No. 5 Afghanistan
Violence, rampant opium production, and the expected influx of additional U.S. forces will set the stage for Afghanistan’s August 20 presidential elections. Originally scheduled for May but delayed on account of an upswing in insurgent-fueled violence, the incumbent Hamid Karzai is facing off against a former foreign minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, and a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, among others. Once viewed favorably as the country’s political savoir, Karzai is embattled. His domestic constituency complains of rampant corruption and ineffectual administration. His American patrons complain of the same. The Taliban, once banished, are waging an ever fiercer insurgency, based in part in Pakistan. For his part, Karzai has stepped up his criticism of U.S. military strikes inside Afghanistan and even promised to seek a military partner elsewhere if America declined to pony up military aircraft and tanks. Yet if Karzai is beleaguered, it’s not at all clear if his challengers have the means to unseat him. As Dexter Filkens reported, Karzai "commands the resources of the Afghan state, including the army and the police, and billions of dollars in American and other aid that flows into the treasury. In his seven years in office, Mr. Karzai has successfully presided over the transition of the Afghan state from the devastated, pre-modern institution it was under the Taliban to the deeply troubled but largely democratic one it is today. Perhaps most important for his future, Mr. Karzai has assembled a team of senior administrators whose competence and experience would be difficult for any challenger to match." Even as Afghans go to the polls to vote for a central authority, policy makers in Washington are musing aloud about making an end-run around Kabul. The hope is to replicate the success of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq – where guerillas and tribes were co-opted with cash and reconciliation (or its rough approximation), achieved from the “bottom up.” Though the Afghans may be placing a vote for a national leader, Washington may well put its faith, and considerable resources, elsewhere.
