The situation in Afghanistan is desperate.

As President Obama and his advisors debate how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan–at this time–it seems, once again, that the most important questions are not being asked or receiving the attention they deserve. The debate, framed in the media at a high level of abstraction as a question of whether or not to send more troops, does not address the diplomatic and political failures which have led to our current predicament. These failures bear directly on the choice of any future strategy we might pursue. If their critical nature and root causes are not grasped and addressed, the dispatch of additional troops to Afghanistan will not reverse a deteriorating situation, just as the dispatch of additional troops in 2008 and earlier this year failed to halt the advances of the Taliban.

Diplomatic and Political Failures

We have eight years of experience with President Karzai, and it is absolutely clear that he cannot or will not establish a government that elicits the support of the people, as the August elections confirm. Our real policy now appears to be to allow the massive fraud in the August elections to stand, as the Administration’s response to Amb. Peter Galbraith’s battles with United Nations Special Representative Kai Eide and Galbraith’s dismissal reveal.

Note, however, that accepting this fraud is equivalent to accepting Ahmadinijad’s fraud in Iran. Are our diplomats connecting the dots? Do they understand the impact such a policy is likely to have on the opposition in Iran?

How did we get here?

To an unusual degree, key players in the decision making process on Afghanistan have been military men. National Security Council Advisor Gen. James Jones worked on Afghanistan previously as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe from 2003-2006, while the present U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Gen. Karl Eikenberry, was the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2005-2007. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, after outstanding successes in Iraq, is now in charge of our forces in Afghanistan. Gen. David Petreus, following a brilliant tour and reversal of strategy in Iraq, is now McChrystal’s superior as head of CENTCOM. These are four extraordinarily talented generals, but their professional experience has been largely confined to the military. We should not be surprised if, as military men, they tend to see the military elements and dimensions of the situation in Afghanistan in sharper relief and as more important than would, let us say, professional diplomats with 20 or 30 years of experience negotiating with different political factions and government officials in the region.

At the same time, the appointment of Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Amb. Richard Holbrooke, another superstar, seems to have distorted the normal flow of information, coordination and decisions in the State Department, as well as the accountability of officials before Congress. With this outstanding cast, one is left with the impression that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has been far removed from day-to-day decision making on Afghanistan.

While Gen. Eikenberry is a distinguished military leader, his lack of previous diplomatic experience is a serious handicap in Kabul, where the ambassador both leads reporting to Washington and must persuade and lead the Afghans, NATO and the UN, and all of the various U.S. agencies with their conflicting perspectives and agendas. Moreover, experience may be a two-edged sword in Kabul, where everyone seems to have become quite accustomed to doing business with the incumbents. Indeed, many U.S. and international officials and contractors may come to be dependent or co-dependent on their Afghan counterparts, with even the “metrics” they report tending to support both their own and their counterparts’ programs.

In addition, the UN and a number of our NATO allies tend to view their tasks as peacekeeping and development work, as if they were in Kosovo or Bosnia, whereas the U.S. military is engaged in a very “hot” war. These competing perspectives generate bureaucratic and organizational behavior that results in dysfunctional decisions and outcomes. Such behavior is not surprising, but should be recognized as contributing mightily to the situation we now face.

Catastrophic Failure

One overriding fact remains. Our diplomacy in Afghanistan has not been successful. It has failed. It has failed in a catastrophic way.

The bad decisions are becoming evident, with no sign they will not be followed by even more bad decisions. They include:

1) Failure to understand that the NATO and UN templates from Bosnia and Kosovo were utterly unsuited to the realities of Afghanistan, where fresh analysis and program development was required.

2) Failure to change an electoral law that makes the development of national political parties almost impossible.

3) Agreeing to Afghan elections conducted by a Karzai-appointed commission, instead of sticking with the UN-conducted elections that worked so well in 2004 and 2005.

4) Not insisting, as Galbraith wanted, that the fraud being prepared by the Karzai government be stopped.

5) Acquiescing in the election fraud, and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) looking the other way while the fraud occurred.

6) Failing to insist on a correct vote tally and a second round of voting, as required by Afghan law, thus showing Afghans what we, NATO and the UN really believe about democracy in their country.

7) More broadly, throwing out the whole democratic rationale for being in Afghanistan by going along with the election fraud.

Legitimacy–First Things First

The failure in Afghanistan has been a diplomatic and political failure, not just a military failure. Military strategy will falter if diplomatic and political strategy does not keep pace. We cannot succeed in Afghanistan by proceeding on the naive belief that we can “stand up” a legitimate government born of fraud, or that we can “stand up” an Afghan army both capable of defeating the Taliban and loyal to a government lacking in legitimacy and losing public support. Legitimacy is the key to developing both a more effective government and a more capable army and police. Without legitimacy, both possibilities appear to be but chimeras in the desert sand.

As we commit additional troops, we need to investigate and understand the specific causes of our diplomatic and political failures, first, to develop a viable government in Kabul and the provinces, and, second, to organize and hold elections recognized as fair, thus conferring legitimacy on the government.

Following catastrophic diplomatic and political failures, we may need a new diplomatic team in Kabul, better decision-making structures and personnel at State, more vigorous Congressional oversight, and a whole rethink of whether the “aid and development” element of our strategy in Afghanistan, as currently implemented, makes any sense given our experience on the ground. Certainly we need to bear in mind that our counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq, to the extent it has been successful, has depended in critical part on free elections and the development of a legitimate government that could gain the support of the population. Finally, we should never lose sight of the fact that what we do about the election fraud in Afghanistan will have profound repercussions in Iran, and beyond.

The Trenchant Observer

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