The U.S.-Afghan Partnership
Ambassador Said T. Jawad
In The National Interest
06/09/2004
Building national and democratic institutions
and enhancing the state-building process in Afghanistan are
integrally linked to the security of Afghanistan, the United
States and the entire world. The Afghan people are demanding
sustainable partnership with the United States and the international
community to build their security institutions, rehabilitate
their economy and contribute to regional and global peace and
stability.
President Hamid Karzai is visiting the United
States to further strengthen the historic relations between
Afghanistan and America. While our relations are rooted in half
a century of cooperation and good relations, the United States
became deeply engaged in Afghan politics during the last phase
of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in
1979.
After a decade of occupation, the Soviet Union
was forced to withdraw its occupying forces from Afghanistan.
The Geneva Accords of April 1988 effectively ended Soviet occupation
in 1989. To help rebuild post-conflict Afghanistan, international
donors gathered in New York in October 1988 and made pledges
amounting to some $900 million. Afghans optimistically expected
at the time that, after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops,
a political settlement would soon be in place, refugees would
return, and reconstruction could begin immediately afterwards.
However, the abrupt collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991 and the end of the Cold War dramatically changed the
equation. Afghanistan suddenly edged off the international community’s
radar screen, reflecting shortsightedness but justified by both
declining strategic interest in the country and frustration
with the continuing proxy conflict. Hence, Afghanistan became
a victim of both the Cold War and the post-Cold War era. With
multiple foreign policy priorities in the new world era, the
United States and its allies neglected Afghanistan’s post-conflict
reconstruction and abandoned the country to the detriment of
their long-term interest in international peace and security.
The bloody and destructive decade of the 1990s
in Afghanistan saw internecine factional conflicts among former
combatants and armed groups that ravaged Kabul, destroying state
institutions and public facilities. The emergence in 1994 of
the Taliban movement, with foreign assistance, enabled Al-Qaeda
and its global network to first victimize and terrorize the
Afghan people and then to target American assets in the Middle
East and Africa from the Afghan territory.
The painful experiences of the 1990s in Afghanistan
proved that some Afghan leaders such as Hamid Karzai were right
in arguing that state failure in one country can affect peace
and security in the entire world. We sadly witnessed the terrorist
attacks of September 11 on the United States. More than 3,000
innocent American lives were lost in the attacks orchestrated
by Al-Qaeda operatives. The United States government immediately
responded with participation of the Afghan people and ended
the terror and tyranny of the Taliban in Afghanistan and destroyed
Al-Qaeda bases. The Afghan people welcomed President George
W. Bush’s decisive action against the Taliban and are
grateful for the U.S. commitment to the long-term reconstruction
of Afghanistan.
The Europeans and the entire international community
unanimously backed Operation Enduring Freedom and joined the
United States in the effort to help Afghanistan rebuild after
over two decades of deadly and devastating conflicts. On November
14, 2001, five weeks into U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan,
the Security Council endorsed an urgent meeting of Afghan political
leaders to form an interim government for the country and to
establish a framework for its physical, political and economic
reconstruction.
As a clear sign of unity of purpose, the Bonn
talks in Germany in early December 2001 brought together UN
officials, Afghan leaders and members of the international community
to discuss the country’s future. Security Council Resolution
1386, approved unanimously on December 20, 2001, provided for
the creation of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)
and its deployment to Kabul and the surrounding areas to help
the Afghan Interim Authority create a secure environment in
Kabul.
Initially, nineteen countries contributed troops
and logistical supplies to ISAF in order to provide physical
security in Kabul. This number has grown close to 30 countries
now. The number of ISAF forces has increased from 4,500 to nearly
6,000 peacekeepers currently maintained by NATO.
Since the inauguration of the new government in
Afghanistan, there has been strong bipartisan support for the
long-term assistance to Afghanistan at both ends of Pennsylvania
Avenue. The tragic day of September 11, 2001, marked a strong
common interest between the American and Afghan peoples in jointly
combating international terrorism that has harmed both nations.
Long before launching the massively destructive
attacks on the United States, Al-Qaeda had been destroying and
terrorizing Afghanistan and its people. Afghans were the prime
victims of terror, as the tyrannical regime of the Taliban had
invited Al-Qaeda to base its campaign in Afghanistan. President
George W. Bush has repeatedly stressed in his remarks that “the
United States and Afghanistan are united in our common effort
to defeat terrorism and to build a more secure and prosperous
future for both American and Afghan peoples.”
Since the September 11 events, the United States
has been leading the international community in the war against
terrorism and is fully committed to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
On March 31, 2004, during the International Conference on Afghanistan
in Berlin, Germany, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell noted
in his remarks with President Karzai that “the Afghan
people want to live in peace, they want to live in freedom,
they want to live in a democracy. The international community
knows its obligations and we will meet those obligations.”
Afghanistan, the United States and the international
community share a common interest in the reconstruction and
sustainable development of Afghanistan, which would foster economic
recovery and regional stability and bolster global security.
The United States has firmly stayed the course in Afghanistan
by helping the country accomplish several of its major goals
outlined in the December 2001 Bonn Agreement.
We have taken important steps toward the goal
of becoming a viable partner. A passage from the preamble of
the new Constitution sets the course for the direction Afghanistan
has taken: “We, the People of Afghanistan…for creation
of a civil society free of oppression, atrocity, discrimination
and violence and based upon the rule of law, social justice,
protection of human rights, and dignity and ensuring the fundamental
rights and freedoms of the people…have adopted this Constitution
in compliance with the historical, cultural, and social requirements
of the era…”
Credit is due to Afghans and their international
partners for coming a long way in two short years. But many
challenges remain to be tackled in the ongoing state-building
process in Afghanistan. Post-conflict rebuilding is an international
enterprise that needs enduring security and economic partnership,
sustainable resources, strategic coordination and long-term
political support. There is now international consensus that
left untended again, the remaining challenges in Afghanistan
will jeopardize the hitherto peace-building achievements with
grave implications for national, regional and global peace and
stability.
Instead of “aid,” we need partnership
and investment to overcome challenges. We are realistic about
our difficulties. Afghans face the general challenge of building
a state and providing for good governance after the complete
destruction of all national institutions and a severe shortage
of resources and human capital. To overcome these difficulties,
we must reform, strengthen and rebuild our government institutions
to make them accountable, capable and more representative, and
we must improve local and district level governance. We must
enhance government capacity to deliver services to all corners
of the country, especially in areas prone to terrorist infiltration.
All Afghans have not yet benefited from the peace dividend.
We must eliminate the corruption, nepotism and abuse of power
that undermine our recovery process.
We are also facing the specific challenges of
preparing the logistical and legal grounds for the election
and building the institutions and the capacity needed to prepare
and enact the enabling laws required by the new Constitution.
We continue to confront security challenges posed
by the terrorists and other elements. To overcome security problems,
we must continue to rely on external assistance, but in the
long run, we must stand on our own feet. We need to expedite
the process of building our national army and professional police
force. We have asked our international partners to enhance security
in the provinces by expediting the deployment and presence of
the ISAF and/or the Provincial Reconstructing Teams (PRTs).
We welcomed the NATO and UN decision to expand ISAF outside
of Kabul and to increase the number of PRTs from twelve to 16
before the election. We must accelerate the demobilization,
disarmament and reintegration program and prevent extremists
from high-jacking the democracy and the nation-building process
for personal gain or factional agendas.
Narcotics pose a serious challenge for all of
us. Cultivation and trafficking of narcotics go hand-in-hand
with terrorism and warlordism. It is in our best national interest
to fight them all. President Karzai is committed to mobilizing
all of our resources in the fight against narcotics. We know
Afghanistan's heroin, which sells on the retail market for one
hundred times the farm gate price, is one of the sources of
the illegal money that funds international terrorism and crimes
across the region. It also finances the destabilizing activities
of warlords and criminals in Afghanistan.
The international community and our government
cannot afford to wait as these destructive trends reverse our
recovery process and further endanger global security. Once
again, partnership and comprehensive strategic plans are needed
to break this vicious cycle. We shall mobilize all available
resources to fight drugs in Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan
has adopted a National Drug Strategy aimed at drastically reducing
poppy cultivation, encouraging alternative income streams, destroying
drug labs, strengthening law enforcement, training specialized
national police units and developing the justice sector to facilitate
the proper prosecution and sentencing of traffickers. We cannot
implement it without long-term international partnership.
To overcome these challenges and to make the nation-building
process in Afghanistan irreversible, Afghans need and demand
a strategic partnership with the United States and sustained
engagement by the international community. Afghans cherish the
growing partnership and warm friendship forged between the two
nations.
By expanding our partnership to help Afghanistan
sustain the recovery process, the United States of America and
other nations are assisting the future blueprint for democracy
in similar societies - the very best antidote to extremism
and terrorism. Long-term success in Afghanistan is contingent
upon a long-term U.S.-Afghan partnership.
The Honorable Said Tayeb Jawad is Ambassador of Afghanistan
to the United States.
