By Paul D. Shinkman
One year after a new U.S. ally took office, troubling results project a dim future.
The Taliban is on the rise. Corruption plagues Afghanistan's government, fueled by an illicit narcotics trade that funds insurgency now more than ever before, and many senior leadership positions in Kabul remain vacant.
Voters in Afghanistan and U.S. officials funneling billions into the war zone expected to see some signs of change under President Ashraf Ghani, who ushered in the fledgling government's first democratic transition of power and was hailed as the solution the West had been waiting for. But to some, after a year in office, he doesn't seem any more effective than his discredited predecessor at delivering on the reforms Afghans thought would come quickly.
"I was so hopeful, with all the promises he had made," says Ahmed, an aid worker based in Kabul who asked his name not be revealed for fear of government retribution. "He seems to be not the person who portrayed himself during the election."
A recent report by an independent monitoring agency cited incremental changes in fighting corruption in Afghanistan in the last year but faulted Ghani's government for not filling the key cabinet post of attorney general. Another group, Integrity Watch Afghanistan, also criticized the Afghan government recently over the findings of a survey showing the government has fallen short in being transparent with how it spends public money.
The critical position of defense minister also remains unfilled, leaving the military without a clear line of political leadership. Ghani has so far not been able to nominate a defense minister the Afghan parliament will approve, in part due to confirmation he must secure for such appointments from Abdullah Abdullah, his former political opponent with whom he now splits an awkward power arrangement. His most recent nominee for the job, Masoom Stanekzai, held a shaky relationship with top officers in the army, and the nominee before him withdrew after footage showed him making ethnically controversial comments.
Ghani's inability to corral parliament has sown discontent among an Afghan population weary of government dysfunction – an $8.2 billion U.S. effort to counter illicit narcotics production, for example, has largely failed, and Afghanistan remains the world's largest producer of opium.
Local citizens are also fearful of crumbling security nationwide.
Taliban forces have advanced on former strongholds and retaken territory this year. Its militants were able to mass on the town of Kunduz and seize it last month, without the U.S. or Afghanistan anticipating the attack. National security forces were ultimately able to retake the town, but the operation reinforced the perception that the Taliban is preparing to seize territory it formerly held as the U.S.-led coalition draws down its presence in the country.
Earlier this week, reports emerged that the Taliban had captured yet another area, this time the Ghormach district of Faryab province. And it claimed credit for shooting small-arms fire at an American F-16, which the Pentagon confirmed was forced to jettison its fuel tanks and ordnance as a result of the damage before returning to Bagram Air Base.
Western leaders and war planners, despite a plan to withdraw military personnel from Afghanistan, continue to tout refreshed relations through Ghani's reign, which likely contributed to the decision last week to extend U.S. contributions to the conflict there. Defense Secretary Ash Carter cited this new special friendship at a press conference, recalling how Ghani thanked members of the U.S. military and their families for their sacrifice as a way to offset the string of bad news coming out of what has been America's longest involvement in a war zone.
"Today, we deliver our own message to President Ghani and the Afghan people: We are with you. We support you and we are not going to give up the gains we fought so hard to achieve," Carter said.
Indeed, Ghani has said all the right things to appease his Western benefactors, unlike former President Hamid Karzai. The leader once heralded by the U.S. over the weekend continued what has become standard rhetoric in recent years, saying the American-led war effort has only made the situation in Afghanistan worse.
"Terrorism gained further strength" during the presence of foreign forces, he said, adding that a bilateral security agreement widened the scope of war and harmed the Afghan people.
And Ghani, at least for now, has secured America's support – something Karzai likely could not have counted on if he had remained in power. President Barack Obama promised during his first presidential campaign that he would end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and clung to that promise throughout his presidency, repeatedly telegraphing the U.S. strategy for winnowing combat forces down to zero by the end of 2016. His departure from that promise in last week's announcement served as a great coup for the current Afghan leader, who will continue to enjoy U.S.-provided security as well as the support and financial aid that comes with it.
But while a government's chief responsibility may be to protect its citizenry, Ghani pretty soon will need to address his domestic priorities.
"He's going to have to – particularly now in the aftermath of Kunduz – conduct an internal reassessment of how he's been conducting business and start to make some of these begrudging compromises that I think are more in line with the reality of Afghanistan," says Jason Campbell, an Afghanistan analyst with the Rand Corp. Campbell cites the difficulties of finding suitable candidates for senior government positions whom Abdullah will approve and who fit into the complicated scheme of having all the major ethnic groups represented in leadership offices.
"He's tried thus far to push things through, bang his fist on the table and demand changes," says Campbell, citing issues like fighting corruption. "Where the rubber meets the road, it's not happening. And it's not just going to happen by decree."
Ghani notoriously fired his entire cabinet late last year after frustrations in appointing new leaders. But perhaps one of the most visceral examples of his impatience is the Kabul Bank scandal, in which reports emerged that bank executives had funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into their own coffers. Despite pressure from the U.S., Karzai – whose brother, Mahmoud, was a bank shareholder connected to the scandal – ultimately balked at an investigation or instituting banking reforms.
Ghani campaigned on reopening the case and did so shortly after taking office, vowing a full investigation and a nationwide fight against corruption. One year later, no results have materialized.
His inability at home to produce the kind of swift change voters perhaps naively expected may also stem from his inexperience in domestic dealings – unlike Karzai, the proud Pashtun with deeply rooted connections in Afghanistan who seemed to close observers always to have some sort of side deal in the works. Ghani, on the other hand, has a background in global finance and academia and lived outside Afghanistan for more than two decades before returning in 2001.
"He doesn't have a domestic support base," says Nora Bensahel, a scholar-in-residence at American University and Afghanistan expert with the Atlantic Council. "It plays with tribal politics and especially as the security situation has gotten worse in places. That becomes a liability with the internal governance issues."
"From a Western point of view only, he has been very good about maintaining a much better view of the West than Karzai."
So is Ghani as unlikely to produce reforms in his country as his predecessor? In fairness, his tenure is only a year old and it's been a tumultuous one. And a large portion of his duties focused on securing the backing of the world's only remaining superpower, which has been eager not to repeat mistakes made in Iraq four years ago.
At least for Ghani, right now, it appears there will be an Afghanistan next year he can continue to try to fix.
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