Recently in Nation-Building Category

Afghanistan residential challenger Abdullah Abdullah decided (correctly) over the weekend that the planned run-off election between him and incumbent President Karzai would be subject to the same abuses and lack of transparency as the original election, and thus withdrew his participation:

"I will not participate in the Nov. 7 election," Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai's chief opponent, told thousands of supporters at a rally, because a "transparent election is not possible."

(...) Abdullah did not call on his supporters to boycott next Saturday's election; he repeatedly refused to say what he thought should happen next; he would not endorse or reject Karzai's reelection as president; and he said he would "leave the door open" for additional talks with Karzai. He said his decision not to participate in the runoff was not made "in exchange for anything from anybody."

The Nov. 7 runoff was called after reports of widespread fraud tarnished the results of the first election in August, which Karzai won with about 54 percent of the vote. The United Nations subsequently threw out millions of fraudulent ballots, dropping Karzai's tally to less than 50 percent, the minimum necessary to avoid a runoff.

Abdullah claimed that much of the fraud could be traced to favoritism by the country's electoral machinery, and he had ddemanded the resignation of Afghanistan's independent election commissioner as a condition of participating in next Saturday's vote. Karzai reportedly rejected the demand.

This announcement was followed this morning by the (entirely predictable) news that as there wasn't much point in having a run-off when one of the two candidates runs off, the runoff was canceled and Karzai was duly re-certified as the President of Afghanistan this morning.

I admit that I am sympathetic to Abdullah's concern, and shared his view that a runoff would not be any more transparent or immune to fraud than the original election. However, I still believed that the process of democracy was important. I am thus rather disappointed that Abdullah chose to remove himself and essentially validate the original election. The message this sends is that things are the same; the big Boss wins and there is no real challenge possible to the status quo. Even a flawed runoff, on the other hand, would have sent a message that here is a mechanism by which we can hold those in power accountable. It was unlikely thaht Abdullah would have won the runoff (even assumig everything went squeaky-cleanly). But it was important for Afghanistan's civil process and maturation that he participated. By removing himself, he abdicated a responsibility he had accumulated as the only credible challenger to Karzai's hold on power.

What next? The decision on troops remains Obama's to make, and is largely independent of who is in power in Kabul, but the circumstances of Karzai's re-election do cast a political pall. Look for the fact to be used against Obama mostly by the Left, arguing that Obama should send fewer troops to "support a tyrant". Luckily the equally shrill Right will be harping on Obama in the opposite direction, so I hope Obama still has some remaining room for an actual decision.

As far as Afghanistan's democracy goes, however, the lesson here I think is that the American model of a strong central government is flawed in applcation to Afghanistan. The Afghan constitution permits the President to appoint the provincial governors, in a bid to strengthen Kabul against the warlords who actually control most of the country. But this has allowed Karzai to build a powerful political patronage system and thus undermined the national election, virtually guaranteeing fraud (even if it was not directed intentionally by Karzai himself). A better approach would be to amend the Afghani constitution to allow regional provincial councils to veto the choice of governor, or even appoint alternates if they disagree and hold local elections. Further limits on Presidential authority are also probably due. Given that Karzai's hold on power is stll heavily dependent on American support, we still have a lot of leverage to apply. The task for Karzai should be to restore faith in Afghanistan's democratic process, and the best first step woud be to embrace reforms of these types. There's still a lot of room for Abdullah Abdullah to play a role in shaping Afghanistan's future, and there's an opportunity here for us to help.

Speaking of applying American democracy to Afghanistan... ha!

This is fantastic news - there will be a run-off election in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan's election commission Tuesday ordered a Nov. 7 runoff in the disputed presidential poll after a fraud investigation dropped incumbent Hamid Karzai's votes below 50 percent of the total. Karzai accepted the finding and agreed to a second round vote.

The announcement came two months to the day after the first round vote and follows weeks of political uncertainty at a time when Taliban strength is growing.

The chairman of the Independent Election Commission, Azizullah Lodin, said the commission, which organized the Aug. 20 vote, did not want to "leave the people of Afghanistan in uncertainty" any longer.

"The commission is agreed to go to a second round and say that nobody got more than 50 percent," Lodin said. Afghan electoral law says a runoff is needed if no candidate gets above that percentage.

(...) Karzai announced his acceptance of the findings at a press conference alongside U.S. Sen. John Kerry and Kai Eide, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. Kerry said the agreement on a second round had transformed the crisis into a "moment of great opportunity."

Kerry said Karzai "has shown genuine leadership in the decision he has made today."

The decision to accept the fraud findings and move to a run-off showed that Afghanistan "recommits to the democratic process." He complimented Karzai for his "openness to finding ways of resolving differences."

"The international community is 100 percent committed to helping to carry out this election," Kerry said.

The possibility of a runoff emerged Monday after a U.N.-backed panel threw out a third of Karzai's votes from the Aug. 20 ballot, pushing his totals below the 50 percent threshold needed for a first round victory and setting the stage for a run-off against former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

An excerpt from Karzai's response:

"We believe that this decision of the IEC (Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission) is legitimate, legal and constitutional and that it strengthens the path toward democracy."

I'm glad to hear Karzai saying the right thing, though he clearly was inclined otherwise. Obama had indicated he wouldn't make a decisioin about troops to Afghanistan until after the election was settled. I predict this means that we will indeed see President Obama send most if not all the additional troops that General McChrystal is asking for. Obama already took a troop reduction off the table; It would have been nigh-impossible to justify the cost in blood and treasure had Karzai played hardball, since we are essentially fighting in Afghanistan on Karzai's behalf. But Karzai probably didn't have much choice; his actual hold on power is precarious and totally dependent on our goodwill. We aren't in this to setup yet another tinpot regime - that serves neither our interest nor that of the Afghan people.

Still, it won't be an easy task. The Taliban will be a huge problem, and of course there's now the winter to contend with. And no one wants to say it, but given that Karzai tried to bend the first election to his will, why wouldn't he try again with the second? In some respects the outcome of the run-off is already known. It's unlikely in the extreme that Abdullah Abdullah will prevail; but the important thing is the legitimacy that shows the Afghan people that there is a rule of law. To some extent there is theater involved, but it's theater with a purpose. The perfect here would indeed be the enemy of the good.

UPDATE: President Obama's statement, which is careful to avoid any mention of the troops issue, but does emphasize "partnership" between the people of the US and Afghanistan.

I welcome President Karzai's statement today accepting the Independent Electoral Commission's certification of the August 20 election results, and agreeing to participate in a second round of the election. This is an important step forward in ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will.

While this election could have remained unresolved to the detriment of the country, President Karzai's constructive actions established an important precedent for Afghanistan's new democracy. The Afghan Constitution and laws are strengthened by President Karzai's decision, which is in the best interests of the Afghan people.

I congratulate the Afghan people on the patience and resilience they have shown throughout this long election process. Given Afghanistan's recent history, it is extraordinary that they were able to overcome threats and violence to express their democratic right to choose their leader. Insecurity in the country prevented some Afghans from voting, but it is a testimony to the bravery of the Afghan people that so many of them did come out to vote in the first round under tremendously difficult circumstances.

I commend both the Independent Electoral Commission and the Electoral Complaints Commission for carrying out their mandates. Throughout this process, the United States has been interested above all in the strength and independence of those institutions, and the need for them to fulfill their mandate on behalf of all Afghans.

I congratulate President Karzai and Dr. Abdullah, who both earned the support of voters from across the country. I also commend all of the other Presidential candidates who made this such a vibrant campaign.

It is now vital that all elements of Afghan society continue to come together to advance democracy, peace and justice. We look forward to a second round of voting, and the completion of the process to choose the President of Afghanistan. In that effort, the United States and the international community are committed to partnering with the Afghan people.

Reading between the lines, I am convinced more than ever that Obama is going to approve the full complement of Gen. McChrystal's troops request. To be honest, since more troops will mean less reliance on drones and thus fewer civilian casualties from aerial attacks, I am fine with this.

Related reading - extensive profie in the NYT about Gen. McChrystal and the "long war" strategy. This is really a must-read and did a lot to convince me of the need for (and purpose of) the additional troops.

without any fanfare - this was not announced via press release.

In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported.

The additional forces are primarily support forces -- such as engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police -- the Post said, bringing the total buildup Obama has approved for the war-torn nation to 34,000.

"Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000," a defense official familiar with the troop-approval process told the daily.

As I noted yesterday, the politically-motivated crtitique of Obama that he isn't "listening" to Gen. McChrystal is transparent to anyone who has actually read the report.

John McCain:

"I think the great danger now is a half-measure, sort of a - you know, try to please all ends of the political spectrum," McCain told CNN chief national correspondent John King. "And, again, I have great sympathy for the president, making the toughest decisions that presidents have to make, but I think he needs to use deliberate speed."

Many people assume McCain's comments only apply to the left, but the fact is that they also apply to the right, and it's precisely because Obama has in fact taken the right VERY seriously indeed that he's in so much hot water with the Progressives (who I admit in the interest of full self-disclosure I do not self-identify with; I am a liberal on a elliptical orbit around the center of political mass, thus I drift rightwards in a very predictable fashion.)

Much of the critique of Obama from the right comes via political scoring rather than a genuine critique of policy; a great example is the replacement of Gen McKiernan by Gen McChrystal. McChrystal's background is special operations, commanding JSOC for five years (and capturing Saddam under his watch). The man is as much an expert in SO as Petraeus is in COIN. That strikes most principled observers as significant, though obviously it's not officially commented on by the White House. The implications of policy shift are clear. That is the President's prerogative; note that he has retained Secretary Gates from the previous Administration (again, a sore spot for lefties, and utterly ignored by righties intent on scoring points).

President Obama has asked for Gen. McChrystal's assessment and he has received it in detail. Now, McCain woudn't be doing his job if he didn't pressure the President to act quickly, but the truth is that when you request a gigantic policy review from your top commanders, you do so because you want to make a decision, not a rubber stamp. President Bush was content to leave broad strategy to Gen. Petraeus and that was also his prerogative, but righties have assumed that this is the normal course of things. It's not; the President, the Commander in Chief, is a civilian. It's the President's prerogative to give a general free reign, but it extends only as far and as long as the Commander in Chief wills it so. In Iraq, that free reign by Petraeus was one thing; in Afghanistan it is quite another. Afghanistan is not Iraq.

No General will ever - if he is competent and values his career - ask for less troops. That Gen. McChrystal would ask for more was a given, but if you read the report you find he makes a very different argument. In General McChrystal's own words:

Success is achievable, but it will not be attained simply by trying harder or "doubling down" on the previous strategy. Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way that we think and operate.

Emphases mine. I've spent enough time reading and analyzing it that I refuse categorically to discuss it with someone who hasn't bothered with due diligence; I care enough about the outcome that I take it more seriously than my political allegiances*.

The bottom line is that Obama has already sent more troops to Afghanistan than President Bush did. And Obama has taken reducing the troops serving there off the table. The question now remains, will President Obama send more troops, and if so, how many? That's a decision Obama must make in context of the entirety of the United States security needs, not just in Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal, on the other hand, makes his recommendations with the Afghanistan theater alone in mind.

And truth to tell, there's a very good argument for not sending any more troops - one acknowledged by McChrystal himself. ending more troops amounts to raising expectations, in the face of increasing public distaste for the war. The amount requested by McChrystal are not a panacea in themselves; to really do secure-and-hold (as opposed to secure-move on-revisit as we do now), you'd need not 40,000 more troops, but 400,000. McChrystal knows this full well, and anyone reading the report in full will understand his reasoning. In a lot of ways more troops as requested wouldn't really improve that much on the ground, but would buy make things easier. The cost would be increased public patience ; the challenge is to find a middle ground between these opposing forces and realities. McChrystal is not only aware of these tensions but states them explicitly in his report - the number of 40,000 quoted is in my opinion a brilliant gift to the President which gives him the executive operational freedom he needs to find that balance. I'm kind of in awe.

The mission in Afghanistan does not hinge upon the number of troops sent, but on the "change in thinking" alluded to above by McChrystal. Marc Lynch lays out the case for simply "muddling through":

Sending more troops may in fact be the right call -- I'm open-minded on that question -- but the attempts to bull-rush the process are problematic on their face.

"All in or get out" is a typical false choice offered by advocates of any position who support the "all in" option in question, since it's so much easier to argue the risks of "getting out" than it is to argue against intermediate options. And as for the rush, why make such a momentous choice precisely at a moment of total political chaos in Afghanistan and the near complete absence of a legitimate partner on which to build due to the rampant fraud which eviscerated the Afghan election?

This is particularly problematic because, as the President's advisers clearly understand, there is absolutely no reason to think that Gen. McChrystal's current request is really "all in". McChrystal's review is admirably clear and quite honest that even with such changes, the policy may not succeed.

The overwhelming odds are that if the escalation option is chosen, in a year or two we will be confronting the exact same questions. More troops will once again be needed, a new strategy will once again be demanded, we'll still be reading about how the Taliban is out-communicating us and about how the corruption of the Karzai government poses a serious challenge. And then the exact same debate will recur... the Kagans will demand more troops, dark mutterings about tensions between the administration and the generals will roil the waters, the Washington Post editorial page will publish debates where everyone is on the same side, the smart think-tankers will agonize over the tough choices but ultimately come down on the side of escalation. Might as well have this debate now, and get it right.
[...]
what's so terrible with muddling through for a while, giving the new tactics a chance to work at the local level while preventing the worst-case scenarios from happening? Why choose between escalation or withdrawal at exactly the time when the political picture is at its least clear? Why not maintain a lousy Afghan government which doesn't quite fall, keep the Taliban on the ropes without defeating it, cut deals where we can, and try to figture out a strategy to deal with the Pakistan part which all the smart set agrees is the real issue these days? Why not focus on applying the improved COIN tactics with available resources right now instead of focusing on more troops? If the American core objective in Afghanistan is to prevent its re-emergence as an al-Qaeda safe haven, or to prevent the Taliban from taking Kabul, those seem to be manageable at lower troop levels.

Good for the President's team to take the time to have a serious debate about this and not give in to the politically expedient path (in either direction). The readouts on yesterday's big Afghan strategy meeting reflect exactly what you want to see from a President making a tough call.

Let's also note something very important here - if you are absolutely against the practice of aerial bombardment and collateral damage - which I am also strenuously on the record about - then Biden's preferred policy (persuasively argued in the LRB by Rory Stewart) of reducing troops and relying heavily on COIN/SO alone is indeed "Chaosistan". There's a direct, causal inverse relationship between number of troops and collateral damage casualties. This is a paradox that no one on the left is willing to grapple with, but must factor into any principled assessment or policy prescription.

My own prediction and preference is that Obama will send more troops, in the range of 5-10,000. More importantly, the budget for Afghanistan is going to rise as the Iraq war winds down - Obama will not spend any more money in total between these two wars, but will shift the expenses from one to the other. The difference is that the same money won't go into funding a huge force of boots on the ground (as in Iraq) but will be channeled into the "change in strategy" of which McChrystal spoke. Call it the "$urge 2.0," because money matters as much if not more than men, this time. If politics truly stopped at the water's edge, this would be a strategy that everyone could agree on. Unfortunately, Obama has a fight on multiple fronts, abroad and at home. McChrystal has a much easier job by far.

UPDATE: Obama is sending another 13,000 troops to Afghanistan (mostly support personnel).

*I remind the gentle reader that while I was against the Iraq War , I also was against total withdrawal .

President Obama is now a Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize. There's enough in that statement alone to drive rightwing conservatives insane. And insane they certainly are, as others are ably and gleefully documenting. The general gist of the response by the Right is twofold, and predictably schizophrenic: 1. Obama has not accomplished enough in office to deserve the NPP, and 2. the NPP only awarded it to Obama because he is a. not-Bush and b. he is African-American. In essence, this means that they are arguing that the Nobel Peace Prize is both a farce and sacred at the same time. Of course, conservatives' enmity for the Peace prize is longstanding, given that it was awarded to Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore, even as they pine for it's omission to George W. Bush.

While the conservatives' newfound concern for the integrity of the NPP is certainly touching, the same critique coming from the Left carries more weight. But to address this, you have to consider the intention of the Peace Prize. And for that, we can look to the wishes of Alfred Nobel himself. In his will, he stipulated that the Nobel Peace Prize shall be awarded to

"to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Now, there's nothing in there about solving the Middle East conflict or riding the world of nuclear weapons, though certainly progress towards these goals would count. But the secific language used to define the concept of "peace" itself is interesting. The NPP is to be awarded for 1. doing work towardds fraternity of nations, and promotion of peace congresses. These are process, not end-result, statements. The sole end-result qualification listed in "reduction of armies" which I don't think any winner has ever managed to achieve, though President Obama's renewed attention to nuclear non-proliferation is relevant here (and explicitly quoted by the Nobel Committee as part of their justification for awarding it to him).

First, consider the process-oriented criteria. What has Obama achieved along these lines? Glenn Greenwald offers a summary of how Obama has "promoted peace" and "fraternity between nations":

Obama has changed the tone America uses to speak to the world generally and the Muslim world specifically. His speech in Cairo, his first-week interview on al-Arabiya, and the extraordinarily conciliatory holiday video he sent to Iran are all substantial illustrations of that. His willingness to sit down and negotiate with Iran -- rather than threaten and berate them -- has already produced tangible results. He has at least preliminarily broken from Bush's full-scale subservience to Israel and has applied steadfast pressure on the Israelis to cease settlement activities, even though it's subjected him to the sorts of domestic political risks and vicious smears that have made prior Presidents afraid to do so. His decision to use his first full day in office to issue Executive Orders to close Guantanamo, ostensibly ban torture, and bar CIA black sites was an important symbol offered to the world (even though it's been followed by actions that make those commitments little more than empty symbols). He refused to reflexively support the right-wing, civil-liberty-crushing coup leaders in Honduras merely because they were "pro-American" and "anti-Chavez," thus siding with the vast bulk of Latin America's governments -- a move George Bush, or John McCain, never would have made. And as a result of all of that, the U.S. -- in a worldwide survey released just this week -- rose from seventh to first on the list of "most admired countries."

That's an impressive list, though the caveats about rendition are noted. Some righties argue Obama should only be "eligble" for his actions as President in the 11 days he was in office prior to the NPP nomination deadline of Feb 1st - which is silly, since the actual deliberations took seven months. Why wouuldn't Obama's actions over that time be relevant to the decision? But it's still worth pointing out that Obama's executive orders on his very first day in office about torture and Guantanamo alone represent as significant an ideological change in direction for America as Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika did (earning him a NPP in 1990, even though the actual and unanticipated breakup of the Soviet Union didn't happen until the following year).

It's clear that Obama meets the process-oriented criteria. But what about "reduction of standing armies" and its nuke proxy? The Nobel Committee explicitly lauded Obama's commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, especially recently at the United Nations. However, the truth is that Obama remains wedded to the double standard on nuclear power, holding Iran and India to one standard while looking the other way when it comes to Israel's obsolete "strategic ambiguity". A genuine commitment to "zero nuke" policy would entail no favoritism, and insisting all nuclear-capable nations sign the NPT, Israel included. The hypocrisy on this does not go unnoticed and the threat of Israeli nuclear power is what drives the nuclear arms race in the middle east.

However, all of this is really beside the point, since it assumes that the Nobel Prize remains an "award" when in fact it is no such thing. It is actually a shrewd vehicle for influencing the power elite, and as such represents an attempt to lobby Obama and influence him over the course of his next term(s). The decsion of who gets a Nobel Peace Prize, and just as importantly who doesn't, is an explicit editorial statement. That President Bush was not awarded one* was a rebuke of the unilateral, pre-emptive, diplomacy-averse doctrine that bears his name. But with Obama, it is an attempt to shape the doctrine yet to be.

Richard Silverstein makes much the same point:

I think this award is really a shot in the dark. A big gamble. They're telling Obama and the world that they have enormous hopes for him. They're also telling us what deep straits the world is in. From Gaza to Teheran to Kabul to Baghdad, things are a mess. A military attack against Iran hangs like a question mark over the Middle East. The committee is essentially saying that tough times demand risk and this award is a risk. It could be that Obama will merit it over time. It could be that the award will make it that much easier for him to achieve some of his agenda. If so, the Swedes are telling us that's all to the good.

Lately, Obama has taken hits both at home and abroad. This award is meant as a shot in the arm, a bit of courage for the tough times ahead. He'll need it.

I hope against hope that this award will encourage the realist camp in dealing with Iran. I hope it will give pause to the Israeli adventurists gunning for a fight with Iran. I do think it will make it that much harder for Obama himself to turn hawkish, as he has intimated he might do if negotiations fail. So maybe there's some shrewdness to this award as well.

Indeed. Liberal critics like Greenwald** point to the Afghanistan War as evidence Obama doesn't "deserve" the prize, but General McChrystal's public call for more troops seems to have influenced Obama to take a troop reduction off the table. This represents a success for McChrystal, who may not (probably won't) get his full requested 40,000 troops, but also won't face the Biden-advocated strategy of reducing troops still further in favor of purely couunter-terrorism operations. The Nobel Peace Prize applies pressure on Obama from the opposite end. Like it or not, Obama has to factor the potential of headlines like "Obama wins Peace Prize, extends War" into his political calculus; the Afghanistan people themselves are making the case already.

I think that the best interpretation of the Nobel Peace Prize is the single word response from Barack Obama's official Twitter account: "Humbled." In his public response, President Obama said, "I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments. But rather as an affirmation of American leadership. ... I will accept this award as a call to action."

Indeed, recognition that the award represents global aspirations for peace and an expectation of American leadership should be a heavy burden that weighs on Obama's soul as he occupies the most powerful office in the world, at a time when the world is arguably at its most uncertain and strife-laden. Let's hope that the intentions of the Nobel Committee, if not their specific agenda, come true. As Obama charts the way forward in Afghanistan, pursues non-proliferation, engages Iran and North Korea, promotes a two-state solution, and more, the heavy weight NPP around his neck will hopefully inure him to short-term political distractions and focus him on the end goals, and question whether the conventional wisdoms he so far has largely hewn to will indeed be sufficient for the task.

Related: Mixed responses to Obama's Peace Prize from the streets of Iran, Iraq and Gaza. Also, see the usual lively discussion at Talk Islam. Also, I found Al Gore's comments of interest.

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*For what it's worth, if I were eligible to nominate, I'd have nominated Bush, for the sole reason of deposing Saddam. That doesn't mean he'd have won, of course.

**Arguably, though Greenwald won't agree, Obama's decision to send 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan in March has actually lessened the need for aerial strikes. The truth behind the troops debate is that the fewer troops we have, the heavier reliance on drone attacks will be and thus the more civilian casualties. This is a fact that lefty critics of Obama's war must accept.