Before one can assess success, however, it is necessary to understand the conflict’s origins and how it eventually became a chiefly humanitarian crisis. 

The initial intervention was, by and large, not motivated by any humanitarian reasoning. Instead, it was a military reaction to the 9/11 attacks, ordered as a means of “self-defense” by then-President George W. Bush. This marked the beginning of the infamous and lengthy War on Terror in Afghanistan. 

Considering the initially shallow and less than altruistic motivations, the sheer length of the conflict meant there needed to be some other reasoning to continue having a U.S. presence in Afghanistan. This became more obvious as another attack like 9/11 failed to occur and the self-defense argument grew weaker. 

As the United States continued to push against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda with varying levels of success throughout the early 2000s, the Bush administration began to more heavily promote a humanitarian rationale for the continued fight. The conflict evolved, extending from the counterterrorism efforts to promoting democratization, nation-building, and women’s rights. 

To further justify the ever-lengthening invasion to the American public, Bush invoked humanitarian rhetoric to garner popular support. He rallied the media toward the narrative that Afghan women were being oppressed and needed to be liberated by the West. The State Department pushed out reports on the Taliban’s abusive treatment of women, which were then reported on en-masse by news outlets nationwide. 

The shift in the portrayal of the invasion led many Americans to believe U.S. soldiers were in Afghanistan to protect, or save, women, on top of defending the United States from terrorism, rather than simply the latter. This revamp can be marked by Bush’s speech on April 17, 2002, in which he stated that the United States would assist in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. 

“We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations,” he said, outlining those aspirations as developing a stable government, training an army, educating children, and improving infrastructure, all in the name of recovering from the rule of the Taliban. 

Throughout this speech, and much of his rhetoric regarding the War on Terror, Bush referred to the Marshall Plan, the U.S. policy of providing economic and humanitarian aid to European countries post-WWII, citing it as proof that the United States goes beyond winning wars, and that the country is dedicated to providing assistance. However, the humanitarian effort in Afghanistan during the War on Terror should not be compared to the Marshall Plan. 

Where the Marshall Plan was a carefully planned, extremely strategic method of aid dissemination that helped rebuild Europe after it was devastated by war, humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and the greater region during the War on Terror was more haphazard. This was due to the prolonged nature of a conflict that was not expected to last as long as it has. What was thought to be a quick counter to the 9/11 attacks was nowhere near quick, and, according to the Red Cross, the humanitarian ramifications of prolonged war are much more prominent than they would be after a short conflict. 

So, the U.S. humanitarian effort in Afghanistan was not part of the initial plan. Even so, there was an effort. The reconstruction endeavor in Afghanistan was backed by Congress sending $38 billion toward humanitarian aid in the country from 2001 to 2009, and by 2021 the total amount of humanitarian aid funding has reached about $57 billion (around 40% of the total $143 sent to the country). After the news of the troop withdrawal, a further $300 million is slotted for disbursement to Afghanistan in an attempt to prevent the government from collapsing. 

The need for this boost in aid in response to the withdrawal after the twenty-year conflict is somewhat concerning. It brings into question just how dependent Afghanistan is on U.S. humanitarian aid. If ending the occupation causes the Afghan government to fall apart and humanitarian concerns to skyrocket, has the United States actually succeeded in building a strong government and combating humanitarian issues? 

If not, what has the United States been doing all these years if there is so much concern for the state of Afghanistan when the occupation ends?

There is the obvious answer, the United States has been fighting terrorist groups such as the Taliban, Islamic State, and Al-Qaeda. However, when so much of the rhetoric surrounding the War on Terror does relate to humanitarian concerns, especially human rights violations by the terrorist groups themselves, then it is worth considering if the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan actually improved humanitarian conditions. 

While the United States has provided aid to the Afghan government, hoping to help legitimize it and weaken the Taliban, military operations have had negative humanitarian costs. U.S. airstrikes in the country have caused thousands of civilian deaths. In 2019, the number of civilian deaths caused by U.S. and Afghan military activity was, for the first time, greater than the number caused by the Taliban, largely due to an increase in airstrikes. In total, as many as 43,000 Afghan civilians have died throughout the war from a multitude of causes, including military operations and humanitarian issues such as lack of healthcare access. According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), all of the groups involved in the conflict in Afghanistan, including the United States, are guilty of laws-of-war violations. 

Some feel as though the human costs of the war in Afghanistan, and others like it, are much too high. The Watson Institute at Brown University, which has produced many studies on the conflicts in the Middle East and surrounding region involving the United States, argues that the initial response to 9/11 and the effort to hold those responsible accountable should have been non-military. The Institute rationalizes this by stating also that prolonged involvement in Iraq only led to the further proliferation of Jihadi groups in the area. These are not unpopular stances, as the war in Afghanistan has continued to take both American and Afghan lives throughout its twenty-year history. 

As U.S. troops begin to leave Afghanistan, it is crucial to consider steps that would prevent the humanitarian situation from devolving. The HRW recently stated that legal reform in Afghanistan has been largely dependent on U.S. support, and this reform has led to an expansion in rights for women and girls in the country. The organization further urged that, following the removal of troops, the United States commits to supporting human rights efforts in Afghanistan. This will be absolutely vital if the United States hopes to leave Afghanistan with a chance at attaining stability without the ever-present assistance of U.S. troops. 

While the United States’ human rights record is murky in Afghanistan, an end to the conflict may be the best choice for the citizens of Afghanistan. If the United States ensures it maintains support for Afghanistan, even if not directly with boots on the ground, there are positives for the humanitarian concerns regarding the conflict. In general, an end to the twenty-year occupation will also put an end to civilian casualties caused by U.S. military operations. This is a positive. However, there is still the concern that, by leaving, the United States may be opening Afghanistan up for the Taliban to take over once more.

The worst-case scenario would be if the United States pulls the troops out of Afghanistan and immediately proceeds to leave the country to fend for itself in fighting the Taliban and dealing with ongoing critical humanitarian concerns. Currently, the United States sends more aid to Afghanistan than almost any other country. According to Forbes, Afghanistan is incredibly dependent on foreign aid for basic government function and services, with 75% of its spending in 2019 coming from grants from the United States and other countries. In 2019, the World Bank estimated that the country would require anywhere between $6 billion and $8 billion in international grants per year from 2020 to 2024 in order to provide these services and deal with the Taliban. 

The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is concerning even ignoring the violence, and the question of aid only adds more worry. According to ReliefWeb, the humanitarian information site for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the percentage of Afghans experiencing food insecurity doubled between September 2015 and November 2020, increasing from 37% to 76%. In the same period of time, the percentage of those experiencing emergency food insecurity increased from 8% to 42%. This is in addition to the human rights violations committed by various terrorist cells in the country, and the discrimination against women and ethnic minority groups, such as attacks against the Hazaras. Thousands of Hazara have been killed or injured in different attacks since 2015, but the group has faced persecution since the late 1800s. This history of slavery, ethnic cleansing, land confiscation, and other forms of discrimination was thought to have finally ended with the fall of the Taliban in 2001. However, the Hazaras are still targeted by many terrorist cells in Afghanistan with little to no protection from the government, driving many from the small population, the poorest of Afghanistan’s many different ethnic groups, to leave the country if they have the means to, take up arms against their persecutors, or live in fear. 

As the withdrawal approaches it’s conclusion, well ahead of the original September 11 deadline and set to meet a new deadline of August 31, we are starting to see the results of taking soldiers out of a country that has been dependent upon them for nearing two decades. These results do not bode well for the future of Afghanistan. Biden addressed those who questioned whether the Afghans who assisted the United States and are awaiting their visa approval would be able to come to the country, “Our message to those men and women is clear: There is a home for you in the United States, if you so choose and we will stand with you, as you stood with us.” 

The administration did not offer a number for how many people would be allowed, only that the relocation would be complete by the end of the withdrawal. However, this does not address the millions of Afghan citizens still suffering in horrible humanitarian conditions or ending up as civilian casualties of war. Biden’s response to criticism of the withdrawal was to all-together deny any humanitarian intentions for the invasion. 

The President stated that “we did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build, and it’s the right and responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.” 

This is not only contradictory to what Bush, the man who started the war, pushed during his time in office, it is a complete dismissal of what U.S. policy about the war has been for years. Although many may agree with the sentiments of self-determination Biden invoked, here it is simply being used to avoid taking responsibility for what has started to happen in Afghanistan due to the power vacuum caused by the absence of the United States. 

So what has happened in the past few months? In early July, the Taliban displayed containers of weapons seized from the Afghan military while U.S. troops were withdrawing. Since May 1, the terrorist group has taken over 100 districts in Afghanistan, essentially doubling the previous number of districts they controlled. There has been an increase in violence, particularly against women, journalists, and the educated. The United Nations raised the alarm about the high level of violence, particularly against women, and called for a reduction in violence to save lives. 

As the direct connection between the United States and Afghanistan is severed, the United States must commit to providing aid to the Afghan government. Otherwise, the situation will continue to devolve and any previous humanitarian or military efforts in the country will be reversed.

The post Looking at Afghanistan Through a Humanitarian Lens, the Future is Unclear appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Hopes for political stability in Afghanistan were let down this February with news that another governor of an Afghan province refused to obey President Ashraf Ghani’s order to leave. Although Governor Abdulkarim Khaddam of the Northern Samangan province gave up his office after being offered a position on the country’s negotiating council with the Taliban, this incident is yet more evidence of the Afghan central government’s lack of authority. Another Afghan governor continues to defy a presidential order to leave and is even planning protests across the country. The situation may seem ironic given the expansive constitutional powers of the Afghan president. Yet, the Afghan central government may find the answer for its malaise in its insistence on such far-reaching powers to begin with.

The current Afghan constitution will puzzle those familiar with federal democracies with devolved powers. The 2004 Afghan constitution changed little from past constitutions, which codified a powerful hereditary monarch–it merely placed all previously monarchical powers in the hands of a single elected executive. Today, the Afghan president is responsible for appointing every district chief, provincial governor and police chief in over 400 districts.

While centralizing measures might be taken as a force for stability, they do little to positively change the facts on the ground, where the underlying forces for instability remain: Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic state and an incipient democracy, and the Taliban is holding its ground in its fight with the US-backed government. An opportunistic politician backed by local supporters is unlikely to listen to a central government that is preoccupied with fighting the Taliban. A democracy that has been around in only a semi-stable state for little over a decade is unlikely to command the kind of institutional respect that centuries-old governments do. No matter how codified the powers of the Afghan executive, they will always be limited by how much respect and authority the executive commands.

A centralizing constitution does, however, engender unrest and dissatisfaction by excluding as many as possible from power so that ambitious politicians are left to seek power extralegally. If the Afghan constitution allowed the local election of governors, would-be governors could content themselves with knowing that there is a way to attain power outside the good graces of President Ghani. Of course, a devolution of power wouldn’t change the horse-trading that has defined Afghan politics, but it might create more respect and legitimacy for the rule of law in a country that seems to be facing perennial war.

Some may argue that devolution may embolden local leaders–governors may tighten control over their provinces, turning them into their own fiefdoms, and stronger provinces may seek independence as Iraqi Kurdistan did in a referendum last year. Although tensions in Kurdistan dissipated after a strong response from Baghdad, the referendum led many to fear civil war. If devolution in Afghanistan merely emboldens sectarianism, it will have been a failure.

Fortunately, the case of Iraqi Kurdistan offers a valuable lesson for future devolution efforts: defense should remain a strictly national affair. Kurdistan’s referendum came after Kurdish militias asserted themselves in territory beyond the autonomous region’s de jure reach. An Afghan devolution of power that forbids local militaries and maintains the primacy of the central government would avoid these pitfalls.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

The post What Devolution Can Offer Afghanistan appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

As the United States approaches 16 years of military occupation in Afghanistan, many are wondering how the country got there and, perhaps more importantly, how does it get out?

The question of the exit strategy for Afghanistan has plagued US foreign policy for nearly two decades, with three American presidents failing to fulfill promises to finally leave the so-called graveyard of empires.  It is no wonder that trying to exit Afghanistan after having occupied it for so long presents a great deal of complexity as the US has a history of intervening in conflicts without developing plans for reconstruction, ultimately leading to many unintended consequences. This trend can also be seen in the Iraq War: US forces toppled the Iraqi government, disbanded its military, and left thousands of trained soldiers with no jobs and a new anti-American sentiment, a combination of factors that, at least in part, gave way to the rise of the Islamic State (IS).

How does the US avoid creating another comparable situation, leaving a nation in ruins only to produce a new enemy sworn to the US’s demise? Of course, with the question of Afghanistan the worry for now is not the creation of a new enemy but the insurgence of current ones. The current fear is that if the US pulls out of Afghanistan, insurgents, mainly the Taliban and IS, will fill the space left behind.

Before the US even considers pulling out of Afghanistan, it first needs to develop and implement a comprehensive plan for reconstruction. Any nation used as a battleground in the way Afghanistan is and has been for so many years needs a significant amount of aid in fostering economic and cultural development so that it can preserve its identity and stability. For the US to promote the latter it needs to be conscious of its role as a support system for the Afghan people. A re imagined Afghan identity coming from an American vision would inevitably fail to promote social cohesion because it would be a false identity. The US should promote liberal education policies and civil rights in Afghanistan, but the Afghan people should be taking the lead in terms of strengthening national identity, which will ultimately lend itself to cultural preservation. One of the biggest criticisms of the US coming out of the Middle East is the country’s tendency to support autocratic leaders who capitulate to American interests in the region at the cost of political repression. The fear that an Afghan leader who is less interested in westernization will lead to a new enemy for the US is tangential and largely irrelevant. It is much more likely that, by financing the rebuilding of a national identity but leaving the details up to the Afghan people, the US will gain a mutually beneficial geopolitical and economic partnership for years to come.

The US should support future political candidates who are concerned with promoting the Afghan identity in educational and economic programs and avoid backing leaders who create political repression in attempt to produce rapid economic development built on weak institutions. The bright side is that Afghanistan is already engaging in democratic governance and the international community has contributed billions of dollars to provide resources aimed at improving healthcare and education throughout the country.

These benchmarks of progress, however, are not perfect. The Afghan presidential election of 2014 on its surface looked like a peaceful and democratic transition of power, but many questioned the fairness of the election, which led to a division of power between President Ashraf Ghani and the chief executive Abdullah Abdullah that has prevented the government from providing the services and security the country needs if it hopes to have a chance of surviving violent insurgency.

As the main foreign actor in Afghanistan, the US has provided consistent military support in effort to strengthen Afghanistan’s own forces so the country can defend itself in the future. Such focus on military strategy, while essential, could slowly detract from the equally important effort to preserve the cultural identity of the nation. Since culture is typically quantified in terms of stability as opposed to military force, it is crucial to ensure that efforts continue to promote education, especially the push to increase the literacy rate, along with a commitment to preserving cultural artifacts and texts that are unique to the Afghan identity.

As such, the Trump Administration’s strategy to prioritize eliminating insurgents over nation building is an error. Though Americans tend to conflate the two, killing terrorists is not the same as killing terrorist ideology. Only through education and cultural preservation can societies be strengthened enough to resist radicalization, as these avenues are critical in promoting the values and belief systems that are needed to preserve a state’s identity such that it can overcome the threats of extremism.

American society tends to view military force as the most powerful weapon against enemies that threaten peace, but this simply is not true. As international relations scholar Hans Morgenthau put it in his seminal work, Politics Among Nations, the military is a tool for diplomacy, not its master[1]. This idea is fundamental to the notion that the US and the international community should be expending just as much effort in strengthening Afghan culture as they do investing in military tactics. Even without the threat of insurgency, a country cannot hope to remain stable if it lacks a strong identity and mechanisms through which its people can learn and thrive. Afghanistan has started down this path with the tentative introduction of democratic structures, but these structures need to be closely monitored by the international community to preserve their integrity. Greater foreign investment in education for the people of Afghanistan, throughout the country and not just in its urban cities, must be pursued with vigor if the world hopes to prevent corruption and state failure.

[1] Morgenthau, Hans J. Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace. 2d Ed., Rev. and Enl. ed. New York: Knopf, 1954.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

The post The Afghanistan Problem appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

As Europe’s migrant crisis has escalated, many have become familiar with the plight of the Syrian and North African refugees flooding the continent. Given the attention of the international press, it is easy to think migrants to Europe comprise the world’s main refugee population. However, another major group of refugees has been hiding in plain sight for decades, housed in a country already mired in controversy. And as conditions for these refugees deteriorate, they are having to reckon with a crisis of their own: returning home.

The UN commission on Human Rights estimates that over two and a half million Afghan citizens currently reside as refugees in Pakistan, making it one of the largest refugee havens in the world, second only to Turkey. And unlike Syrian migrants who are dispersed throughout the Middle East and Europe, all of these refugees are housed in one country. The movement was catalyzed by the political unrest of 1977-1980 brought on by the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, when over a million people decided to escape to Pakistan. Many of these refugees were ethnic Pashtun’s fleeing oppression after the coup of 1978 and subsequent war. Others settled in Pakistan to escape the violence of the Taliban in the early 1990’s.

Originally the government valued the new arrivals because they earned Pakistan moral and political capital over a closed-border West. The country handled the logistics of the refugee glut well. By the late 2000’s, most refugees had been assimilated in large urban areas, enjoying a sense of stability and security impossible in Afghanistan. And after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, some 1.5 million Afghani’s decided to return home.  The current numbers of the refugee crisis look something like this: 3 million total Afghani refugees in Pakistan, of which approximately 2.2 million are accounted for within the official Proof of Registration (PoR) process. The PoR program, started in 2006, mandates every migrant obtain a PoR card marking them as an “Afghan citizen temporarily living in Pakistan.” These cards were to be renewed every three years until the Pakistani government felt that the refugees were able to return home safely. The Pakistani government recently extended the rights of PoR holders so they would be able to stay as temporary residents in Pakistan up until the end of 2016. This means that starting in 2017, all of these refugees will become technically illegal.  

Unlike refugee crises in Europe or East Africa, the Afghani refugee population is not living in large, temporary camps. They are not “sexy” refugees; having been displaced for so long, most are assimilated into the fabric of Pakistani society. But this is where the danger lies, as complacency over the welfare of these refugees has led to international ignorance of recent flares of violence. Pre-2015, the situation was relatively stable; however, a mass shooting orchestrated by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) —an anti-government organization separate from the Afghan Taliban—on the Army Public school in Peshawar in December 2014, killing 145 people, completely destabilized the refugees’ situation. Many Pakistani’s blamed the Afghan refugees for this tragedy, even though there was no evidence that the Afghani Taliban was involved in the attacks. The shooting has been called, “Pakistani 9/11.”

In the first six weeks afterward, police abuse and intimidation of the Afghan population increased significantly. Pakistani police forces unlawfully arrested Afghan citizens, seized property and physically assaulted refugees. With the uncertainty of PoR status for Afghans, state police felt as if they had a free license to harass and coerce them. The intent was to intimidate migrants and make them feel so unsafe that they would decide to go back to Afghanistan on their own. On September 30, 2015, Pakistani security forces raided an Afghani market in Peshawar and destroyed a majority of the shops. They demanded bribes from the shop owners so they could avoid arrest for selling produce on what was claimed to be government property. The PoR cards meant to legitimize refugees hold little water in Pakistani law, and migrants still don’t have many official rights in Pakistan. Though the Pakistani Ministry of States and Frontier Regions claims its committed to protecting the rights of refugees, they have been hampered by regional and district governments out for blood.

The scare tactics worked. In January of 2015 more than nine times as many refugees went back to Afghanistan as in December of 2014. Most of these “spontaneous returns” were not officially deported, but were instead families fleeing out of concern for their safety.  This “self-deportation” has led to a situation where Pashtuns are now refugees within their own homeland. Many fled the stable jobs and families they had in Pakistan to return to a country with few prospects or support systems. Though they have returned “home”, refugees are actually worse off than they were in their adopted country.

The problem in Pakistan is that of a latent disease. Refugee crises elsewhere in the world move with such speed and scale that it is easy to forget about other, more drawn out crises like this one. The dramatic fixation by western news sources on refugees bound for European countries makes it even easier for policymakers to ignore those refugees stuck in the Global South. There are no pictures of Afghani children on the 24/7 news cycle. But it is imperative to recognize their plight. If actions aren’t taken to reduce police brutality towards Afghans in Pakistan, the world may be facing a refugee crisis on par with the human rights disaster unfolding in Europe now. And, ironically, one set in the country refugees were running from in the first place.

The views expressed by this author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

[1] Many of the refugees decided to partake in this system in order to gain legitimacy as official refugees, but others did not, fearing that the PoR process was a scheme designed to deport them back to Afghanistan.

The post The Hidden Refugees appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Over the past few years, the largest obstacle to Iran’s power projection and influence in the greater Middle East has been sanctions levied against Tehran by the United States, Europe and the United Nations. Tehran’s nuclear program is the main cause, but festering wounds caused by Iran’s own vehement anti-Americanism and the 1979 Hostage Crisis endure, with Iran’s support of Hezbollah against Israel causing even more strain.

Optimism in the West for rapprochement with Iran surged with the swearing-in of the relatively moderate President Rouhani. After President Rouhani visited New York City, held a phone conversation with President Obama – the highest level talk between the two countries since 1979 – and then offered to sit down and talk about proliferation and the possible ending of sanctions, the West was ready to listen. With a possible rapprochement on the line, it is a prime time for the US to analyze Iran’s geostrategic objectives in the context of American involvement in the Middle East and the ongoing Iraqi crisis.

Iran’s Current Geopolitical Position

Iran geopolitical position is unenviable. A look at it’s neighborhood reveals that, contrary to hardliners’ fears of a post-sanctions Iran ruling the Middle East, Iran finds itself in a tar pit of dangers.

Iran is only one of four majority Shi’a countries, the others being Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. Despite Iran viewing itself as the leader of the Shi’a world, relations with each of these Shi’a countries are strained. Iraq is deteriorating by the day. Bahrain mistrusts Iran due to Iranian sentiments expressing the desire to annex Bahrain, igniting Bahraini Arab nationalism. Azerbaijan and Iran, despite sharing strong cultural, religious and historical ties, mistrust each other. Iran remains suspicious of possible Azeri irredentist ambitions (four of Iran’s provinces are considered part of “Greater Azerbaijan”), while Azerbaijan also remains suspicious of Iran’s maneuvers, particularly after Iran’s support for Armenia during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Due to its size, its ability to project significant power and its historical and cultural influences, Iran is a contender for establishing regional hegemony in the Middle East. It faces two rivals, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, one a parallel Sunni theocracy and the other a secular republic. Despite Turkey’s recent political instability, their friendship with the Iraqi Kurds and existing image as an effective partner for the West in Middle Eastern affairs renders it a significant regional power. Saudi Arabia is determined to oppose Iran at every turn. Leveraging its status as a strategic American ally, Saudi Arabia has liberally asserted itself in the greater Middle East, endeavoring to isolate Iran and funding Sunni movements against Iran and its allies. Wikileaks documents reveal that despite warming relations, Saudi Arabia encouraged the Americans to attack Iran in the heyday of the Israel-Iran standoff.

Thus, Iran is relatively isolated in the world. While Iran does have powerful friends in China and Russia, the former does not wish to be heavily involved in the politics of the region and Iran cannot consistently rely on their help. Syria is the only reliable regional ally, but unfortunately for Iran, Assad has been severely weakened in his fight with the rebels, leaving Iran, in terms of immediate surroundings, with few options.

Therefore, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear capabilities for its own power projection is understandable. Furthermore, Iran’s overall regional strategy relies on soft power. Facing a Sunni Saudi Arabia backed by the Americans, Iran has opted for pan-Islamic leadership by taking foremost action against its arch-nemesis Israel, thereby not only attempting to rally Muslims to the Palestinian cause, but also attempting to encourage the people of the Middle East to expunge American influence from the region.

ISIS Crisis

The origins of the ISIS Crisis are studded with irony. Before ISIS established a Caliphate, the underground group was funded largely by wealthy patrons in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE, secretly wishing to ignite an anti-Shi’a jihad. Although Saudi Arabia has since reduced donations to ISIS, it is clear that America’s traditional allies in the region indirectly contributed to the disintegration of the Iraqi state. This is not to say that Maliki’s own sectarian policies, and by extension Iran’s own meddling in Iraq, share no part of the blame. It is only to say that in this current climate, the US finds itself in an awkward, and oddly opportune, position of needing new allies to help stabilize Iraq.

As painful as it may be for us to work with a member of the “Axis of Evil,” and as upsetting as it is to continue supporting al-Maliki as he violates principles of democratic governance, regional stability in the Middle East is the highest priority for America. The most preferable short-term stable state of affairs would be one in which al-Maliki reigns as a reliable client in Baghdad, a state we are increasingly unable to maintain.

Iran, having carved a sphere of influence through Iraq to Syria, cannot allow a fundamentally anti-Iranian Sunni insurrection to disrupt Iranian designs, much less allow a disruption so close to Iran’s own homeland. Iran also recognizes that in the current situation with a weakened Assad, an increasingly assertive Turkish-backed Iraqi Kurdish autonomous region and a reluctant America, it cannot combat ISIS alone. The Syrian Civil War drained Iran of much political capital as it sought to keep Assad in power. Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that Iran will have to choose which ally to save: Syria or Iraq. Needing stable borders and to prevent spillover conflicts, Iran will likely choose Iraq and seek American partnership.

Rushing into the limelight during ongoing talks between the West and Iran concerning proliferation and the ending of sanctions, ISIS seems to provide an incentive for the Americans and Iranians to recognize their common interests and pursue greater cooperation. For now, the Eagle’s priorities align with the Lion’s.

Future Trajectory

While neat parallels do not exist between 2014 Iran and 1972 China, Nixon and Kissinger’s bold move reminds us today that daring statecraft will always be necessary. America would gain much needed Iranian support in stabilizing Iraq. Additionally, less pressure on Tehran would allow Iran to further entertain the possibility of an Iraq without al-Maliki. While al-Maliki is a reliable ally of Tehran, even the Iranians realize that al-Maliki’s divisive politics are not a suitable long-term strategy for the Iranian sphere of influence, a realization made all the more apparent by ISIS’ insurrection.

Another possible boon is that Iran can play a role in ensuring the survival of the Afghan state. Iranian covert support of the Taliban may run counter to American interests, but in the short term Iran also wishes for a stable Afghanistan, which cannot be guaranteed should American support and manpower in the region dwindle.

Security and politics aside, Iran also brings a largely untapped market to the table. Sanctions have prevented Western businesses from pursuing opportunities in Iran. With Iranian overdependence on oil exports, cueing the need for diversification and a rich resource base that includes large reserves of hydrocarbon, investment and partnership opportunities for American businesses abound. For instance, California-based World Eco Energy has reportedly signed a conditional $1.175b deal in Iran to turn waste into energy.

Iran, for its part, will perhaps have even more to gain from a partnership with the Americans. Booming economies, solutions to macroeconomic woes brought about by sanctions and liberalized oil exports aside, Iran would simply have more space to maneuver. No longer drawing the ire of a powerful ally of Saudi Arabia, Iran can set out to expand its economic and political influence.

For instance, recognizing the apprehension of surrounding Gulf States to the possibility of a resurgent Iran, Tehran sent a delegation to Kuwait, the UAE and Oman. This move is beneficial on many fronts since it allows Tehran to look past sectarian differences and work towards solutions for the ISIS crisis, perhaps even paving the way for future talks on Gulf cooperation and energy policy.

On the flip side of the coin, increased room for Iranian maneuvers might also mean greater Hezbollah activities against Israel. However, this can be checked by greater American security commitments to Israel, agreements with the Iranians themselves, or by the simple fact that solving the ISIS crisis will require even more political capital and resources from Iran, already partially depleted from the Syria Civil War.

Of course, any partnership does not make Iran our friend. Iranian support of Hezbollah and Taliban cannot go unheeded. The values and interests of Iran still clash with the American’s. Iranian ambitions must still be curbed through continued support and reassurances of key allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. It is a fine game the Americans must play: to engage in offshore balancing without too often lending a hand to any one party. Nevertheless, cooperation with Iran can expedite Middle Eastern stability, giving the United States much needed breathing room to address domestic problems and reevaluate its foreign policy strategy in the Middle East.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

The post The Case for Rapprochement with Iran appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

The war in Afghanistan is the longest armed conflict in United States history. As it comes to a close, veterans will return to this country with wounds visible and invisible, and our Coalition partners will look to us for leadership on the care of those veterans. If there is one group of people that do not deserve to be subject to the whims of domestic politics, it is our nation’s veterans. Our men and women in uniform fight to keep our political process strong, not to be victims to its peculiarities at best, and its hypocrisies, at worst. Especially recently, our government has failed at this mission.

It has been a troubled few weeks for United States veterans. First, there were revelations that administrators at Veteran’s Affairs (VA) hospitals across the nation lied about wait times for treatment and cooked the record keeping books in order to make bonuses and meet performance quotas at the expense of providing healthcare to veterans. The scandal led to the resignation of General Erik Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Then, in a prisoner exchange on May 31, 2014, the Taliban released Bergdahl in exchange for five of their own incarcerated at Guantanamo under the condition that they remain in Qatar for one year. Nearly five years earlier, on June 30, 2009, Bergdahl walked off his military base in the dead of night – whether he intended to return remains a mystery – and was captured by the Taliban in the hours that followed. The Haqqani Network, a Taliban outlet created by the United States’ early mishandling of the war, help Bergdahl captive.

While veterans in Phoenix waited in pain for essential treatment, Bergdahl too languished in Taliban prison. Bergdahl was tortured and, in a proof of life video provided to the United States government in December, appeared to be drugged, non responsive and frail. The plight of Bowe Bergdahl is, in many ways, similar to the plight of veterans back home in the United States who waited weeks, even months, for healthcare from their country. Both Bergdahl and veterans denied coverage at the VA made incalculable sacrifices for their country. Both Bergdahl and the veterans back home found themselves at a moment when they needed their country most.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of American civil society has inexplicably failed to make this connection. The media and the public have expressed indignation at the failings of the VA to provide adequate healthcare to our veterans, while politicians in Congress have – in uncharacteristically fast fashion, for Congressional standards – passed legislation to overhaul the VA. Their bill would give veterans access to more providers, give the department secretary more power to fire employees and force more transparency to fix problems like fudged wait times before they become an epidemic.

This outrage is justified, and we should be proud of our leaders for taking steps to remedy the problem. But the question still remains: where is the equal outrage to the treatment of Bowe Bergdahl? Where too is the appreciation for his safe return?

Politicians and the media were quick to condemn Bergdahl’s release in a public relations blitz tantamount to character assassination. The objections – mostly from Congressional Republicans – were numerous. They included allegations that the Obama administration had released dangerous enemy prisoners, used vital resources to free an alleged deserter and broken a law requiring the administration to give Congress a 30-day notice before transferring any detainees from Guantanamo.

An article in the Washington Post, shamefully titled “Why the Bowe Bergdahl deal is a political loser,” cited a CBS news poll that revealed 49% of Americans think that the deal will increase the threat of terrorism against the United States, and 56% think that the price paid was “too high,” statistics likely borne out of the statements of politicians and pundits, and statistics that miserably fail a fact check. First, though the five Taliban officers released have been connected to al-Qaeda, there is no evidence that they supported its international jihad against the United States. Captured just weeks after the United States invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban five were actually fighting other Afghans in the country’s civil war, according to CIA director John Brennan. Second, the deal mandates that they stay in Qatar for a year—by the time they “return to the battlefield,” the US will be well on its way to a full withdrawal from Afghanistan. Taliban expert Anand Gopal has said that of the five – who haven’t been with the Taliban since 2001 – only two have the potential to impact the battle between Afghanistan and insurgents.

Articles like the one above are self-fulfilling prophesies, because their misinformation is to blame for the very statistics they cite. If anything, the Taliban five and their allies are more likely to pose a threat to the United States because of how they were treated and detained in Guantanamo, not because of the ties they had to an organization 13 years ago.

I don’t know if Bergdahl was a deserter. It is appalling that some would suggest an American soldier who fights to defend the right to be innocent until proven guilty is convicted of desertion in a trial by media, and not in a trial by a jury of his peers. Anyone who doesn’t wait for the facts to come in is making a terrible mistake.

The Taliban threatened to execute Bergdahl if news of the prisoner exchange leaked. This obviously does not absolve the Obama administration of breaking the law, but it does offer a compelling reason why they chose secrecy over transparency. This should be the sole source of outrage over the Bergdahl release, because it is completely isolated from Bergdahl’s character. Tragically, elected officials have mixed criticism of the Obama administration with criticism of Bergdahl and the deal that saved his life.

Both the swap for Bergdahl and the scandal over healthcare provisions at the VA have highlighted a dangerous misconception among politicians and the media that demands fixing. Our veterans have risked their lives to defend the principles of life and liberty that we hold dear. Some have made the ultimate sacrifice and all return scarred. For those who live on, it is the duty of the United States to honor their sacrifices, and every time we fall short of this goal is one time too many.

For politicians and pundits, it is unfortunately too easy to speak out in favor of domestic solutions to domestic veteran problems while treating the Bergdahl case with such a different eye. That needs to change. Our veterans have fought to defend the right of “all men to be created equal.” That means that all veterans, whether they are home or imprisoned abroad, deserve equal assistance when they are in their darkest hour of need. Whether we have to pass legislation or exchange the prisoners of the enemy, no price is too high to pay.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff and editorial board.

The post American Hypocrisy: Maltreatment of Veterans and the Crucifixion of Bowe Bergdahl appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Mousa: “This is Afghanistan…Alexander the Great try to conquer this country… then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people… you wish to hear?

Rambo: “Um-hum.”

Mousa: “Very good. It says, ‘May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.’”

-Rambo III, 1988

American engagement began with airstrikes in October 2001. By May 2003, President Bush declared the end of major combat and NATO assumed the responsibility of managing the transition to a civilian Afghan government. In 2004, for the first time, Afghanistan democratically elected Hamid Karzai, who subsequently announced a partnership with President Bush on the War on Terror. He opened bases in Afghanistan to US soldiers in exchange for training the Afghan national army.

In 2006, violence erupted again. In December 2009, Obama announced a troop surge, which sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and officially stamped his application to the graveyard of empires club.

13,000 Afghan soldiers, 3,440 coalition soldiers and almost 20,000 civilians have died to date in Afghanistan. Accounting for the future cost of medical care and fighting, a Harvard Kennedy School of Government study estimated the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan combined at $4-6 trillion.

Less quantifiable in terms of dollars and body counts, but equally as significant is the cost of the war on the United States’ image in the world. The Karzai regime’s refusal to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, which would allow continued US presence in the country after 2014, speaks to the lack of credibility in the American war machine, namely due to the use of drones and night raids that have a dismal history of civilian casualties. These problems make it not only impossible to negotiate with Afghanistan, but will also directly hamper allied cooperation in the future.

The United States should also commit to end the indefinite detention of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and abroad, which was established during the first months of the War in Afghanistan. Guantanamo Bay and covert rendition programs have come to be seen by Americans and our allies as the most egregious manifestation of America’s post-9/11 foreign policy. The Germans may have raised a diplomatic fuss over the tapping of Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone, but I would bet her data plan that they took much more seriously the unlawful detention and alleged torture of Turkish citizen Murat Kurnaz, a German resident who was captured in Kabul by US forces.

The kicker is that for all of the aforementioned costs, we have gained almost nothing.

As the Taliban launches its spring offensive and begins to control larger territories, the thousands of Afghani citizens who have been displaced over the past ten years say little progress has been made. Gaetan Drossart, the chief of the Kabul branch of Medecins sans Frontieres, has treated such refugees for years and observed the violence that has gripped the country. “The truth is there is no such success story at all,” Drossart told RT. “The international forces are leaving the country so they need a reason and they need also a rationale to explain to their population why now they can leave.”

Beyond the Taliban, Afghanistan will continue to suffer from the potent attacks of the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network. In a book out this year, Anand Gopal, who covered the war for the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote in her book, No Good Men Among the Living: America the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes, that the War in Afghanistan was misguided from the start. Though almost no insurgencies existed in mid-2002, the war, through faulty alliances with Afghani drug lords and power brokers, created the very enemies it sought to eradicate. Haqqani and his network were two of them. “By classifying certain groups as terrorists, and then acting upon those classifications, the U.S. had inadvertently brought about the very conditions it had set out to fight,” Gopal commented.

When this counter-terrorism evolved into a full-fledged counterinsurgency and nation building, the war efforts in Afghanistan fell prey to the concept known as mission creep – the phenomenon where a mission of limited scope morphs into one much more complex. Though the most tangible accomplishment of the war is the establishment of the Afghan National Security Forces and the success of a democratic election that will be completed by the end of the year, proponents of the war should ask themselves: couldn’t we have done that in the first 6 months of conflict? Did it really take 12 years (the longest war in American history), a few trillion dollars and over 2,000 soldier lives to train 350,000 Afghani soldiers and hold an election? We aren’t even out of the woods – the instability and accusations of corruption in the election to select President Karzai’s successor demonstrates it has come at too high a price.

Three-star Army lieutenant general Daniel Bolger, whose 35 years of experience culminated in extensive work in Afghanistan and Iraq, is publishing the first after-action report on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the book, aptly titled “Why We Lost,” Bolger argues that the mission creep described above sacrificed the key gains made within the first six months of each war. Like the Gulf War, Bolger argues that after the removal of the hostile government (in Afghanistan’s case, the Taliban), the United States should have packed up and gone home. Instead, perpetual war and nation building that will take decades longer than the US (and the public) is willing to commit to have created more enemies than friends.

The failure in Afghanistan certainly won’t kill the American empire, but like Rambo, America hasn’t escaped Afghanistan unscathed. Afghanistan, like Vietnam, has exposed the limitations of the US war machine for all to see, and made the leaders and nation behind it less credible in the process. That doesn’t bode well going forward—just ask Colonel Trautman, Rambo’s mentee: “You expect sympathy? You started this damn war, now you’ll have to deal with it.”

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff and editorial board.

The post No, America’s War in Afghanistan Was Not Worth It appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

This week there will likely be a terrorist attack in Afghanistan – an attack that, like the recent one that left 15 dead, will target civilians, Afghan police, and/or NATO peacekeepers. In the same time period, the number of US soldiers killed in action will likely rise from 2,170 to 2,180. These events will occur as US officials assess Afghanistan’s ability to fend off insurgencies amid seemingly unending bombings, kidnappings, and wavering support for the war both at home and abroad. If, after 12 of years fighting, these are the meager results of thousands of lives lost and trillions of dollars spent, one may wonder: “was it worth it?”

Typically, the answer is an assessment of the War in Afghanistan through a security perspective – how safe is the US from terrorist threats or how stable is the Afghan government from Taliban insurgents? But this approach ignores a critical angle I’d like to address: the Afghani people.

13 years ago, Afghanistan was in the midst of conflict – a conflict that began with a communist coup in 1978, was precipitated by the Soviet invasion in 1979, and was furthered by a decade of civil conflict starting in 1992. America’s intervention in 2001, if even for questionable reasons, reduced unending violence and allowed for the first serious reconstruction efforts since 1978.

Since 2001, life expectancy in Afghanistan has risen by as much as 18 years per person while GDP has increased tenfold and billions of dollars of foreign aid have been unlocked. Similar improvements can be observed through other metrics such as infant mortality, which despite seeing little improvement during the 1990s, dropped by 50% after the Taliban’s fall.

Additionally, it is difficult to ignore the swell of liberties and political rights acquired by the average Afghan since America’s invasion. In the Taliban’s Afghanistan just 13 years ago, women were oppressed on historically unprecedented levels while everything from parakeets to public laughter was outright banned. Public beatings, shamings, and executions were not uncommon and though enforcement of laws was often uneven and arbitrary, these laws suffocated economic activity. Discriminatory policies and mismanagement of public facilities resulted in the ineffectiveness of many accommodations, most notably medical services.

Moreover, when in power, the Pakistan-funded Taliban showed no regard for Afghan culture or history as it deemed countless invaluable cultural artefacts sacrilegious. Just several months before Operation Enduring Freedom began in October of 2001, the Taliban demolished a pair of Buddhist statues known as the Bamiyan Buddhas despite fierce international objection. The two statues, built 1500 years ago, were registered UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

America’s war in Afghanistan has also made way for a new democratic system. The elections in 2004 were the first Afghanistan had seen in decades and the 2014 elections have marked the first time that power was transferred democratically in Afghanistan. And though Afghanistan’s first two elections were marred by controversy (something not uncommon in countries so poor) this year’s election has seen few issues aside from the threat of Taliban violence. Record turnouts rates have shocked the world.

America’s war itself has not wrought the destruction many seem to think it has. In the period between 1978 and the present, over 2 million people were killed in Afghanistan. However, nearly all of these deaths occurred before the 2001 invasion. Of those deaths since 2001, three-quarters were attributed to the Taliban. Meanwhile increased access to aid and medical services has saved countless lives among Afghanistan’s poorest residents.

So in addition to deposing a sacerdotal tyranny, allied forces in Afghanistan have offered the country an end to decades of conflict, have established a representative government, and have given Afghanistan a chance for reconstruction. The Taliban is gone and, given new data suggesting that only 35% of Afghans have any sympathy for armed resistance groups like the Taliban, it seems unlikely to return. Three-quarters of Afghans claim to be better off now than during Taliban rule and the same number feel satisfied with the current government’s performance. So as American military officials plan the troop withdrawal later this year, Americans may argue over whether the war was worth it for the United States, but there’s no debate that it was for Afghanistan.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff and editorial board.

The post Yes, America’s War in Afghanistan Was Worth It appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.