The Afghanistan Conference

Is There a Way Out of the 'Graveyard of Empires'?

By Gerhard Spörl

At the Afghanistan conference in London this week, NATO partners want to develop a common exit strategy. But how can they succeed? Even the most important actors in the conflict disagree on possible solutions for one of the world's most dangerous regions.

Shortly before the London conference on Afghanistan, which takes place on Thursday, Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai met in Istanbul. The Pakistani and Afghan presidents are the key players in this part of the world. And they have a lot in common. At the moment, both are quite weak and are being put under enormous pressure from America to talk less and do more.

Pakistan's constitutional court is demanding that Zardari return part of the assets that he illegally expropriated in Pakistan and has since bunkered in Switzerland. The Obama administration, for its part, is slowly losing patience with Zardari because he has proven unable to rein in his ISI intelligence agency. Suspicions that the ISI is hiding Taliban leaders are widespread -- and Zardari's own game that he plays with the ISI primarily serves the interests of a Pakistani elite that has traditionally sought to exert influence over Afghanistan.

Hamid Karzai has notoriously accused the Pakistanis of playing a double game, and it's difficult to contradict him. At the same time, he has also fallen out of favor with his patrons. He has proven himself to be either incapable or unwilling to take leadership of his country beyond Kabul -- though even were he willing, the task would be Herculean.

The meeting between the two weakened presidents underscores precisely what needs to be addressed in London: a strategy that will lead to at least a little bit of stability for the two countries. No one still believes that the maximum is still achievable. But this part of the world is one of the most dangerous, and one should not abandon hope of achieving the maximum.

There are as many objections as there are proposals. There are differing degrees of pessimism and many secretly wish that they could leave the "Graveyard of Empires," as Afghanistan has been called, as soon as possible. Even greater than the desire for an exit strategy, though, is the nightmare of what Afghanistan and Pakistan could become if America and NATO make too many mistakes there or simply withdraw too soon.

Many intelligent people have said things about Afghanistan and Pakistan recently -- and some comments have been smarter than others.

An overview of eight leading characters in the Afghanistan shows that there are few options and many and many objections against just about every strategy.

The American View -- Trust in the Generals, Doubts about Karzai

Barack Obama: Even a few of his staunchest admirers are gradually starting to harbor doubts about the American president. "The ideas are good, but the warmth, cajoling and craft that makes ideas more than that are lacking," wrote International Herald Tribune columnist Roger Cohen. Henry Kissinger, a cold-blooded realist, said this of the president: "He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games. But he hasn't completed a single game and I'd like him to finish one."

Obama is his own work in progress. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, he was determined to become a president at war He forced the Pakistanis to take action with their army against the insurgents in Waziristan. And he deployed an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. He has faith in General Stanley McChrystal, commander of all foreign troops in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the chess grandmaster is trying to push the game forward.

Stanley McChrystal: Those who know him say he's straight, uncomplicated and means what he says. The special forces who killed Abu Musab al-Zarkawi and hauled Saddam Hussain out of his hole in the ground were under McChrystal's command. The US hopes he will be able to repeat that success in Afghanistan, which would be easier if the two countries weren't so different: Afghanistan is far larger and wilder, and doesn't have a traditional center.

It was McChrystal who called for a big rise in troop numbers. He says the situation looks bad and won't be easy to improve. Sending more soldiers won't solve the problem on its own, he says, but he insists that the reinforcements are essential. He only hints at what he thinks about Germany's contribution: They need to do more than they've been doing, he says. He's a modern general who's trying to carry out his mission without worrying about politics. Generals like McChrystal or David Petraeus represent historic progress compared with the likes of General William Westmoreland, the pompous Vietman war commander who tortured his president with ludicrous demands.

Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador in Kabul : He too is a general and in his last job was coordinator in charge of security in Afghanistan. Backed by his authority as a military expert, he has been voicing reservations about the decisions taken by President Barack Obama and his general. Eikenberry says more troops would cost astronomical sums and would deepen and prolong Afghanistan's dependence on the West. "Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable." He wrote that in a secret cable to Washington in November -- a cable which found its way into the New York Timesthis week.

He doesn't have a high opinion of the Afghan president. "President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner," he wrote in a cable. "The proposed counterinsurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is both able to take responsibility and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal - a secure, peaceful, minimally self-sufficient Afghanistan hardened against transnational terrorist groups."

Afghanistan's Position - Negotiate with the Taliban, Don't Forget Pakistan

Hamid Karzai: He used to be darling of the West. He's elegant, wears great robes, is a good speaker and has enormous empathy. But the West has since adopted two different attitudes towards him, a cynical and a moral one. The cynics say he's the president even if he's manipulated the West. The moralists say our boys shouldn't be dying for a president like that. At the moment, the cynics have the upper hand. Even Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is full of praise for Karzai on occasion.

Karzai wants to negotiate with the Taliban. He sees many good reasons for that, for example, that the West will at some point withdraw its troops while the Taliban and the warlords are there to stay -- so it makes sense to get on good terms with them. And what about corruption? True, the West has made millions available in order to distinguish the good Taliban from the bad ones.

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist: In the search for detailed information about this region of the world, Western journalists often reach for book by Rashid. He is the author of the best book about Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the best book that exists about the Taliban. He has long said that Pakistan and Afghanistan should be analyzed as a single issue, first and foremost because the leadership of the Taliban can be found in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Karachi. Furthermore, the Pakistani secret service has been hesitant in fulfilling US demands that it be more aggressive in its pursuit of the Taliban leadership. Pakistan's offensives against the Taliban have tended to focus on those groups in Waziristan which were responsible for attacks on Pakistani civilians in Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar. Those Taliban who carry out attacks in Afghanistan before retreating back across the border into Pakistan are left largely alone. Both the Pakistani military and secret service foresee a time when the West pulls out of the region. The Pashtuns will remain on both sides of the border -- and so too will the Taliban.

Early on, Rashid called attention to the regional nature of the conflict in Afghanistan -- a problem in which India, Iran, Pakistan and several Central Asian republics all have great interest. Everything is connected to everything else, he is fond of pointing out. The West's strategy must take this into account. And there is no alternative to being involved everywhere at once.

Germany's Strategy - Falling in Line with the Americans

Defense Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle: When the former government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer went to war against the Serbs a decade ago, they sought to justify their decision by looking to history. Kosovo, they worried, could become a modern-day Auschwitz -- the comparison seems more absurd today than it did then.

The current government has chosen the other extreme when talking about the "war-like conditions" in Afghanistan. They have preferred understatement, indecision, silence and confusion. Guttenberg, head of the Defense Ministry for just three months, has been more open about the true nature of the German engagement in Afghanistan than his predecessor. But he has still shied away from absolute transparency. Recently, as part of Germany's ongoing adjustment of its Afghanistan strategy, he called for German soldiers to show a greater presence in the villages and on the streets of northern Afghanistan, where they are based. Such a strategy clearly involves greater danger for German troops, and one would have thought that Guttenberg might have said something to that effect. But he chose not to.

Foreign Minister Westerwelle, for his part, has developed a fondness for fairy tales. When he speaks of the new fund designed to moderate Taliban away from extremism, it sounds as though he is talking about programs to reform neo-Nazis and turn them state's evidence. On Thursday, Germany will pledge €50 million ($70.36 million) to the program.

German soldiers have been stationed in Afghanistan for more than eight years. Not once, however, has a German general come up with a strategy proposal that was deemed worthy of debate by the cabinet. Berlin doesn't even have a body charged with developing political and military strategies. Instead, Germany just waits for the Americans to act before falling into line. It's a rather weak legacy for a mid-sized power like Germany.

Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt: He has often said that Germany has no interests in either Kosovo or Afghanistan. His reasoning has to do with Germany's 20th century history and his resulting conviction that Berlin should tread lightly on the world stage. But, now that we're there, the Social Democratic statesman argues that we should stay -- out of loyalty to the NATO alliance. His party, no doubt, was hoping for a different verdict, but for Schmidt, the country comes before the party.

On to London : One can view the Thursday conference in London in two ways. The first: America has decided what to do and now it is up to the rest of the world to follow. Such a viewpoint would make the London conference superfluous. The other way of looking at it: The West is attempting to create a collective approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that certainly justifies a conference.

URL:

• http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,674331,00.html