By: Beka Feathers

Last Saturday, Afghans across the country went to the polls to choose the men and women who will represent them for the next five years in the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan National Assembly (unless they were in the 20 percent of the country where the security situation kept polling places from opening, and the further undisclosed portion where people were simply too frightened to show up). Preliminary results will be announced later today, and a few days from now, domestic and international election monitors will offer their opinions on whether the vote was "free and fair." Nobody seems to want to ask whether the election was a success.

What does success mean? As with nearly everything else in Afghanistan, it depends on where you stand. For the individual candidates, of course, it means a seat in the new parliament. For Hamid Karzai, it means a body of people without the will or organization to provide any serious opposition to his policies. For ISAF and the international community, it largely means the ability to claim that despite fraud and violence, the Afghan people are still committed to democracy. And for the Afghan people themselves?

Every post-election report suggests that success isn't even on the radar screens of most Afghans. Their confidence in the ability of any national institution to provide responsible governance or to sustain the rule of law has fallen so low that for many, it just wasn’t worth the risk of showing up. Even an optimistic estimate says that turnout was down 43 percent from the 2005 parliamentary elections. Polling places were sparsely attended even in relatively secure areas (unless you count the people who locked themselves inside the stations so that they could vote over and over again).

It isn't just the security situation behind this electoral malaise. It's true that over a thousand polling stations never opened, and that the Taliban made good on threats to attack voting centers and election monitors. It's also true that many warlord candidates were running their own intimidation campaigns to prevent their opponents' supporters from getting to the polls.[1] But the most serious enemy Afghan democracy faced last Saturday was doubt.

The Afghan people doubt that elections bring change. They doubt that those elected are interested in anything other than lining their own pockets. They doubt that any of their supposed allies in the international community still believe democracy can flourish in Afghanistan, no matter what their upbeat press conferences say. That's the real reason they aren't going to the polls.

On some of these points, there's not a lot that well-intentioned international observers can do from Washington, London, Kabul or anywhere else. The parliament might not improve conditions for the average Afghan, newly-elected members might do nothing but line their pockets, violence and instability will almost certainly continue to be a feature of daily life. The only aspect of this process over which internationals have complete control is whether or not we telegraph to the Afghan people and the world that we think the new parliament is a failure before it even gets off the ground. On this point, the most important lesson we can learn is to start talking out of only one side of our mouths.

It's hard to find a uniformly positive perspective anywhere these days about the central government in Kabul, and the Afghan people know that. They aren't looking for the international community to paint a false and rosy picture of a functioning democratic bureaucracy when they know that they've got a collection of corrupt and indifferent strongmen. They don't have time to waste on American domestic PR struggles. If they look to the outside at all, it's for solutions, and support for solutions, to these problems.

International advocates for Afghan democracy can do a lot to hold their own contractors and governments accountable for corruption. They can support the fledgling efforts of the parliament to assert itself against Karzai's increasingly broad claims of authority. They can treat individual members of parliament as men and women with a responsibility to uphold the will of their constituents, rather than as placeholders to be trotted out on official occasions. And most importantly, international actors can start matching words to actions - either the election was a success for big-picture democracy, or it means we should wash our hands of the whole project. ISAF forces, American taxpayers, and certainly the Afghan people can't afford to have it both ways for any longer.

The current political conversation in Afghanistan is about the ideals that underpin the system, not about the policies of individual factions. The value of democracy is itself an issue up for debate, and that campaign did not end on September 18. If reform-minded Afghans and their international partners want average Afghans to trade in their doubt, they need to do what losing parties do in a mature democracy. Instead of bemoaning the injustice of their loss, they need to start planning for the next one.

[1] For more information on pre-election tactics by candidates, see this excellent summary by the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit “Afghan Election, 2010: Alternative Narratives.” http://www.areu.org.af/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=33

Apparently the nothing I discussed is actually substantial enough to draw attention from militants, who attacked the jirga proceedings yesterday.  In a perverse way, this is a positive sign for Karzai.  Empty talks pose no threat to the Taliban, and therefore are unlikely to prompt a response.  But a concerted attack indicates that they view the jirga as a threat.  In a strange way, this attack serves to increase the legitimacy and potential of Karzai's peace talks.

I remain skeptical that the Afghan government will actually implement any governance improvements, but having a peace jirga attacked by militants is a twisted victory in the public information war.

The BBC has a question: can a jirga without rebel leaders bring Afghanistan peace?

The answer, obviously, is a resounding no.  Duh.

But if the jirga is a kind of peace conference, it is rather one sided. The insurgents' leaders are not there. Hizb-e-Islami, a small militant group which has sometimes fought with the Taliban, said the jirga was of "no importance". "The participants of the jirga are state favourites," said a statement released by the group. "They have no power of decision. It is only a consultative jirga - without any participation of the Mujahideen." 

 So what's going on with Karzai?  Clearly the U.S. is backing this initiative, but only tepidly.  The Embassy released a statement of support, but the process hasn't been emphasized by any of the leading American policymakers, most notably McChrystal, Holbrooke, and Clinton.  NATO is in favor as well, but let's be honest: this jirga is nothing but empty talk.  Karzai and Co. can continue talking the talk of governance and reconciliation, but without clear results, real progress, changes will not be forthcoming.  And if we've learned one thing about Karzai over the past (almost!) decade, it's that he is willing to talk nice, but not follow through.

Beka Feathers
Demagogues and Dictators Afghanistan Parliamentary Analyst

As the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated over the past two years, the public narrative has increasingly resembled a litany of failure: the central government is full of corrupt warlords who are tied to the drug trade, violate human rights with impunity, and are interested in the idea of governance only insofar as they can profit from it. The Afghan National Police are brutal, biased and uninterested in upholding the rule of law. Corrupt officials are becoming more prevalent than opium poppies. As a result, establishing legitimate government has become critical to success in all other areas of the mission in Afghanistan.

In all the fuss about the failures of the central government, however, a surprising success story is being overlooked. The Afghan National Assembly, the country’s highest representative institution, has begun, quietly, to govern. This is a surprise not only because the parliament has long been the forgotten stepchild of the Bonn Process, but also because Karzai and his international allies have done everything possible to prevent the parliament from becoming a strong check to the presidency.

Afghanistan is one of the most centralized countries in the world, and almost everything leads back to Karzai sooner or later. Consider: In Afghanistan, the President has the power to make the budget, pass decrees, hire governors and police chiefs, even to appoint teachers to local schools. Electoral law makes it almost impossible for political parties to operate by forbidding them to organize along any of the nationally recognized identity lines. The international community has largely supported Karzai’s attempts to further consolidate power in his person. The parliament, meanwhile, has lagged behind other government institutions in funding, resources, and capacity.

But starting this year, the parliament seems to have found its feet. Since January, it has challenged Karzai to appoint qualified ministers instead of warlords and cronies, rejected his attempted takeover of the independent Electoral Complaints Commission (the same body that found a third of his votes fraudulent in the election last fall), and refused to serve as a rubber stamp for decrees. In fact, it's been doing what so many outside observers have said is necessary to keep the government from collapsing entirely: serving as a legitimate, Afghan-led check on Karzai's administration.

Today in the NY Times, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs, Bing West wrote an Op-ed outlining his plan to save Afghanistan by circumventing Hamid Karzai and focusing on bringing governance to Afghanistan at the local level. Mr. West puts it out there that having a strong military actually running the country from behind the scenes may in fact be the best case scenario for Afghanistan. As he points out this would be situation like in Pakistan where instead of the country having a military, the military would have a country, but at least it would be more stable than the Afghanistan we find ourselves with today.

This argument is certainly interesting, and I do not argue with Mr. Bing that what we have now in Afghanistan is certainly not a democracy considering the blatant evidence that Hamid Karzai stole the election. However, his plan for a strong man government backed by the military has a very serious flaw. Bing West assumes that the Afghan National Army (ANA) is actually a capable force. While the ANA is rated higher than the Afghan National Police (ANP) in the sense that they aren't actually extorting locals or running drugs like the police. However, you have to think about who is actually joining the ANA. Afghan families and tribes are not going to let their best men leave their homes to support a government that they have no faith in. From what I have heard from U.S. troops who have gone on patrol with members of the ANA is that a lot of them are the "scrubs" of Afghan society.

My readers may find this short documentary clip of interest. Its a british video journalist who is on patrol with British and Afghan troops. As you can tell, the ANA shows no discipline and are in fact High in the middle of a firefight!

I leave you to draw your own conclusions about this.

And that's my fifty cents (inflation...)

News from the AP tonight that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban second-in-command who was captured by the ISI with U.S. support several weeks ago, was deep in secret negotiations with the Afghan government.  At the time of his arrest, the news seemed to portend an abrupt about-face in Pakistan’s strategy.  It was hailed as a signal that Islamabad was reordering its strategic priorities, and would finally become an honest partner to the U.S. in fighting Islamic extremists.

In Marjah, the "Government in a Box" is about to deploy. It will be the moment of truth for General McChrystal and Hamid Karzai's battle strategy for Operation Moshtarak. The stakes are higher than simply the success of ISAF's COIN strategy in Marjah, and after Marjah comes Kandahar.

This past week I was lucky enough to attend two events featuring US Special Representative. Richard Holbrooke. During the second of these, a public address at the Kennedy School of Government, Amb. Holbrooke spoke of his fear of the possibility of a "dependency trap" in Afghanistan. This is not the first time the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan has touched on this subject. In a 2009 appearance with USAID, Holbrooke noted that his greatest concern was

“the dependency trap” in which USAID builds schools, clinics, and roads but they are not maintained once turned over to local control. “We can succeed only if the government of Afghanistan succeeds,”

Clear, Hold, and Build -- these are the first 3 stages of the current COIN strategy in Afghanistan. As Operation Moshtarak has shown in Marjah, ISAF forces are getting consistently better at these three things. But they are only the first three steps, and perhaps the least important in terms of grand strategic victory in Afghanistan. Without successful implementation of the fourth step -- Transfer -- clearing, holding, and building will not end...

Fear not friends, I have been closely watching the news coming from Marjah and Afghanistan in general, although I have not had the time to craft a detailed update. In the meantime, here are a few stories worthy of your attention.

• In today's NYT, Josh Foust has an op-ed about Marjah and the short-sightedness of the U.S. approach to governance. It's possibly the best piece I've seen explaining the importance of governance and why the U.S. isn't making the right choices.

• Gulliver at Ink Spots has a post in a similar vein, wondering why the biggest priority for training the ANSF is marksmanship.  Shouldn't it be more focused on rule of law and human rights? 

• Via Tom Ricks, a great interview with Ahmed Rashid in which he stresses that a complete defeat of the Taliban is impossible, and that the prudent course is to begin negotiations now to ensure a stable situation after the coalition withdrawal.

• Finally, I found this Alissa Rubin article in the NYT fascinating.  The fact that the government in Kabul sent a Vice President that doesn't speak Pashtun is astounding, and, I think, indicative of the token level of commitment we can expect from the Karzai regime moving forward.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is taking advantage of a "loophole" in the Afghan constitution to alter the landscape of Afghanistan's elections, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. This has been decried by the international community and his political opponents, saying the move "threatened the nation’s stability." It seems fairly certain that Mr. Karzai is undermining the independence of the Election Complaint Commission, but it's also certain that he's not doing anything illegal. The Afghan constitution, written in 2003 by more than 500 representatives to the Constitutional Loya Jirga, expressly allows Karzai's policy actions.

Mr. Karzai rewrote Afghanistan's election law, giving the President the authority to appoint all five members of the Election Complaint Commission, which currently consists of two Afghans and three foreigners picked by the UN. How did he do it?

From the NY Times article:

Article 79 states that when the Parliament is in recess, the president has the right to enact emergency legislative decrees, which have the force of law, but that when the Parliament returns, it has 30 days to reject them.

However, another provision, Article 109, states that “proposals for amending elections law shall not be included in the work agenda of the National Assembly during the last year of the legislative term.” That means the one kind of decree that Parliament cannot discuss in the last year of its term is one that changes electoral laws.

So what is the take-home lesson here? I'll offer one: "war-gaming" various policy alternatives needs to be a part of modern constitution drafting. (Not being an expert on the Afghan constitution, nor someone who speaks Dari or Pashto, I won't speculate about other potential issues within the document) In the present day, there's no excuse for being surprised by a constitutional "loophole."