Afghanistan: a federal solution?

I've written before about the situation in which the USA finds itself in Afghanistan, most recently last month. Two reports in an Australian newspaper lend weight to what I've said before, and offer a possible alternative solution.

First, a senior Australian officer underlines the difficult operational conditions there.

THE Taliban have ''overwhelmed'' foreign troops and cannot be defeated by military means, one of Australia's top combat soldiers has warned.

Brigadier Mark Smethurst says securing Afghanistan could take decades, but success is uncertain without a fundamental change in strategy.

His critical assessment comes in a report that contrasts sharply with federal government claims of progress in Afghanistan.

While the key role of Australian troops is mentoring local forces, he says the Afghan army cannot operate independently, despite seven years of training, and the police are even worse.

The Afghan government is ineffective and has failed to deal with corruption, human rights abuses and a non-existent justice system. Aid distribution, he says, has been ''wasteful, ineffective and insufficient''.

Brigadier Mark Smethurst implicitly criticises the Howard government's approach, and poses questions about the present government's agenda.

While successive governments have stated we are in Afghanistan to deny al-Qaeda terrorists a base, the brigadier says the key reason is to maintain the US alliance.

In a paper that makes uneasy reading for MPs before this week's parliamentary debate on Afghanistan, he implies that if we haven't achieved our primary aim by 2012 - training Afghan troops - we should pull out.

"Compared with other counterinsurgency campaigns, the chance of a solution in the short term appears remote," he says. "Even with the strongest possible action and co-operation at the national level, it is difficult to see solutions emerging in less than 10 years unless proactive action is taken now."

Brigadier Smethurst is a highly regarded special forces officer, with service in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan in a 28-year career. At present deputy commander of Special Operations Command, he is tipped for a key coalition post in Afghanistan.

While his paper was written last year, he told The Sunday Age the basic tenets held true.

Called Creating Conditions for the Defeat of the Afghan Taliban: A Strategic Assessment, it was recently published online by the Australian Defence College.

He describes the Taliban as a ''very capable adversary'' who are winning the propaganda war and whose tactics had ''overwhelmed the coalition''.

The insurgents ''cannot be crushed by a conventional military campaign'', he says. As public support for the nine-year-old war in the West wanes, foreign efforts have made limited progress.

He calls for a co-ordinated military and political strategy aimed at providing security, building Afghan forces and creating a functioning Afghan government. Yet all three aims face massive obstacles, he writes.

. . .

He warns the coalition must not be seen to fail in Afghanistan, because of the boost it would give to the Taliban in nuclear-armed Pakistan. A solution lies between the extremes of defeating the Taliban and reconciling with them.

He says walking away from Afghanistan risks allowing the country to flourish as a breeding ground and haven for Islamic extremism.

There's more at the link. Brigadier Smethurst's study paper may be read in full here (link is to an Adobe Acrobat document in .PDF format). It's worth the time for those interested in the subject.

The second report outlines proposals by Dr. Hussein Tahiri for a new approach to a political solution in Afghanistan.

Western governments cannot afford to have [a] long term commitment in Afghanistan. The Taliban, the Afghan government and its people are well aware of this. In the absence of a long-term commitment, the coalition needs to adopt a different strategy.

One solution for a more stable and secure Afghanistan could be the formation of a federal state. A powerful central government in Afghanistan is the antithesis of its tribal structure. Afghanistan is a tribal society and is comprised of many different clans, tribes and ethnic groups. A tribal structure is not compatible with a strong central state.

Social organisation among many tribal societies including Afghanistan is based on segmentary lineages. Each tribe is divided into families, lineages, clans etc. In tribal societies, individual's loyalty is first to his/her family, then lineage, clan and tribe; and everything else comes afterwards.

In any clashes, family members find themselves against another family, and lineage against another lineage and so on. There is constant tendency towards fission and fusion, maintaining continuous balance. When threat comes from outside, then all tribes unite against the outside threat.

Tribes have an independent spirit. The tribal leaders see no one as equal to themselves and the tribal members see no one as their superior except their leaders. The tribal leader wants to be autonomous in their internal affairs and they resist any external interventions limiting their autonomy.

In the modern era and the development of the concept of nationalism, ethnicity is considered a natural evolution into nationhood. An ethnic group with shared history, culture, ancestry, territory and language has to a great extent replaced tribes and functions as a super-tribe. Hence, loyalty from tribes to ethnicity is transferable but it does not extend beyond this.

When it comes to Afghanistan, the West has ignored the Afghan spirit of resistance and sense of freedom, which stems from tribal mentality. Afghanistan is made up of many different peoples and ethnicities including the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmans, Aimaqa and Nuristanis. While each of these groups are divided into their own sub-divisions, they each form a kind of super-tribe.

Such a divided society with different and often opposing loyalties does not allow a coherent and strong central government, particularly if it is dominated by one ethnic group, in this case is the Pashtuns. No tribe or ethnic group will be prepared to lose their independence in favour of a central government, especially if it is dominated by another ethnic group.

In 1809, Monstuart Elphinstone, the first British envoy to the then "Kingdom of Caubul", tried to convince a Pashtun elder that they would be better off to live under a monarch. The Pashtun elder told Monstuart: "We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master." The above statement well explains the situation of Afghanistan even today. The various Afghan ethnic communities will not be willing to accept the rule of a central government (a master) imposed by outside powers.

Hence, it is more plausible to form a federal state in Afghanistan where each ethnic group have their own parliament and state, which are linked through a loose federal state.

Again, there's more at the link.

Of course, if Dr. Tahiri's proposals are adopted, it would mean the end of Western support (at least in its current form) for the centralized government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. That would be difficult, given the billions of dollars in cash and years of political support that have been committed to him; but it might be the only solution in the longer term. There's also the fact that President Karzai and those loyal to him are sure to resist any attempt to diminish or circumscribe their authority. They would probably regard such attempts as placing their own lives in danger (and not without reason). I'm sure Dr. Tahiri's proposals will spark intense debate.

Both of the articles cited above, and Brigadier Smethurst's full study paper, are essential reading, in my opinion, for Americans seeking to understand the reality 'on the ground' in Afghanistan. Highly recommended.

Peter