Afghan Optimism

I'd meant to do a post a little while back about how I'd read a post from Oxblog's Afghan correspondent which answered about 75 percent of what had puzzled me about Peter Bergen's "things are better than you think in Afghanistan" op-ed. Somehow or other, it didn't get done, but then yesterday I got an email from none other than Oxblog's Afghan correspondent making some valuable points:

I read with interest your recent blog post criticizing Peter Bergen's optimistic NY Times Op-Ed. Like him, I think the coming elections will be surprisingly successful -- in levels of participation, as a starting point for Afghans learning democratic practice, and in producing a legitimate president -- and am impressed by Karzai's recent achievements in taking on the warlords. There's much to hope for in Afghanistan. And it's happened despite Bush administration neglect of the country, not thanks to any bold neocon democratization plan. The real heroes of the election so far are the UN workers for the Joint Electoral Management Body and the Afghans who registered in the millions, all at risk of their lives, and despite the fact that we didn't put enough troops on the ground to protect them.

Bergen's more right than wrong. You've highlighted exaggerations in his piece, but I don't think they rise to the level of factual errors. Dostum continues to spar with his opponents in the north, but the intensity of their conflict has toned down noticeably since (a) Dostum declared his presidential candidacy, and (b) Karzai demoted Atta Mohammad (the main Tajik commander in the north, one of Fahim's boys) from his army post.

And while I agree that it's too early to describe Khan and Fahim as "neutralized," they have lost a great deal of face by backing down from their confrontations with Karzai. Though Fahim is still Defense Minister, he is no longer Vice President; and it's clear that he can expect to lose the Defense Ministry if Karzai wins as decisive a victory as the polls indicate. (Only if Qanuni did well as a candidate would Fahim stand much chance of keeping the Defense Ministry -- and I'm betting that Dostum will be the second place candidate, and thus the man to negotiate with).

For his part, Ismael Khan has suggested that he might accept a Kabul post once the election is over, and if he's offered a ministry "more suited to his talents." My friends working in Herat concur that Herat is now Karzai's to lose. Khan had been losing popularity in the area for a while, and unless the new governor manages to antagonize a lot of Heratis very quickly, he'll have several months' goodwill time to start rebuilding and gain legitimacy.

I'm dismayed that a successful Afghan election will almost certainly be a prize for the Bush re-election machine. It doesn't deserve to be. I've been astonished by the ineptitude of Bush foreign policy on nearly every front, and (unlike my friends at Oxblog) have absolutely no hesitation in voting to replace him this November. But I do think Afghanistan is headed in a hopeful direction, thanks to the profound desire of the average Afghan to live in peace after the horrors of the last 25 years.

Keep open eyes, and an open mind. I'll be posting a sad retraction on Oxblog if things go badly.

I basically agree -- things are a lot better than it looked like they would be a few months ago., though in part that owes a lot to how bad it looked like things would be a few months ago. One important point to note is that the outcome of the presidential election -- a Karzai victory -- has never been in serious dispute, which has helped aid the process. On the one hand, it reduces the incentives to use fraud, intimidation, and violence to alter the outcome, since Karzai's margin is so big. On the other hand it means that such fraud, intimidation, and violence that will take place is less significant than it might otherwise be. The parliamentary elections, that have been delayed several times and may yet get delayed again, will be another stort. These races should be close in many jurisdictions, and we'll have to see what happens then before the country will really even have a semblance of an up-and-running democracy (a democracy without a legislature, after all, isn't much of a democracy). Surely, the results will be imperfect. But how imperfect? It will be interesting to see. Best of luck to the people of Afghanistan and the brave men and women in the international aid community in making it work.