THE UNFINISHED WAR IN AFGHANISTAN 2001-2014 Vishal Chandra THE UNFINISHED WAR IN AFGHANISTAN 2001-2014 THE UNFINISHED WAR IN AFGHANISTAN 2001-2014 Vishal Chandra INSTITUTE FOR DEFENCE STUDIES & ANALYSES NEW DELHI Pentagon Press The Unfinished War in Afghanistan: 2001-2014 By Vishal Chandra First Published in 2015 Copyright © Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi ISBN 978-81-8274-762-3 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining written permission of the copyright owner. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, or the Government of India. 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Dedicated to Buddhas of Bamiyan BUDDHA,* Listen to my voice, That rolls, reflects and echoes in the sad and broken valleys of your land, Buddha, Listen to my voice, as I murmur your pain that is closely woven into mine, Buddha, Listen to my tale of senseless and insane destruction of a civilization, Buddha, Bear with me, as I tell you the tales of terror, fear and horror of your land, As I tell you the saga of helpless Afghans, As I mourn the tragedy of your destruction, and the fall of a great nation, Buddha, Your ruins and my head both did not crunch the thirst of barbarians, How ridiculous that your silent, peaceful existence and my spark of ideas and logic, Posed a deadly threat to THEIR hollow, poisonous existence! Buddha, Your ashes and my beheaded body, Went unnoticed and forgotten, Just like the death of thousands before you and after me, In the precious land, sadly ruled by ignorant unruly. Buddha, Your place is empty, Like an eye drawn from its socket, When my mother went blind, As she sobbed herself to sleep each night with the vision of my beheaded body. Buddha, Your destruction will always remind mankind of the suffering, Of women beaten, men beheaded, and children imprisoned. Buddha, Though your tenacious statue is no more, We can declare with pride, honour, and glory, That Buddha suffered alongside his people to ensure, The world witnessed and will remember forever the agony of the Afghan nation. Buddha, I know that You wanted to be no more because of intolerable savagery, That You longed for ending the endless pain that you felt in your nation, * Lina Rozbih-Haidari, “The Fallen Buddha Statues in Bamiyan,” Diplomatic Courier, March 03, 2012. viii The Unfinished War in Afghanistan Buddha, They tell us You intended to fall in the land of lunies, Not as a gesture of surrender and submission, But as a rebellious voice of voiceless, Against, Oppression, Tyranny, Injustice, Cruelty, Ignorance, And SHAME! —Lina Rozbih-Haidari Afghan journalist & poet ????? ix Contents Foreword xiii Acknowledgements xv Abbreviations xix List of Tables and Maps xxiii Afghanistan: Key Socio-Economic Indicators xxvii Introduction 1 I. New Order, Old Politics 9 An Abandoned and Forgotten War 10 Recasting Old Fault Lines 16 Mujahideen within Local Structures 25 Return of Old Militia Networks 29 Debating the New Constitution 30 II. Tryst with Democracy 41 The First Election (2004-05) 42 President Elect and the First Cabinet 47 Assessing the Bonn Process 54 Karzai’s Re-election: Chaotic Exercise 58 Prospects of Democracy 59 III Opposition Politics and Karzai the Master Survivor 79 Evolution of NFA 81 The National Understanding Front 82 Composition and Agenda of NFA 83 Reactions to the Emergence of the NFA 86 NFA and the Taliban 87 x The Unfinished War in Afghanistan New Turf War Begins 88 Karzai the Master Survivor 90 IV Taliban Back into Power Play 101 War on Terror: Losing while Winning 102 Taliban No More on the Fringe 104 Gaining Strategic Depth in Pakistan 110 Changing Face of the Afghan War 113 Western Mission Going Nowhere 116 V Politics of Taliban Reconciliation and Reintegration 123 Growing Ambiguity 124 Making of the Idea 126 Key Challenges 143 Future Prospect 149 VI Quest for a National Army 159 Origin/Evolution of the New National Army 161 Training and Mentoring 161 Structure/Formation of ANA 164 Afghan National Army Air Corps (ANAAC) 165 Ethnic Representation 166 Funding 167 Rushing for Numbers 169 The Weaponry 170 Multiple Challenges 172 Future Prospects 174 VII The ‘Other’ Key Neighbours – Iran, India, China and Russia 183 Pakistan: Terrorism without Terrorists! 187 Iran: A Dominant Factor 192 India: Partner in Development 220 China: Pretending Distance 230 Russia: Hesitant but Concerned 257 Awaiting ‘Post-2014’ Afghanistan 270 VIII The Unfinished War 291 Beyond 2014: Continuing Concerns and Challenges 295 (i) Historical Conflict Dynamics 296 (ii) Post-Karzai Leadership 299 Contents xi (iii) US’ Missing Future Strategy 300 (iv) Survival of the National Army 302 (v) Resilience of the Taliban 303 APPENDICES I Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of Permanent Government Institutions 307 II North Waziristan Peace Pact 317 III White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group’s Report on U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan and Pakistan 320 IV Status of ANAAC (as of April 2010) 328 Index 330 Foreword Political stability in Afghanistan is critical to regional peace. Unfortunately, the efforts of the international community to bring peace to Afghanistan have not succeeded so far. For more than a decade, the US-led international forces have been fighting a resurgent Taliban without much success. In fact, the Taliban appear to go from strength to strength, while the international forces are withdrawing from Afghanistan trying to convince themselves that they are going to leave at a time when Afghanistan has become a much better place than when they came in. The truth remains that the new Afghanistan that they have ushered in is not established enough to survive on its own. The ‘unfinished war’, which the title of the book alludes to, is threatening to engulf Afghanistan as the international forces are leaving the country. The reconciliation processes being attempted at various levels to persuade the Taliban to join the process have failed, and the latter are perhaps waiting in patience to retake Kabul by all means and put an end to the Afghan experiment with democracy. Against this backdrop, the book attempts a wholesome analysis of the processes that led to a new experiment with representative system in Afghanistan, the successes and failures of the Afghan Government, the nature of internal politics, the role of the warlords, the re-emergence of the Taliban, the capabilities as well as the constraints of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the limits of the reconciliation efforts, the post-withdrawal commitments of the international community, and the role of the regional countries in Afghanistan. The conclusions drawn in the book by the author are far from optimistic. They are informed by a realistic assessment of the ground situation and indicate that Afghanistan is poised for greater socio-political turmoil in the coming years. The author, Vishal Chandra, has consulted a variety of primary and secondary source materials, research papers, books and reports, and has undertaken field trips to Afghanistan, to ascertain the views from the ground and enrich his study. The study was subjected to anonymous review by acknowledged experts and xiv The Unfinished War in Afghanistan revised as per the suggestions offered by them. At its present shape, it provides a useful overview of the evolving situation in Afghanistan. It critiques the Western engagement in Afghanistan as fragile and points to the confusion and bewilderment that characterise it. Its prognosis of ethnic polarisation and protracted war based on the author’s perception of re-emergence of old patterns of conflict in the country may be disturbing, but worth a read for anybody seeking to understand the Afghan maze. As an Indian scholar, he has analysed the Indian engagement in the process of Afghan reconstruction, possible options for India in the post-withdrawal phase; and has recommended that India must take a long- term view and stay engaged in Afghanistan, even in the worst case scenario. I hope the book will be appreciated by the strategic community in India and abroad, and add to the emerging literature on the subject. Dr. Arvind Gupta Director General Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses New Delhi Contents xv Acknowledgements This book comes exactly at the end of my decade long research on Afghanistan at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi. It is by no means a culmination of my research on Afghanistan; rather, it is part of my constant and a continuing endeavour to understand some of the perceptibly most intricate and inescapable socio-political realities of the Afghan conflict. Studying Afghanistan, its evolution and development through the cross-currents of history, formation and transformation of its complex social and political identities, the various nuances of its ever dynamic politics, has not been a mere professional pursuit for me. All these years, it has been something much more, something I almost lived with. Yet, I feel I have a long way to go before I could really fathom the depth of what could be regarded as the defining core of what we simply refer to as Afghan (-istan).