanistan . As you know,
today, the main source and cause of instability in Afghanistan lie outside our
borders in Pakistan .
Fourth, on the transnational level, Al Qaeda and its affiliates have fully
reconstituted themselves seven years after 9/11, and are increasingly guiding
and directing the Taliban’s cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan . Operating
from safe sanctuaries in Pakistan, Al-Qaeda and its Pakistani affiliates
continue to inspire, indoctrinate, and brainwash jobless and frustrated youth in
the Pakistani madrassas, which the Taliban use as recruiting ground for their
operations in Afghanistan. At the same time, transnational drug mafia has found
Afghanistan a permissive environment for mass drug production to meet global
demand. They have strategically joined hands with the Taliban and other peace
spoilers to maintain instability in Afghanistan for ongoing drug production and
trafficking.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I think the fact that these four challenges are inter-connected and feed one
another make Afghanistan by far the most complicated and resource-intensive
international intervention since the end of the Cold War. I do believe that
securing and rebuilding Afghanistan is a far more challenging task for the
international community than was Bosnia , Kosovo, East Timor, or even Iraq . But
there are no options for the international community in Afghanistan but to
succeed there. We know that the specter of revisiting 9/11 is ever becoming
likely with the Al Qaeda and Taliban fully resurgent in Pakistan’s tribal
region, from where they have managed to score frequent tactical gains across
south and east of Afghanistan.
So, if we are keenly aware of the cost of neglecting Afghanistan again, then
what should be the way forward? How can we succeed in our collective efforts to
secure Afghanistan and ensure international peace and security for our own sake?
First of all, in a country where there are too many inter-connected and
overlapping problems competing for urgent resolution, we need to narrow down our
key priorities and focus on the ones with the potential of helping resolve the
rest overtime. This means a departure from ad hoc approaches to nation-building
in Afghanistan where tax payers’ precious assistance has so far been wasted on
quick fixes, which have made no real difference in the lives of the Afghan
people over the past seven years.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I would like to share with you my thoughts on how to help rescue Afghanistan
out of its dangerous traps, and look forward to your views and comments in our
discussion.
Domestically, it is critically important that we prioritize the strengthening of
our nascent state institutions so we will soon gain the capacity to govern
effectively, address the corruption problem, and adopt and implement policies
that promote long-term economic growth. Without security and good governance, we
will be unable to attract foreign capital intensive investment in the natural
resource and infrastructure sectors, which we know can help provide off-farm
employment for poppy farmers and jobs for the returning refugees. And we know
from the experience of many developing countries (from the “Rise of the Rest”:
China , India , Brazil , Turkey , South Korea , Malaysia and others) that only
sustainable economic growth will help reduce poverty in Afghanistan , not any
unlimited amount of relief hand-outs.
Therefore, we hope that the international community will deliver on the
commitments they made in the recent Paris Support Conference to align their aid
resources with the objectives of our Marshall Plan—the Afghanistan National
Development Strategy—a key priority of which is to build institutional capacity
in order to address overtime other domestic challenges facing Afghanistan.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I think it is important to stress that Afghanistan cannot achieve
self-reliance and self-sufficiency unless the international community enables it
to do so. In light of our massive rebuilding needs, the international community
must match ends with means. Committing long-term resources is absolutely
necessary but ensuring that aid is effectively delivered through Afghan state
institutions to achieve the objectives of our National Development Strategy is
equally important.
To ensure strategic coordination across the donor community, the
international community must provide the requisite resources—as recently
requested by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon—to operationalize UNAMA in
Afghanistan , and be willing to be coordinated by the Special Representative of
the Secretary General Kai Eide.
Regionally, the United States and other NATO member states with troops in
Afghanistan must realize that so long as Pakistan shelters the leadership of Al
Qaeda and Taliban and allow them space to operate in its tribal region, the
Taliban will not be defeated in Afghanistan . Military and civilian casualties
will continue rising—gradually giving the terrorists an upper hand. Therefore,
Pakistan ’s military and intelligence services must be bilaterally and
multilaterally persuaded to cooperate sincerely in the war against terrorism,
while the country’s civil society must be strengthened in support of democratic
civilian rule on the long run.
At the same time, NATO needs to bolster its military strength in the fight
against cross-border terrorism in Afghanistan . The commanders on the ground are
asking for three additional well-equipped brigades with a flexible mandate to
boost efforts to defeat the Taliban. Ultimately, I think the key to securing
Afghanistan will rest in the build-up of a professional Afghan army and police.
To accelerate the process, we ask for more military and police trainers from all
of our partners to build the Afghan national security forces to reach the
targeted goals of 80,000 soldiers for the Afghan National Army, and 82,000
officers for the Afghan National Police by the end of 2009.
I also think that overcoming our regional challenges partly depends on how
the US conducts itself in the region and the approach it adopts towards its
geopolitical interests in our important region. Pursuing a coherent and
long-term policy will not only serve American interests in the region but also
contribute to stability in Afghanistan .
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Finally, I think the transnational challenges facing Afghanistan are closely
linked to our domestic, international and regional challenges, which I just
discussed. More capacity in the state with resources to execute our executive,
legislative, and judicial functions will inevitably improve governance, enhance
the welfare of people, and bolster the strength of our law enforcement and
security institutions against terrorists and drug traffickers. The international
community must achieve this objective by coordinating their aid efforts with the
Afghan government and make the achievement of a self-reliant Afghan state their
exit strategy.
I believe that failure to do so will only strengthen the Taliban and weaken
the trust of Afghans in democracy and their support as a strategic asset in the
fight against terrorism. But we know that failure in Afghanistan is no longer an
option, and peace can hardly take hold in Pakistan without stability in
Afghanistan . Nor can global security be ensured without consolidation of our
democratic achievements over the past seven years.
Let us hope then that all stakeholders sincerely commit to success in
Afghanistan , and exit our country only when we are firmly on own feet.
Thank you.
M. Ashraf Haidari is political counselor of the Embassy of Afghanistan in
Washington, DC. His e-mail is
haidari@embassyofafghanistan.org
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