By James Weir and Amir RaminTwo critical transitions are scheduled to take place in Afghanistan in 2014, the results of which will help determine the fate of the country long after foreign troops withdraw. Afghan forces will take sole responsibility for the security of their country from U.S. and Coalition forces, thereby ending the longest war in U.S. history. Over the same period, President Hamid Karzai will reach the end of his constitutionally mandated two-term tenure as president, leading to important presidential and provincial council elections.Both transitions are intrinsically linked and crucial to stability and security in Afghanistan. While over the course of this last year there have been highly encouraging international pledges of political, security and economic support for Afghanistan extending far beyond 2014, the bulk of international communitys focus on the ground remains primarily on preparing to transfer security and fighting an insurgency. Little attention is given to ensuring an effective political transition including reforming essential institutions, particularly the Independent Electoral Commission, and preparing for transparent, free and fair elections in 2014.Neglecting political and good governance issues thus far has had negative ramifications on security, as underscored by recent reports of pervasive abuses by Afghan security forces, of political powerbrokers re-forming militias, and of controversies surrounding the establishment and training of Afghan police. It also indicates an important misreading of the situation in Afghanistan, namely that the Taliban are the primary threat to stability and a counter insurgency will create security.The Taliban continues to use terror tactics and suicide bombers to deadly effect, but ultimately the insurgents are small in number, largely decentralized, and increasingly unpopular. Their greatest assets are their ability to instill uncertainty and insecurity about circumstances in Afghanistan post-2014, combined with dissatisfaction with the present government and resentment at the presence and actions of NATO forces. The withdrawal of foreign troops and scheduled elections will contribute to delegitimizing the Taliban pretexts for waging their insurgency and recruiting fighters.The greater danger to the achievements of the last 11 years comes not from the Taliban but from threat of internal fragmentation within the Afghan administration. The current government is dominated by a hodgepodge of powerbrokers with regionally based constituencies. Most emerged during the Soviet War, some maintain militias, and all have shifting allegiances and competing interests.Thus far, NATO forces and resources have deterred factional rivalries within the Afghan government from turning violent. In their absence, and a dispute created by another highly flawed election one resembling the presidential elections of 2009 a multi-sided civil war could reignite. If powerful blocs within the government turned against one another and divided a newly armed and trained military, especially in this ethnically and politically insecure, post-war environment, the destructive potential unleashed far exceeds anything the Taliban could muster.To quell this threat, the international community must direct substantial resources and influence to ensuring that necessary measures and reforms are in place for a smooth political transition from the current administration to an elected and stable government. After an 11-year engagement, the international community has the means to affect outcomes. An armed and trained national security force with no corresponding, stable central government in control will leave Afghanistan a fragile state in the process of a slow recovery in an even more precarious position as international troops leave.The best long-term defense against both the Taliban and a potential civil war is a relatively stable government in Kabul, and the provinces, one slowly earning the trust of the Afghan people. The international communitys current focus on the security transition, combined with insufficient attention to the political transition, underestimates a complicated political landscape and neglects the popular distrust of national politics created by the long absence of an effective government.After nearly four decades of instability that saw a staggering array of political agendas and actors cycle through the halls of power, the Afghan people are tired of conflict, suspicious of most political platforms and hungry for positive signs that a better future may be near at hand. If 2014 results in a credible election of a government able to maintain basic security and provide even rudimentary services, this would engender hope amongst Afghans that a troubled era is drawing to a close. For the U.S., a military returning home with al-Qaida weakened, Osama bin Laden dead, the Taliban marginalized, and a stable, possibly friendly government in this vexing region would promisingly end a chapter that began with 9/11.The conditions for success in 2014 hard-earned and very near at hand are contingent on ensuring that both security and political transitions are given the support they need. International actors can no longer treat political transition as an afterthought to strengthening the security apparatus or taking military action. The stakes are too high and the time to act is now. James Weir is the director of Muslim Societies of Asia and the Pacific at the University of Hawaii and a cultural anthropologist. Amir Ramin is an East West Center fellow, former political adviser to the European Union Special Representative in Afghanistan, and political adviser to the chairman of the High Peace Council for Afghanistan. They wrote this for the McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
