Can Canada succeed in Afghanistan? (Interview with Seddiq Weera)

Seddiq Weera was born and raised in Afghanistan where he studied in the Faculty of Medicine, Kabul University and practiced as a physician. He was imprisoned by the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul three times between 1978 and 1984 for a total of about five years. Currently he is a Senior Associate at the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University in Canada. He is the founding co-chair of the Canadian Coalition for Afghan Peace and Development. In Afghanistan, he served on the Board of the Independent National Commission on Strengthening Peace and has recently been appointed as Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Education.

MONDIAL: The perception among optimists in the West is that Afghanistan is making progress and that donor governments and troop contributors need only stay the course. Let’s examine these perceptions in light of (1) recent Afghan politics, (2) security and development on the ground, and (3) the ‘war on terror.’

Firstly, Afghanistan is what some analysts might call a failed or fragile state. The national government does not exercise jurisdiction over most of its territory. After the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in December 2001, the UN facilitated talks in Germany between key Afghan actors (except the Taliban and Hizbi–
i-Islami) and donor states. The resulting Bonn Agreement (endorsed by the UN Security Council) laid out a framework and timeline for political recovery. The political transition process outlined in the Bonn agreement was fully implemented by the end of 2005, only slightly behind schedule. By the end of 2005, Afghanistan had elected a president (Hamid Karzai) and both upper and lower houses of an Afghanistan National Assembly. Is this not a framework for long-term political reconciliation and progress?

SEDDIQ WEERA: Afghanistan’s progress on democratic institution-building, formation of the national army and police, and rehabilitation of government institutions is remarkable.  However, the inability of the Afghan government to bring security, peace and stability, to eliminate corruption, to rebuild major infrastructure and to reduce poverty and unemployment overshadow its successes. An obvious contributing factor to the serious failure of the Afghan state is a flawed Bonn peace agreement in 2001. Of two parties to a five-year-old civil war, only one was present at the table. U.S.-led forces joined one side of a civil war (Northern Alliance) to defeat and totally exclude the other (Taliban and Hekmatyar). Moreover, the former really enjoyed the ride with the U.S.-led forces, exercised a wide range of acts of vengeance against their former enemy and did not even spare innocent citizens who shared identity and language with the defeated. So, an unresolved conflict – the suppressed civil war – mixed up with war on terror leaves disenfranchised a great many Afghans who have national and sub-national grievances and aspirations.

MONDIAL: What is the situation on the ground in Afghanistan? We hear in Canadian media of a resurgent Taliban. Who is winning the ‘battle for hearts and minds’ particularly in the areas of Southern Afghanistan where Canadian troops are active?

SEDDIQ WEERA: Many of the insurgencies are made up of ordinary citizens of Afghanistan who were one of the two parties to an Afghan civil war, who happen to be on the wrong side of the war on terror, and as a result are now brutally excluded and isolated from the Afghan political scene. They have grudges, grievances and national or sub-national aspirations. They capitalize on the unhappiness of the populations in the south and the international terrorist networks take advantage of them. No one is winning the hearts and minds of Afghans in the south. They are disappointed at the Afghan government; most of them do not feel sympathetic enough to the government to stand up against the insurgencies. Some of them are angry at the circumstances created by the Afghan government and its international allies to the extent that they want to get back at the government by joining the enemy or picking up arms as a means of making a living. However, the hearts and the minds of the people can be won by those who listen to them, address their legitimate grievances and meet their basic needs.  Winning the hearts and the minds of the people in the south will isolate the international terrorist networks, the drug lords and other spoilers.

MONDIAL: Critics of Canada’s military effort in Afghanistan suggest that the mission will not succeed with its present mixed mandate. Canadian troops are part of a complex peace operation in support of the UN-mandated NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) at the same time as they are assisting combat operations under the U.S. led counter-terrorist Operation Enduring Freedom. The critique is that the combat operations aimed at rooting out terrorists are undermining rather than building the security of ordinary Afghans. Instead of establishing law and order and winning over the locals, the combat operations generate casualties, local hostility and an expanded base of support for terrorists. Do you agree?

At a recent meeting in Ottawa, former UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi suggested that it would be better if Operation Enduring Freedom were brought under NATO ISAF. Is this realistic? If not, do you see any hope for an evolution in U.S. strategy?

SEDDIQ WEERA: In a complex context where war on terror is superimposed on a suppressed Afghan civil war, military operations alone are going to make the situation worse by forcing more and more ordinary Afghans to work closely with the international terrorist networks.  Canadian military presence is no exception. While Canada’s role is crucial for supporting the Afghan national army and police as well as protecting civilians and enforcing law and order, it is also contributing to further complexity of the Afghan war. NATO or non-NATO, Canadian or non-Canadian, is not much relevant. It is important what their mandate is. If it is continuation of indiscriminately treating Afghan groupings as Al-Qaeda, foreign military forces will keep creating more recruitees for Al-Qaeda and armed enemies of the Afghan government. In the worst-case scenario, the international military presence can eventually become like the Soviet troops that fought against the Afghan people in the 1980s. If attempts are made to separate the Afghan civil war or what is remaining of it, from the war on terror, success is possible.  The objective should be to minimize the pool of recruitees, supporters and sympathizers by winning the hearts and the minds of the people and reducing the size of enemy forces by differentiating Afghan groups from international terrorists.

MONDIAL: Canada’s recent vote to extend for two years the government’s security and development commitment to Afghanistan was controversial and passed with a slim majority. If you were advising Stephen Harper, what would you suggest as Canadian priorities?

SEDDIQ WEERA: It’s complicated, but there is still a lot of good that Canada could do. For example,

•   invest in peace and establish dialogues with the aim of resolving the suppressed civil war and other national conflicts;

•   keep your military presence to support the Afghan national army and national police and to enforce law and order;

•   keep your combat role focused only on those who are not interested in peace negotiations;

•   instead of following a U.S. failure, take the leadership and open new paths that will really help Afghanistan, the U.S. and the rest of the world.