What the U.S. can achieve in Afghanistan, despite Karzai

Although the White House thoroughly examined the Afghan government before choosing the strategy that it will unveil tonight, the composition of that government -- and hence its character -- remains highly uncertain. We know the reelection of Hamid Karzai has left Afghanistan with five more years of a president who lacks leadership attributes essential for the job. Inclined toward conciliation and leniency, Karzai would make a fine president of a Kiwanis Club, but he presides over a country replete with recalcitrant tribal elders and crooked warlords that demands a leader with the toughness to strong-arm troublemakers and keep subordinates under control.

But Washington can compensate for Karzai’s failings by persuading him to make personnel changes and delegate greater authority to subordinates, especially Cabinet ministers. During the run-up to this year’s election, Karzai bought the support of a host of warlords and other power players by promising them Cabinet positions. How he distributes those posts could be more important than the election itself.

History offers spectacular examples of cabinet ministers who wreaked havoc on insurgencies while serving under weak chiefs of state. In the Philippines, for example, President Elpidio Quirino won the 1949 election after ballot boxes were stuffed with the votes of dead people, flowers and birds. Corruption surged after the tainted election, and Quirino’s inert security forces allowed the Huk insurgents to dominate the countryside. Americans complained that they lacked a credible partner, and in the summer of 1950, senior U.S. officials quietly urged Quirino to appoint the dynamic Philippine congressman Ramon Magsaysay as defense secretary. In return, they said, U.S. aid would increase. Quirino agreed to appoint Magsaysay and, more reluctantly, granted him full control over military leadership appointments.

Touring the country in disguise, Magsaysay relieved commanders -- including Quirino’s friends and family -- who avoided dangerous areas or tolerated abuses of the population. During these trips, Magsaysay’s energy and resilience rubbed off on Philippine officers. Within a few months, Philippine soldiers stopped stealing chickens and started pursuing the insurgents. Consequently, public support for the insurgents dropped and insurgent fighters defected en masse.

The empowerment of an excellent defense minister similarly enabled El Salvador to escape from the brink of defeat in 1983. Breaking with Salvadoran tradition, Defense Minister Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova checked on commanders in the field and made wholesale personnel changes based on merit. He sharply reduced the violence perpetrated by the government’s security forces and death squads, though he did not eliminate it, and helped cultivate a rising generation of leaders with resolve and respect for human rights -- officers who ultimately made enduring democracy and peace possible in El Salvador.

In Afghanistan, the current defense minister, Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak -- with much assistance from U.S. military advisors -- has developed large numbers of able junior officers. Wardak, however, faces formidable constraints that Magsaysay and Vides Casanova did not. Afghanistan is acutely short on the seasoned mid-career officers required for the command of battalions and brigades. When Wardak has sought to fire poor commanders, Karzai has often, for political or personal reasons, kept those leaders in power or rotated them to similar positions elsewhere.

Whereas Magsaysay and Vides Casanova commanded most of the country’s security forces, Wardak does not control the 80,000-man Afghan National Police, the sole counterinsurgency force in much of the country. The police belong to the Interior Ministry, for years a cesspool of incompetence and corruption. Last fall, Karzai handed the ministry to Mohamad Hanif Atmar, who has shown promise by cracking down on corruption and appointing better men as police chiefs. But he too is subject to harmful interference from Karzai’s office.

The Obama administration must marshal all its influence to ensure that the key posts in Karzai’s new Cabinet belong to talented and dedicated executives, and that they receive complete authority over personnel decisions. Putting in place warlords such as Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Abdul Rashid Dostum could be disastrous -- though it’s worth noting that Vides Casanova’s reputation was as checkered as theirs before he cleaned up the Salvadoran security forces.

Maximizing America’s influence with Karzai will require better relationships between senior American and Afghan officials, which may entail personnel changes on the American side. Senior Americans have been standoffish in private and accusatory in public, making Karzai less receptive to U.S. recommendations. They should instead build relationships of trust and save their rebukes for closed-door meetings. That was the approach employed by the only American who has exerted great positive influence on Karzai, former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Empowering capable ministers will not solve all of Afghanistan’s problems. While the defense and interior ministers can remove bad commanders and inspire the others, they do not have enough good officers with the experience to serve in vital local leadership positions. Therefore, additional U.S. troops will still be required in the near term.

With the right Afghan ministers and smart American assistance, U.S. troops will buy Afghanistan time to develop capable commanders and police chiefs. A new generation of leaders, already visible in the army and just beginning to form in the police, can ultimately allow our Afghan allies to thrive without American troops.

Mark Moyar is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Marine Corps University and the author of “A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq.”