I have recently returned from Afghanistan where I was an election observer with Democracy International (DI).  I am not an expert on Afghanistan, so I will refrain from commenting extensively on it.  For good analyses, see DI’s Afghanistan blog, Democracy Arsenal, fellow election observer Brian Katulis, and Michael Allen.

From what I have read and seen in Afghanistan, the problem boils down to three basic points:

1. Afghanistan is suffering from a security gap and a services gap.  International forces are essential for filling the former while the latter is largely the responsibility of the Afghan government (through supported by foreign aid).
2. US public opinion is firmly against sending more troops to Afghanistan and it is not clear that US foreign policy interests dictate a lengthy and expensive commitment to Afghanistan (see numerous posts from Democracy Arsenal).
3. The services gap is in large measure a result of the rampant corruption in the Afghan government.

By examining these three points together, I think we can get a sense of where US policy towards Afghanistan is heading.  Given the skepticism among the public and an increasing number of foreign policy experts towards the war in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is unlikely to be able to convince Congress to allocate greater resources to defeating the Taliban.  Rather, the Government of Afghanistan will first need to demonstrate its commitment to this objective.  This is as it should be, since we cannot beat the Taliban without strong cooperation from the government and people of Afghanistan.  At a minimum this would seem to require that the Government of Afghanistan get serious about curbing corruption and improving services at the local level.  Unfortunately, President Karzai’s tolerance for massive corruption suggests that if he wins the election, this commitment is unlikely to materialize.  Whether Abdullah Abdullah can implement these reforms should he prevail is not clear.

Until recently, the link between security and good governance existed more in theory for me than in practice.  My experience in Afghanistan made the link quite vivid.

I was in Afghanistan as an election observer with Democracy International.  On election day, soldiers at a security checkpoint demanded that we get out of our vehicle so they could check it for explosives and weapons.  Clearly, we were not the Taliban.  Rather, they pulled us over so they could extract a bribe.  Since Afghan soldiers are not paid well (about $120 per month) and since they see high-ranking government officials making enormous sums of money, I don’t necessarily have a problem with paying bribes to low-ranking government officials, especially soldiers who are risking their lives.  However, what occurred at the checkpoint went far beyond the typical bribe request.  There were about 20 soldiers at the checkpoint and once word spread that westerners had been pulled over, every soldier stopped manning the checkpoint and gathered around us.  At this point, each soldier had abandoned his post and no one was paying any attention to the scores of cars driving through the checkpoint into the city.  Luckily, nothing happened.  (As far as I know.  There were bombings in Kabul on election day and it is possible that one of the bombers slipped through the checkpoint while the soldiers were engaged in their extortion.) I could deal with soldiers taking the weapons and the bribe.  The scary part was how quickly the soldiers dispensed with their duty to secure the city in order to take part in the bribery.  That corruption can be a serious cause of insecurity is now seared into my mind.

Although this is a few days old, I think it is very worthwhile to take a detailed look at Hillary Clinton’s remarks from her “Townterview” at the University of Nairobi on August 6.  You can find the entire transcript of the event from the State Department’s website.  The most interesting part of the program from my perspective was how Secretary Clinton discussed the much-disputed Kenyan 2007 Presidential election.  I won’t go into the details; you can read about them here and here.  The basic point is that there is a significant amount of evidence to suggest that the US Embassy in Nairobi deliberately suppressed evidence that the election was not free and fair.  Rather than countenance that the US had any role in helping Kibaki prevail in the election, Secretary Clinton blamed the Kenyan people for the outcome.  Consider the following remarks:

…no one can reform a government from the outside. It takes the people of the country and particularly the role that civil society and the private sector played in trying to deal with the aftermath of the election. So yes, I mean, we can encourage, we can lecture, we can offer assistance, we can try to highlight good practices. But it has to be done by the people of Kenya.

…it is not only our policy, but it is our intent to do everything we can to ensure as free and fair elections as possible.

…it is not up to the United States…we cannot dictate to you who you have in your government. You have to determine how to influence and change this government, and do not be deterred by the difficulty of it.

…So it is my hope that those of you who are pushing for reform, keep thinking about ways of putting the right kinds of pressure to bear on those in power.

Now, to be clear, I do not hold Secretary Clinton responsible for the role of the US in allowing President Kibaki to prevail in the flawed election.  It took place when the Bush administration was in power and before Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State.  But to blame the Kenyan people for not doing their part to ensure the election was free and fair while the US Government has never come clean with it’s own role in suppressing evidence of rigging seems a bit much to stomach.

Daniel Kaufmann sums up the situation nicely from my perspective:

it is no secret that the US embassy in Nairobi, alongside some key international donor agencies, committed major mis-steps around the time of the ill-fated elections in late 2007.   In spite of their glaring biases and policy mishaps, the US, UK and the World Bank have largely been ’silent witnesses’ regarding what transpired on their own roles and actions at the time.

Indeed.

Democracy and Society.com is the new website for Democracy and Society (D&S), a bi-annual publication of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society (CDACS) at Georgetown University.  D&S is a venue for the exchange of ideas about democracy and civil society.  Democracy and Society.com brings these issues to the blogosphere.  CDACS is part of the Democracy and Governance Program at Georgetown University which also includes the MA in Democracy and Governance.

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