As Afghans get ready to vote, what is at stake for the US?

Q+A-What are the stakes for US in Afghanistan vote?

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Afghans were set to vote in a presidential election on Thursday under threat of violent disruption by the Taliban in a critical test of President Barack Obama's strategy in what he calls a "war of necessity."

Following are questions and answers about the U.S. stakes and role in Afghanistan's second presidential election since the American-led military overthrow of the Taliban in 2001.

WHAT HAVE TOP U.S. OFFICIALS SAID ABOUT THE AUG. 20 VOTE?

Obama has withheld comment on U.S. ally and incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his nearest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, to avoid charges of U.S. interference. Obama has shifted focus from Iraq to Afghanistan as his top foreign policy priority. Obama this week called the eight-year-old conflict "fundamental to the defense of our people" because of the risk that a successful Taliban insurgency could enable al Qaeda to operate more freely to plot another attack akin to the one launched against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the United States hoped the election would "reinvigorate, or invigorate if it's a different president, the leadership" of Afghanistan in tackling the country's many problems such as the opium trade, corruption and low economic development.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that Taliban threats to disrupt the vote created "adverse circumstances" for the election. But he said last week that there would be as many as 1,300 to 1,400 more polling places and several million more Afghans registered to vote than in the previous election in 2004, offering the potential for a "quite credible election" in all parts of the country.

FOR THE UNITED STATES, WHAT WOULD BE THE WORST OUTCOME?

The most troubling scenario would be an election outcome that is not seen as credible in the eyes of the Afghan people, diminishing their hope in the future and their support for U.S.-backed alternatives to Taliban rule, analysts say.

An election marred by excessive violence could produce a negative reaction by the U.S. Congress and erode American public support for the Afghan war, which has started to slip as U.S. troop deaths have risen this summer. After 44 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan in July, making it the deadliest month of the war for the U.S. military, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp poll showed U.S. popular support for the war at an historic low, with 54 percent opposed to the war and 41 percent in favor.

In a race in which Karzai is thought to be leading Abdullah by a narrowing margin, Brookings Institution foreign policy analyst Michael O'Hanlon said neither man represented "a terrible outcome" because each has strengths Washington could build upon in working with the next Afghan government.

Karzai relies on the backing of powerful -- and in the case of Uzbek militia leader Abdul Rashid Dostum, controversial -- warlords. Some U.S. analysts have said a victory by Karzai would be problematic if he rewarded warlords with Cabinet posts.

WHAT ARE THE NEXT CHALLENGES FOR THE OBAMA STRATEGY?

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of votes cast, there would be a run-off election pitting the top two candidates, provisionally set for Oct. 1. Analysts have expressed concern that a run-off would prolong the uncertainty in Kabul and require U.S., NATO and Afghan forces to maintain election security for more weeks in the face of Taliban threats.

Obama has deployed 30,000 extra U.S. troops, raising the level of American forces in Afghanistan to 62,000. Obama may face calls in the future from his generals for more troops, some analysts say. The request would come after General Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, concludes a review of counterinsurgency strategy.

War in afghanistan- An excellent article

August 17, 2009

Afghanistan’s Tyranny of the Minority

By SELIG S. HARRISON

Washington

AS the debate intensifies within the Obama administration over how to stabilize Afghanistan, one major problem is conspicuously missing from the discussion: the growing alienation of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtun tribes, who make up an estimated 42 percent of the population of 33 million. One of the basic reasons many Pashtuns support the Taliban insurgency is that their historic rivals, ethnic Tajiks, hold most of the key levers of power in the government.

Tajiks constitute only about 24 percent of the population, yet they largely control the armed forces and the intelligence and secret police agencies that loom over the daily lives of the Pashtuns. Little wonder that in the run-up to Thursday’s presidential election, much of the Taliban propaganda has focused on the fact that President Hamid Karzai’s top running mate is a hated symbol of Tajik power: the former defense minister Muhammad Fahim.

Mr. Fahim and his allies have been entrenched in Kabul since American forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001 with the help of his Tajik militia, the Northern Alliance, which was based in the Panjshir valley north of the capital. A clique of these Tajik officers, known as the Panjshiris, took control of the key security posts with American backing, and they have been there ever since. Washington pushed Mr. Karzai for the presidency to give a Pashtun face to the regime, but he has been derided from the start by his fellow Pashtuns with a play on his name, “Panjshir-zai.”

“They get the dollars, and we get the bullets,” is the common refrain among Pashtuns critical of the government. “Dollars” refers to the economic enrichment of Tajiks and allied minority ethnic groups through an inside track on aid contracts. The “bullets” are the anti-Taliban airstrikes and ground operations in Pashtun areas in the south and east of the country.

While Mr. Karzai has tried to soften the image of Tajik domination by appointing Pashtuns to nominally important positions, much of the real power continues to rest with Tajiks. For example, he appointed a Pashtun, Abdul Rahim Wardak, to replace Mr. Fahim as defense minister — but a trusted Panjshiri, Bismillah Khan, remained an army chief of staff and kept fellow Tajiks as his top corps commanders and in other vital spots, including director of military intelligence, army inspector general and director of counternarcotics forces.

The National Security Directorate, which oversees the civilian and military secret police and intelligence agencies, is headed by a Northern Alliance veteran, Amrullah Saleh. Michael Semple, a former adviser to the European Union representative in Kabul, told me that Mr. Saleh had appointed “some credible Pashtun provincial directors” but that “the intelligence services are still basically seen as anti-Pashtun and pro-Northern Alliance because the power structure in the directorate is still clearly dominated by the original Northern Alliance group,” and above all because “they also have control of the prosecution, judicial and detention branches of the security services.”

The Obama administration is pinning its hopes for an eventual exit from Afghanistan on building an Afghan National Army capable of defeating the insurgency. But a recent study by the RAND Corporation for the Pentagon, noting a “surplus of Tajiks in the A.N.A. officer and NCO corps,” warned of the “challenge of achieving ethnic balance, given the difficulty of recruiting in the Pashtun area.” The main reasons it is difficult to recruit Pashtuns, one United Nations official recently said, are that “70 percent of the army’s battalion commanders are Tajiks” and that the Taliban intimidates the families of recruits. It doesn’t help that many of the army units sent to the Pashtun areas consist primarily of Tajiks who do not speak Pashto.

Pashtun kings ruled Afghanistan from its inception in 1747 until the overthrow of the monarchy in 1973. Initially limited to the Pashtun heartland in the south and east, the Afghan state gradually incorporated the neighboring Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek areas to the north and west.

It was understandable, then, that Pashtun leaders tried to make the last king, Zahir Shah, the president of the interim government that ruled from 2002 until the first presidential election in 2004. The king, revered by the Pashtuns, was to have limited powers, with Mr. Karzai, as prime minister, in day-to-day control. The Tajiks, however, objected, and on the eve of the national assembly that set up the interim government, the Bush administration’s special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, sided with the Tajiks and had a bitter 40-minute showdown with the king, who then withdrew his candidacy.

Pashtun nationalism alone does not explain the Taliban’s strength, which is fueled by drug money, Islamist fervor, corrupt warlords, hatred of the American occupation and the hidden hand of Pakistani intelligence agencies. But the psychological cement that holds the disparate Taliban factions together is opposition to Tajik dominance in Kabul. Until the power of the Panjshiris is curbed, no amount of American money or manpower will bring the insurgency to an end.

Selig S. Harrison is the director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Happy Independence Day

Pakistan celebrates its 62nd Independence Day. Unity, Faith and Discipline is what the 'Quaid called for but we have settled for Zardari, Drones and loadshedding. After 62 years, rather than celebrating independence we are fighting for liberation. From Fuedalism, Hegemony, and "Talibanisation." We have more questions rather than answers. Our ruling elite, in their Italian suites have nothing to offer except "democracy is the best revenge." As for the people of Pakistan, they can offer but so much. The fact that our country's inhabitants still say Pakistan Zindabad is a blessing considering the many boots and 'chapliya' which have been placed on their throats. We must take the country back from the thugs who rule it.