"GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES"

The situation in Afghanistan remains a major concern for the international community. Hostilities within the country have become increasingly fierce. The search for an Afghan settlement is complicated largely due to the fact that so many external forces are involved.

Eight years of action and the "cost of inaction"

The anti-terrorist campaign launched in Afghanistan by the United States and NATO in response to the 11 September tragedy has continued for eight years. However, it is still impossible to achieve a significant breakthrough in the fight against a radical Taliban movement working in close cooperation with the Al Qaeda terrorist network. It is also impossible to achieve political stability in Afghan society, where disunity seems to be chronic. For those conducting the anti-terrorist operation, the situation is also aggravated by the ongoing global economic crisis. The lack of sufficient financial resources to conduct large-scale military operations, heavy casualties to the military forces of the international coalition and the Taliban's fierce resistance, have prevented the West from achieving the main objectives of a campaign designed to eliminate hotbeds of terrorism in the heart of Asia.

With the arrival of Barack Obama at the White House, the United States began working on a new concept for its "Afghan" policy. In March this year, the US president made a statement on a strategic plan for the gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. It was perceived by the world as an expression of Washington's "fundamentally new position", which combines force with diplomacy and, most importantly, abandonment of the policy of the neo-conservatives, which implied, in particular, the export of democracy and the conduct of uncompromising military actions against "the enemies of America" around the world. According to the White House's plan, an organised withdrawal of coalition forces should take place alongside a gradual increase in the number of Afghan police officers - from 82,000 to 240,000, and then to 400,000 people. An important part of the plan is to recruit so-called moderate members of the Taliban, especially those who form part of the large "army" of unemployed Afghans. Great importance is also attached to strengthening the fight against Taliban combatants in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan.

The new American vision for Afghanistan, in fact, acknowledges the fact that the war there cannot be won by existing methods. Undoubtedly, it was also influenced by the fact that European allies of the US increasingly express a desire to focus on the implementation of civil projects and reconstruction in Afghanistan. Britain and Germany even openly suggest that direct talks with the Taliban should be a key element in ending the protracted war. In the western world Afghanistan has been known for centuries as the "graveyard of empires", and fear of this reputation, which has been strengthened by events in modern times, pushes the United States and Europe to seek an immediate withdrawal from the Afghan crisis.

In any case, the more the West talks from this perspective, the more obvious is the impossibility of an immediate withdrawal of coalition forces from the battlefield. Moreover, in order to implement Obama's plan, it is first necessary to increase the American military contingent, thus the US president sent 21,000 troops to Afghanistan in spring. At that time, there were already 33,000 American soldiers in the country and, in total, there are about 70,000 foreign soldiers there.

However, the US military soon made it clear that even such an impressive number of multinational forces is not enough to complete the mission in Afghanistan successfully. In September, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal, suggested increasing the American contingent by 30,000-40,000 personnel. His report on the situation in Afghanistan warned that if the US does not increase its contingent in the coming year, the Afghan campaign would be lost completely.

The issue of increasing the number of coalition troops in Afghanistan took centre stage at a recent informal meeting of NATO defence ministers in the Slovak capital Bratislava. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen led an open discussion on the subject: "More and more people are asking - isn't the price of NATO's involvement in the Afghan campaign too high. I can say that the price of inaction would be even greater. To let things take their course means giving Al Qaeda everything, including Pakistan which has nuclear weapons." Meanwhile, US allies merely declare their willingness to increase military and civilian assistance to the US army units remaining in Afghanistan, without actually taking concrete decisions in this direction. Given the discontent in the European Union about further participation by its troops in the Afghan campaign, Europe's expression (even if only verbal) of its readiness to continue to support the war against the Taliban was the most that Washington could count on at the Bratislava meeting. This is especially the case as President Obama has still not accepted General McChrystal's proposal to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan. This fact, incidentally, causes unconcealed annoyance among American "hawks". One of them -former US Vice President Dick Cheney - openly accused Barack Obama of being "afraid to take a decision". But the president, apparently, cannot and does not want to hasten to support the idea of reinforcing US forces in Afghanistan for fear of losing that part of the US establishment and electorate which expects him to keep his campaign promises about the imminent completion of US military operations outside the country. It is not surprising that, speaking at the US naval base in Florida, Obama promised not to send additional troops to Afghanistan unless absolutely necessary. A spokesman for the White House, Robert Gibbs, noted only the possibility that the US president would make a decision to dispatch additional forces to Afghanistan, linking it to the second round of presidential elections in that country scheduled for 7 November.

Between Karzai and Abdullah

The 20 August 2009 elections in Afghanistan were marked by massive violations, which, however, surprised very few people. After all, the president was elected by a poor nation which is de facto dismembered - a war-torn country where the majority of people do not know anything but selfless cause or survival by involvement in drug trafficking. After nearly two months, the Independent Electoral Commission of Afghanistan was forced, on the basis of a review of "questionable ballots", to recognize that the current President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai gained 49.67 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting. "Thus, none of the candidates received 50 per cent + 1 vote," the electoral commission said. Earlier, according to preliminary results, Karzai was reportedly declared the winner of the elections with 55 per cent of the vote. However, there will now be a second round of voting, involving the current Afghan leader and the former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

Barack Obama welcomed Karzai's consent to take part in the second round of the presidential elections, noting that "this decision is important for the new democracy of Afghanistan." The incumbent Afghan president was also praised by the United Kingdom. "With his decision, Hamid Karzai made it clear that the constitutional process in the country should continue," said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Nevertheless, it is obvious that the two-month scandal surrounding the rigged election has undermined Hamid Karzai's credibility in Afghan society. On the contrary, it strengthened the position of Abdullah who positions himself as a reformer, capable of leading Afghanistan out of years of war. It can be assumed that this former representative of the Karzai government, who is now his main rival in the presidential elections, expects to ensure a "balance of interests", in the event of victory, between the systemic forces inside Afghanistan and interested external centres. However, the West fears that, in order to strengthen his political positions, Abdullah will be forced, after becoming president, to end Karzai's policy of centralizing power and to transfer key administrative powers in the country to local warlords, and that in foreign policy he will be faced with the necessity of rapprochement with Iran.

Meanwhile, one of the paradoxes of the current intra-Afghan configuration is that it is Tehran that is interested in preventing compromise between Karzai and Abdullah. Afghan politicians openly say that Iran supports Karzai morally and Abdullah financially. The media report that Iranian advisers formulate the "relentless" rhetoric of Dr. Abdullah and his representatives, skilfully using violations during the voting on 20 August to escalate political confrontation. Tehran's aim is to prevent a strengthening of American influence in Afghanistan, which may be the result of the triumphant success of one of the main contenders in the presidential elections. Afghan experts even admit that the IRI thus seeks revenge on the US for inciting the recent political standoff in Iran.

Whatever the case may be, social scientists now predict that voter turnout in the second round of elections will be extremely low, primarily because of fear of the Taliban, who launched a large-scale campaign after 20 August to persecute citizens who had visited polling stations. The situation is aggravated by forecasts that, regardless of the outcome of the vote, the legitimacy of "the popular vote" in Afghanistan will be lower than in the first round, and the candidate who loses the second round will probably not recognize the result, which will lead to further escalation of the domestic political crisis. Western strategists fear that if the second round fails, power in Afghanistan will be so shaky that it could be taken over by a military junta with the subsequent introduction of a state of emergency. In this case, they would have to say goodbye to all talk about the democratization of Afghanistan, and that would mean one thing - the ideological justification of the occupation of Afghanistan would lose one of its key pillars. Therefore, for the US the preferred option is to secure agreement between Hamid Karzai and Dr. Abdullah, which could pave the way for the formation of a coalition government. In this scenario, Abdullah could receive the post of prime minister or foreign minister. Various sources indicate that this is what US political strategists are trying to achieve. It is probably no accident that a leading American expert on Afghanistan, the former US ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan and the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, was seen during negotiations between the headquarters of Karzai and Abdullah.