SOFA in Afghanistan?

[MSG Proctor]

The "zero option" alluded to in that article is what concerns me. We are running out of geopolitical capital to squander on hasty exits.

[davidbfpo]

MSG Proctor,

By coincidence, timely maybe, the daily book reading on BBC Radio Four is from the new book on the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842), which ended with an appalling disaster in the retreat from Kabul. My book is the old classic 'Kabul Catastrophe: The Retreat of 1842, by Patrick Macrory (paperback 1986).

Concern exists here, within government, over as you wrote:

We are running out of geopolitical capital to squander on hasty exits.

The history of Afghanistan and external involvement has plenty of lessons on display, I do wonder if those immersed in Afghanistan today have learnt much from them - even the latest Soviet exit.

Understandably there is political and military weight behind an orderly, phased exit; far better than a hasty exit, but there are other possibilities. The Second Afghan War (1878-1880) gave the British more bloody lessons (incidentally a historian of that war is giving a talk @ Oxford University next month, on how the British conducted their exit).

A US SOFA sounds horribly like "saving face" alongside maintaining a capability for coercive action - for national US reasons - within Afghanistan, maybe next door too.

You being in Kandahar is appropriate, stay safe.

[MSG Proctor]

The Taliban are hammering away at the theme of a SOFA agreement being anti-Islam, against Sharia, against Islamic tradition, and unjust towards Afghans.
While many see through their rhetoric, the greater % of the illiterate population that are beholden to their mullahs for accurate, credible information, guidance, and religious legal rulings are affected the by the Taliban's messaging.
All I'm saying is that the Taliban are leveraging religion in a way that is cheap, appealing and effective towards their end state. The GIRoA and ANSF have a tall order in front of them to answer the claims of the Taliban insurgency. The people of southern Afghanistan are very, very religious.

[Madhu]

David,

In your reading did you come across anything on the relationship between numbers of troops post 2014 and planned elections? What can be the status of any agreement in that background?

[Madhu]

As the United States prepares to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014, the region is abuzz with developments over the country’s future, particularly in the context of the Taliban’s role. The latest headline from this swiftly-paced drama was a meeting from December 20-21, 2012 in Paris with representatives of the Afghan Taliban, Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami, members of Afghanistan’s parliament, civil society, political groups that were earlier part of the Northern Alliance and figures who have been associated with the government.[i] The meeting was organized by the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French think tank.[ii]

http://studies.aljazeera.net/en/repo...1354190395.htm

Yes, stay safe.

[davidbfpo]

David,

In your reading did you come across anything on the relationship between numbers of troops post 2014 and planned elections? What can be the status of any agreement in that background?

No. IIRC the national Afghan elections are in December 2014, although no date was actually found a month ago.

I would expect a SOFA will be on the political agenda long before then, President Karzai's stance is not helpful. The question I expect many Afghans are wondering about is what will be the US role post-2014 and what does the Afghan state need to do for the USA?

[MSG Proctor]

If we calculate that the Taliban are fostering an information environment that forces Afghan politicians to draw from the Iraq playbook (talk tough against the US-led Coalition to bolster your own political support in a new democracy) then we see clearly where they want this to head.

The backdrop of all this is of course the so-called Arab Spring. Because once the socialist/dictatorships in the ME fell (Iraq, Egypt, Tanzania, Libya, etc...) and the 2009 Tehran uprising failed, the clear winners are the Islamists. What remains to be seen is whether Kabul will honor the sacrifices of a 50-member international coalition that spilt blood to secure Afghanistan or whether Afghanistan will be forced to cave to the pressure of Islamism led by the compelling rhetoric of the Taliban.

If the present US administration (which just changed out the SECSTATE and SECDEF) uses the SOFA as the justification for ending the deployment of US troops prior to December 2014, we may hear a giant sucking sound coming out of Afghanistan much sooner than expected.

[davidbfpo]

David,

In your reading did you come across anything on the relationship between numbers of troops post 2014 and planned elections? What can be the status of any agreement in that background?

Thanks to a FP mailing I can cite what COMISAF said in an interview with WSJ (behind a pay wall):

...Gen. John Allen is calling for a "substantial military presence" in Afghanistan through next year's fighting season.... "We'd like to maintain our campaign so we're as pervasive in our touch this fighting season, because this fighting season Afghans are going to be moving into the lead operationally... We'd like to be with them through the fighting season and then you'd see our numbers come down and then stabilize across the election."

There are about 66,000 American troops in Afghanistan now, and the White House has not announced a withdrawal "slope" yet. But the command is expected to want as much of that force as possible for the last leg of the war in Afghanistan.

Allen is arguing for as robust a presence as possible, citing the lessons learned from the Soviets years ago. Allen: "What we've sought to do is learn from the post-Soviet experience.... It was as the Soviet Union began to come apart, when the advisers first were withdrawn and...when the resources were ultimately withdrawn, that's when we first began to see that [Afghan security] force polarize along ethnic and tribal lines and then everything began to come apart."

Fascinating to see him cite the lessons of the Soviet exit (which is a later part of a SWC thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9483 ).

[davidbfpo]

President Karzai has been interviewed by two UK media outlets and amidst his remarks:

Zero option would be a failure, not success...We wish to have that utopian state of mind, that's the ideal. Why wouldn't I – or why wouldn't any citizen of a country – want no troops on our side? ......Afghanistan needs to rebuild itself … For that we need the presence of the international community with us, our allies.

He makes some remarks about the UK and then US role in Helmand, that are simply amazing:

The question is why do we have Taliban controlling these areas now, when two years ago I had control of Helmand … we had girls in schools and only 160 foreign troops. Factually, what I said then was true, and it remains true today. In 2002 through 2006, (Helmand) Afghanistan had a lot better security. When we had our own presence there, with very little foreign troops, schools were open in Helmand and life was more secure.....But I am not going to blame, and it should not be seen as such. I don't want to be interpreted as saying that the arrival of foreign troops brought less security or worsened security for us. Whatever happened was the past, and now we are looking forward to the future.

Thank you Mr President!

[MSG Proctor]

David, I read that interview last night and was impressed by the intimations that there might actually be a SOFA and a continued international presence in Afghanistan. Not sure how much of a power broker he will be after elections in 2014 or how the elections will affect the need for a SOFA, but my takeaway is that Karzai seems committed that ISAF is a good garauntor of security for the short term, maybe even longer.