Afghanistan may have disappeared from the front pages, but the U.S. Commander there has recently recommended sending more troops to beef up a training mission. The new Administration has some decisions to make.
Sixteen years into our intervention, Afghanistan is arguably in more precarious shape than when we arrived. The Taliban and/or Islamic State control almost half the districts, Afghan Army and Police fatalities are rising, and U.S. funded schools and clinics are closing—while Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah struggle as titular heads of a “National Unity Government” that is barely national, not unifying of anything, and nonfunctional as a government.
What happened? As I have long argued, insisting upon structurally accountable Afghan government as a condition for assistance is the one strategy that previous Administrations have not tried. Indeed, our interventions have consistently undercut accountability at both national and subnational levels of government. In the absence of accountable government, increased military efforts may make matters worse and will only put off the day when the governance failures that drive the insurgencies will be addressed.
The 2004 Afghan Constitution calls for an elected president, specifying procedures for elections and runoffs. Nevertheless, the U.S. acted to short-circuit the 2014 Presidential Election recount, with U.S. Secretary of State Kerry brokering a deal installing a Ghani-led government with Abdullah as a “Chief Executive” and some plan (promise? hope? fantasy?) that a subsequent Loya Jirga would ratify this arrangement. Does this make any sense as a matter or constitutionalism or governance?
Think back to 2000 in the United States Presidential Election, when Gore and Bush were battling it out in Florida. Did anyone suggest that they strike a deal and form a Parliamentary-lite “national unity government?” Could the two of them decide and guarantee that a subsequent Constitutional Convention (like in 1789) would ratify this arrangement?
In the U.S., we understand that elections are supposed to decide things. For better or worse, one candidate wins and the other loses. Not everyone gets to go home with a trophy. Authority to govern must be settled unambiguously. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2000 settled the matter and life moved on. Any particular electoral outcome is saved by legitimacy of process, and the confidence that there will be a “next time.” Why do we think the Afghans are entitled to any less?
The formation of the National Unity Government was a success only from the perspective of the U.S. “Let’s get a government in place quickly so someone can sign the basing agreement.” The implicit message to Afghans was “don’t take this election business too seriously; it’s donor-desired outcomes that matter.” Without a trusted electoral process, what basis is there for legitimacy and stability?
The resulting governance failure, as it has played out since September 2014, is about what one would expect. The President and CEO bicker about who has authority to do what, there being no statutory or constitutional delineation of responsibilities, and hence nothing that a court could look to in order to resolve conflicts. There is delay and drift. Offices such as the Ministries of Defense and Interior—critical in a nation at war—and the office of Mayor of Kabul remained vacant for months. Corruption is rampant.
Governance arrangements are tricky to develop under the best of circumstances. Our Founding Fathers in Philadelphia had the luxury of working in peace without foreign advisers looking over their shoulders, setting deadlines or offering deals. The respective authorities and responsibilities of our three branches and the checks and balances were carefully thought through. Even the 2003 Constitutional Loya Jirga in Afghanistan had some time to hash things out, and they based the 2004 Constitution on their own pre-Soviet models.
Besides specifying a process for electing a president, the Afghan Constitution actually embodies a perfectly plausible governance structure. While providing for a more highly centralized government than is historically congenial to Afghanistan, this centralization is balanced by the constitutional requirement for direct election of mayors and of district, city, and village councils—a return to the pre-Soviet practice of locally elected offices and locally managed affairs.
The Karzai government, with U.S. acquiescence, chose not to implement any of these local government provisions, and the Ghani regime has followed suit. The President appoints all mayors, and locally elected councils do not exist. Would American citizens stand for such an arrangement?
The combination of lack of legitimacy at the top and the complete absence of accountable government at subnational level has been toxic. There is no accountability for anything at any level; citizens are entirely without recourse if officials are corrupt or fail to deliver. Much of the insurgency may well be driven—or passively supported—by the sheer lack of avenues for peaceful and regularized political choice.
Governance failure is not a problem that can be solved militarily. And more training of Afghan forces is probably pointless in the absence of legitimate civilian authorities with a chain of command to support, control and direct them.
Of course, after all our years of meddling, it will be challenging for the Afghans to make decisions about whether to implement or change their own Constitution, but we should insist that some structure of accountability be implemented rather than providing more military assistance to prop up the current mess.
The most constructive action we could take would be restraining interference from Pakistan to allow Afghanistan the space to get its own house in order.
Since 2004, Ms Fryklund has spent five years in Afghanistan, working at various times for USAID, UNDP, OSCE, contractors, and with the Army and Marine Corps. She was in Kabul analyzing patterns in polling station results for the 2014 election, and watched the rushed recount. She can be reached at inge.fryklund@gmail.com.