The period between the Soviet Union’s withdrawal and the rise of the Taliban is a forgotten section of Afghan history. Most Western scholars and policy makers glaze over it, preferring either to focus on the collapse of the USSR or the emergence of political Islam in Central Asia. According to Nikolas Gvosdev, however, the Najibullah government offers several vital lessons for the US in Afghanistan:

First, it highlights the strategic importance of co-option. When the Soviets pulled out in 1989, the expectation was that their proxy state would quickly collapse. Instead, its leader, Mohammed Najibullah, managed to ward off the mujahedeen and stay in power for another three years. One reason for this was that he exploited tribal and regional connections to his advantage. Militarily, for example, the government allowed regional leaders and ex-mujahadeen members to form their own militias and join the regular army. At the same time, Najibullah reinstated Islam as the state religion and put many prominent mullahs on the state’s payroll. These pragmatic changes helped to legitimize the regime in the eyes of its people while strengthening its hold on power.

Najibullah’s administration also demonstrates the value of patronage. Under his rule, the government in Kabul distributed Soviet largess to a nexus of clients in exchange for loyalty. Along the country's supply routes, for instance, he offered local elders a percentage of the goods if they agreed to prevent mujahedeen attacks. Such a connection allowed the state to use external support without becoming tainted as a puppet regime. Given that Afghanistan is proud of its status as the ‘graveyard of empires,’ the impression that the central government was allocating money on its own was crucial.

Finally, this regime serves as a reminder of the importance of political leadership. Unlike President Karzai, Najibullah was able to gain credibility among all of Afghanistan’s various ethnic groups with his combination of efficacy and flexibility. He also excelled at balancing external and local interests. In short, he was the ideal type of leader for post-conflict Afghanistan—a real irony considering that American and Pakistani pressure was instrumental in his eventual fall. Unless the US can find another dynamic leader like him, both the Afghan state and the coalition’s war effort will deteriorate and eventually fail.  If that happens, the state's current leaders will most likely join Najibullah as victims of a make-shift Taliban gallows.

From the Guardian's William Dalrymple:

Since then the nature of Karzai's plans have become clearer: it has emerged that the head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, has secretly been visiting Karzai; on Monday General Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army, will arrive in Kabul, presumably to confirm whatever deal has been agreed. It seems the Pakistanis are encouraging an accommodation between Karzai and the ISI-sponsored jihadi network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, which would give over much of the Pashtun south to Haqqani but preserve Karzai in power in Kabul. The US has been party to none of this, and administration officials are apparently surprised and alarmed…

Most sober observers recognize that any endgame to the Afghan conflict requires pinching our noses and accommodating large elements of the Taliban. But it seems that Karzai would prefer to do this on Pakistan's terms, not on America's terms. This is quite rational--Pakistan, unlike America, will always be next door, and the whole question is rendered moot if the ISI is as close to the Taliban as many people are currently reporting. But does Pakistan actually have control over the Taliban and their jihadist fellow-travelers? The worsening security situation in Pakistan suggests not, and this is in many ways the more important point.

America's strategy in Afghanistan and the debate surrounding it has largely focused the Pashtun south while taking the northern provinces somewhat for granted. Recent developments including today's bombing in Faryab that killed four Norwegian members of the ISAF and multiple attacks against German troops in Kunduz threaten to change this.

In a new report on the resurgence of the Taliban in the across the north, veteran Afghanistan watchers Antonio Giustozzi and Christoph Reuter argue that these attacks are part of a broader strategy to threaten the ISAF's supply lines and put pressure on European members of the coalition:

The Taleban appear to have a clear strategy aimed at also destabilising northern Afghanistan. Moving north strengthens their claim to be the legitimate government of Afghanistan and to be fighting for the whole country, not just for a particular region or ethnic group. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the psychological impact of the north’s destabilisation upon Western Europe and the US would be considerable, overstretching resources as well as reducing the recruitment pool of Afghan army and police, by enabling the Taliban to intimidate the families of the volunteers.

(Full report here)

The clip above from the BBC's Dispatch series paints a vivid picture of a group of extremists based in the northern province of Baghlan struggling to build bombs, stay awake during nighttime raids and learn the Koran. Most of the footage was originally shot in 2009. It seems that these groups have improved significantly over the past year.

Read the article that is taking American politics by storm and forced Obama to recall his top general in Afghanistan for a dressing-down. This is a quick conversion of a pdf, so it's a bit choppy-- the article isn't going to be officially released until Friday.

This is a a career threatening release for McChrystal. Besides being a political disaster- McChrystal insults Obama, Biden, and France, amongst others-- it calls into question his entire strategy, too. This also could be the article that renews debate about the Afghan war in America. Money quote (on strategy, you can get the political quotes anywhere):

...“The entire COIN [counterinsurgency] strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people,” says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counter-insurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. “The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense. ”In the end, however, McChrystal got almost exactly what he wanted…… 

Today, as McChrystal gears up for an offensive in southern Afghanistan, the prospects for any kind of success look bleak. In June, the death toll for US troops passed 1,000, and the number of IEDs has doubled. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the fifth poorest country on earth has failed to win over the civilian population, whose attitude toward US troops ranges from intensely wary to openly hostile. The biggest military operation of the year – a ferocious offensive that began in February to retake the southern town of Marja – continues to drag on, prompting McChrystal himself to refer to it as a “bleeding ulcer.” 

In June, Afghanistan officially outpaced Vietnam as the longest war in American history – and…those who support McChrystal and his strategy of counterinsurgency know that whatever the general manages to accomplish in Afghanistan, it’s going to look more like Vietnam than Desert Storm. “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win,” says Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, who serves as chief of operations for McChrystal. “This is going to end in an argument.”

Update: Rolling Stone rushed publication of the article, its now available here.

From a new report by Matt Waldman (LSE and Harvard) on relations between the ISI and the Taliban:

"Almost all the Taliban commanders interviewed believe the ISI are represented on the Quetta Shura. One senior southern commander said: 'Every group commander knows the reality--which is obvious to all of us--that the ISI is behind the Taliban, they formed and are supporting the Taliban.' He also explained why it was not widely known: 'Every commander knows about the involvement of the ISI in the leadership but we do not discuss it because we do not trust each other, and they are much stronger than us. They are afriad that if they say anything against the Taliban or ISI it would be reported to the higher ranks--and they may be removed or assassnated ... Everyone sees the sun in the sky but cannot say it is the sun.'"

Our potential failure in Afghanistan has little to do with tactics and everything to do with our inability to convince our friends and enemies alike that we plan to see the conflict through.

George Packer reviews My Life With the Taliban, By Abdul Salaam Zaeef, the former Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan. Money quote:

It’s a book with an obvious interest for Americans, since so little has been published in English from the point of view of the insurgents who are the reason a hundred thousand American troops are fighting in Afghanistan…Zaeef’s memoir is perhaps the best, and maybe even the only, way for readers here to begin to grasp the world view of this xenophobic and opaque movement. 

As for the Americans, they won his bitter enmity. By Zaeef’s account—which aligns with those of numerous other prisoners who fell into U.S. hands in the wars that followed September 11th—he was treated barbarically: stripped naked, beaten, interrogated endlessly to no purpose, always kept isolated and ignorant of his situation, made to endure years of physical and mental torture in a condition of legal blackout. 

The Americans have won the hatred of all Afghans, he concludes, and will lose the war as the Soviets lost theirs: the whole world is turning away from the U.S. and coming to see the justice of the Islamic cause. Like any religious revolutionary, Zaeef is certain that history and faith will soon rhyme. His entire story is saturated in righteousness; all the hardships he endures are redeemed by the solidarity of the faithful, whose superiority to non-Muslims is taken for granted. Zaeef doesn’t even pay lip service to the notion of equal rights for all: the only outrage is what’s done to Muslims, because they are Muslims and better than the rest of humanity.

Cold cuts + beer + this vid  = happy hour.

Evan