THIS weekend, the people of Kabul celebrated the Persian New Year. They thronged the lake below the Bala Hissar citadel, took picnics up to the old Kabul city walls and almost overwhelmed the ticket sellers at the gates of the gardens of Babur.
It is unlikely that President Obama was thinking about Babur’s gardens when he was talking about an “exit strategy” from Afghanistan. And he is not the only one talking about looking for the way out.
Obama gave another hint of how the task in Afghanistan has been downsized in recent months when he reminded the American people of their original aim in Afghanistan: That the country is never again a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. Nation-building has been parked for the moment unless it is absolutely essential to achieving the new, more limited aims.
Along with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks there are, of course, broader strategic objectives — influencing the future development of the region, for example. But the priority now is to stabilize Afghanistan. Since 2005, the Taleban and associated insurgent groups have extended their influence to the outlying districts of Kabul, even if that influence has not necessarily been consolidated into real authority and is likely to remain limited to Pashtun-dominated areas.
Last year’s fighting was tough and stretched international forces. This year’s fighting will be tougher. Public patience is not infinite. Even American Treasury coffers, let alone Dutch, British, French or Canadian ones, have a bottom.
Though there is much talk about talking to “moderate” Taleban, most analysts seriously doubt there are such interlocutors. Certainly Mullah Mohammed Omar is unlikely to sue for peace soon. Other insurgent leaders, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, may be more biddable, especially if the Iranians or Gulf states can be persuaded to offer some kind of “quarantine” asylum pending an eventual political deal.
But the really interesting thinking in Kabul and in Washington these days is focusing on another track, a rejigging of the constitution to allow greater representation of Afghanistan’s complex and fractured ethnic, religious and political communities in central government.
The problem at the moment is that those most loyal to central government and the international project in Afghanistan are the country’s weaker and smaller ethnic minorities: The Tajiks, the Uzbeks and the Hazaras. Together they may number around half the population and are more moderate and often more politically literate than the 40-45 percent of the population who comprise the Pashtun tribes. It is the latter who have historically run Afghanistan, who believe they have the right to do so again, who are the most conservative and the most bellicose (with exceptions) and who currently feel marginalized.
Sadly, they are the people the US and their allies need to stabilize Afghanistan. Rebalancing the constitution — possibly after calling another major assembly or loya jirga — may be one way to at least bring some of them back inside the political process and thus weaken or even split the insurgents who are increasingly seen as the Pashtun rural conservative reactionary constituency’s only legitimate representatives.
At the same time, a prime minister could be played off against a president — allowing locals and external actors to limit the autonomy of any strong leader, particularly one such as Karzai in whom the US no longer has confidence. All in all, a constitutional change that corrects some of the errors made at Bonn in 2001 makes sense, at least for the Americans. Whether it would do for the Afghans remains to be seen.
