Is Afghanistan ready to create its own future?

The new president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, is visiting Beijing this week, with the hopes of starting a fresh chapter with China. As Afghanistan moves past years on a war footing, it is looking to build better infrastructure for national stability.

Ghani came to office in September after a razor-close vote, fraud accusations and a power-sharing deal with the opposition. His country is very much in transition, after 13 years of war.

This week a major NATO base in Helmand province handed control to Afghan forces. Although 24,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, President Barack Obama plans to withdraw more than half of them by January.

Is Afghanistan ready to defend itself? Can it grow into a developing democracy free of corruption and internal threats to its existence?

We consulted a panel of experts for the Inside Story.

Inside Story: Is the U.S. troop withdrawal a premature move? Are Afghans prepared to maintain peace and stability in the region?

Wahid Monawar: The Afghan National Security forces have ability to fight. They’ve lost 3,000 soldiers because they took leadership of the fight. The security forces need airpower and intelligence gathering. That’s something that the U.S. and the international community needs to help with. The other concern is the issue of financing. This army costs about $5 billion. What is Afghan revenue that can support this? What’s the international community commitment to make sure the soldiers get paid? If they don’t get paid, this will create a situation that we can’t control. The new government has to address this.

How is the Afghan populace reacting to the withdrawal of troops and the election of the new leader of the country?

If you go back to April 15, to the first run of presidential elections, the Afghans surprised the international community. They defied Taliban, came out and voted. Yes, it was a questionable result, and then for second round of elections, it got ugly, and people lost hope that they had to vote on ethic lines. People are hopeful for the Afghan National Unity government, though, brokered by the U.S. Afghanistan has long way to go still. It’s a day-by-day basis. They want to see some sort of change, and it seems like Ghani is doing the right thing. 

What have the past 13 years in Afghanistan accomplished?

David Sedney: We built a reasonably strong and reasonably capable Afghan military, and that’s a very important contribution. We also, along with other international partners, helped Afghans make huge progress in areas of health, women’s rights, building a resilient democratic system and ended up with the election of someone who is the kind of president we would’ve liked to have. The big downside is that we were never able to really pull the Taliban back to the level we hoped to, primarily because of Pakistan’s continued support of the Taliban and also because we didn’t do a really good job of working with rule of law and governance. We were more hands off in those areas. The failure to defeat the Taliban and to help Afghans develop good governance and political system are the two biggest failures. The problem is, we’re pulling out, so just as we may have had real progress, we are pulling out so fast in such a poorly planned and executed way that chances of failure are much higher than they should’ve been.

Is the withdrawal of U.S. troops premature?

Definitely. The biggest weakness of the president’s plan is set in deadlines rather than conditions. The Afghan army, for example, doesn’t have the airpower that an army needs to fight against an insurgency. The Taliban insurgency has the advantage of geography, but the army can’t be everywhere. They need intelligence and mobility. We haven’t given them either. Decisions were made too early and carried out in a much too rapid pace. With that said, with the current government structure, there’s a possibility that the unity government will succeed. But one thing is that a lot more people are going to die.

What does Ghani’s visit to Beijing signify, and where does that leave the U.S.?

It leaves the U.S. in an awkward position because of the real booming geopolitical changes in the area [with the rise of India and China]. It makes the U.S. nervous in the long term. If we see China dominate around its periphery and the geopolitical balance shift more toward China, the U.S. will regret allowing China to step in in Afghanistan. But that’s a long-term trend, as opposed to what’s happening on the ground.