Monday, September 14, 2009

An Afghan headache

WASHINGTON wants closure, but election fallout continues.

REALPOLITIK suggests that the sooner a functioning government can be established in Kabul the better. But after weeks of revelations about widespread fraud in the August 20 election, the prospect of moving on quickly in Afghanistan remains elusive. At the weekend, opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah urged supporters not to take to the streets in protest, but insisted he would not be part of a national unity government with President Hamid Karzai - the solution being pressed by the international community.

With about 90 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Karzai has more than 54per cent support but the stories of bribery and ballot-box interference have destroyed confidence in the outcome. Monitors suggest up to 23per cent of votes counted so far could be fraudulent, according to a report in The Sunday Times. 

It's a mess, but the problem is what happens next as governments involved in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force face falling domestic support for involvement in Afghanistan. It is a particular headache for the US, which favoured Mr Karzai in the first presidential election in 2004. With Americans increasingly unhappy about their troops in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama needs the electoral debacle to go away before it undermines his military strategy. 

The problem is that while there seems little alternative to a continued international presence in the region, support is also dropping in Britain and Europe. David Kilcullen, the Australian counter-terrorism expert, says the international community must be prepared for the long haul against a Taliban strategy to "basically wait us out until we get tired and go home". 

Under General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander of the ISAF, the focus is on turning a counter-terrorist operation into a bigger nation-building exercise - one that could take a decade to achieve. As part of this, he is expected to ask Mr Obama soon to commit extra troops to the 60,000 Americans already on the ground. All this at a time when support for the war in Afghanistan has plummeted among the American public and media commentators, and when Mr Obama's own popularity is being tested by his health plan. 

A nation-building strategy in Afghanistan makes sense, but it needs the support of the people to work and such trust will be harder to establish if electoral fraud is ignored or minimised. The assumptions that Mr Karzai would be re-elected because he was favoured by the West misread the changes in the electorate in recent years. As William Maley of the Australian National University wrote in this paper recently: "Afghanistan's problem is not that ordinary Afghans do not understand democracy. It is that some in the political elite do not like it". 

In April, Australia reaffirmed its commitment to securing a stable Afghanistan by increasing our forces there, although there is little interest in any further commitment. We share with our 41 partners in the ISAF the goal of denying Islamist extremists and terrorists a safe haven and a breeding ground in that country. But this will not be achieved through a military strategy alone. It must involve civilian development, including building state institutions and addressing corruption. 

Last month's election was seen as an important step in developing that civic society. It will be hard to resolve this crisis, but a credible government in Kabul is an essential prerequisite for achieving a stable Afghanistan.

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