I don’t have an opinion on whether it will ultimately be better for Afghanistan if Abdullah Abdullah wins the presidential election or if the victory goes to the incumbent, Hamid Karzai. The final numbers are not in yet, and it looks quite possible that it will go to a run-off election. In some ways, Abdullah Abdullah would be a nice fit. His father was a Pashtun originally from Kandahar and his mother was a Tajik. Yet, during the Soviet War, Abdullah became aligned with legendary Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who would go on to command the Northern Alliance. As a result, Abdullah’s base of support is largely from the northern, non-Pashtun part of the country and there is a lot of concern that a run-off election could spark a north-south civil war. Even if it doesn’t, the Pashtuns may not accept Abdullah and his coalition as legitimate leaders of the country. I simply can’t know for sure.
What I think is more important than who becomes the next president of Afghanistan is hearing the administration articulate some plan for the government there to raise the kind of revenues they’ll need to fund security forces that can make the country stable. Even if we successfully train-up and arm security forces in sufficient numbers, there is no money for the Afghans to maintain those forces. This is a problem we are not facing in Iraq, where billions of dollars are available to the central government through the sale of oil. While the logistics of leaving Iraq are difficult, they aren’t insurmountable, and we have a plan that is being implemented. This is not the case in Afghanistan.
We are sending in more troops to try to roll back the recent deterioration in security. That may be the prerequisite for making progress, but I don’t see the economic plan that is needed for us to have a legitimate exit strategy. Right now, our exit would leave the country without a government. I don’t want to see us do that. But I don’t want us to stay indefinitely if we don’t have a good plan for how Afghanistan’s government can take over for us. How is Afghanistan going to get their economy moving? How are they going to collect revenues?
My instinct is that it would be better for Karzai to go because his government is rife with corruption and dependent on opium-selling warlords. But, I don’t know that Abdullah could do a lot better and it would be better to avoid a resumption of Pashtun/Non-Pashtun hostilities.
I don’t have a good solution to suggest. But I want to see our government discussing these matters so I can have some understanding of where we’re trying to go and if it makes any sense.
