Afghan Credibility

The BBC reports that in a leaked cable to President Obama U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry has called for the U.S. to delay a troop increase until President Hamid Karzai first proves he is willing to tackle corruption.  The cable comes as Obama and his war council continue to weigh a number of troop deployment options

Eikenberry’s cable sparked David Corn to question if the U.S. has built a massive public “credibility gap” by continuing to support Karzai despite the White House’s clear understanding of his corruption.  Peter Galbraith believes that Karzai’s rule is also destroying the U.N’s credibility because the Security Council did not insist on procedures for an honest election.  Chibli Mallat sums up both fears, arguing that the U.N.’s moral failure “will affect the very heart of what is left of its international missions” and that the U.S. has lost its moral argument.  Ultimately, he says that the Afghan people will pay the heaviest price and that power should be shifted to the country’s loya jirga.

Writing an editorial on Afghan strategy, Karl Inderfurth and Theodore Eliot write about a new Asia Foundation public opinion survey from Afghanistan that shows some signs of real improvement but also indicates a majority of Afghans believe that corruption is a major problem.  James Spencer argues for a new language on the Afghan conflict that emphasizes the qualitative “dispelling” of the Taliban rather than the quantifiable “defeating” of the insurgency.  Spencer contends that violence should not be the currency of change and that the U.S. needs to empower the Pashtun nationalists.  Frank Schell has put forth an idea for an entirely new AfPak strategy that involves regional actors and to make U.S. deployment conditional on democratization.

Lastly, former opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah has come out supporting U.S. pushes for reform. He went on to say he will not join the Karzai government, but he will promote ideas for change, “perhaps in form [sic] of loyal opposition, and that’s in the best interests of the country.”