Opinion: Some Smart Non-Military Moves for Afghanistan

KABUL (Nov. 23) -- As President Barack Obama finalizes his plans for a new phase of a war that now seems to be a deadly stalemate, attention has focused largely on how many additional U.S. troops he will send. But whatever his decision on that point, there are a number of other initiatives -- some tightly related to troop strength, some not -- that would help tilt the gargantuan effort of saving Afghanistan toward success. Here are some of them.

1. Put more money in education.

Only about 30 percent of Afghans can read. Promoting literacy helps broaden Afghans' world view and makes the hardline Taliban doctrine less appealing. Lt. Col. Michael Fenzel wrote in The New York Times recently that his battalion has funded a three-year program for revitalizing schooling in the remote province of Paktika for $359,000 -- "about the cost of one 2,000-pound bomb, yet dramatically more powerful in a counterinsurgency effort." The Obama administration has increased its non-military budget for Afghanistan to $2.8 billion for fiscal 2010. The more of that it spends on training teachers, building schools, and getting boys and especially girls to attend, the better the long-range return for Afghanistan.

2. Use jobs to draw disgruntled Afghans away from the Taliban.

Many of the Taliban's estimated 10,000 to 25,000 men are hired guns who work for the Islamist insurgents on a day-to-day basis. "Temporary Taliban" are a legitimate danger to U.S. and Afghan soldiers, but they're motivated less by ideology than by need. The U.S. should do more to reach out to them. Billions of dollars in development contracts now filling foreigners' pockets could go to Afghans willing and able to do the same jobs. Training Afghans for construction jobs would cost a fraction of hiring, transporting and housing foreigners, and it would limit the Taliban's opportunity to recruit from the ranks of unemployed men.
3. Don't waste money trying to eradicate Afghanistan's drug trade.

Telling Afghans they can't grow opium is like banning an Iowa farmer from growing corn. Opium is Afghanistan's leading export, and the trade extends well beyond Afghan borders to organized crime syndicates the world over. Effectively cracking down on the opium trade would have to target world demand, too. That's just not going to happen. It's true the Taliban gets a large portion of their funding from the opium trade. But they are also funded by elements of Pakistan's intelligence agency and wealthy individuals in South Asia and the Middle East who are keen to see the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan fail. There is a better chance of stopping the flow of that money through force or the freezing of bank accounts than there is of stopping the drug trade.

4. Improve the sorry state of Kabul.

President Hamid Karzai's power ebbs in Afghanistan's vast countryside, but he should grasp the chance to make a visible improvement where he does have sway: in Kabul. The Afghan capital's streets are lined with open sewers brimming with vile gray waste water and filth that reek to high heaven during the warm summer months. The Kabul River is choked with litter until spring floods wash the debris downstream. Mounds of trash often make Kabul's sidewalks impassable, and many side streets remain unpaved and riddled with deep holes. While many would contend Afghanistan's concerns are more pressing than the aesthetics of Kabul, cleaning up the capital would show the city's 4 million residents and the rest of the country that the Afghan government is making real efforts to improve their lives and not merely line its pockets with their hard-earned tax dollars and international aid.

5. Convince Afghans the U.S. doesn't want to stay forever.

The Afghan war agenda must include a definitive, well-publicized exit strategy aimed at handing over the country's security responsibilities to the Afghan people. Critics say a publicized exit date would play to the advantage of the Taliban, who are known for the saying, "The Americans have the watches, but we have the time." But the longer U.S. and international forces remain in Afghanistan, the more Afghans will chafe under the occupiers' yoke.

6. Attach government payments to benchmarks.

The Afghan government has been given wide leeway for its corruption-as-usual policies since Karzai was elected president in 2004. His administration has shown little visible effort to improve the lives of Afghans. The Obama administration's threats to pull out of Afghanistan if the White House doesn't see real change in the next six months aren't credible, considering the financial investment the U.S. and others have made in Afghanistan and the fear that the Taliban would return to power about a week after international forces vacated the country. But making certain subsidies for the Afghan government conditional on reforms and a crackdown on corruption could spur the Afghan government to clean up its act.

7. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.

The U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan does not have history on its side. The last occupying force to subvert Afghanistan to its will was Genghis Khan's Mongolian hoard in the 13th century, and they did it with brutal force and slaughter. The British spent 80 years trying to conquer Afghanistan and failed; the Russians' 10-year campaign there not only failed, but directly contributed to the demise of the Soviet regime. Despite billions of dollars being spent on the military campaign and development projects, the Taliban now control about 80 percent of the country. Overwhelming force has done little to convince rural Afghans that the international community, Washington and Kabul have their best interests at heart. Millennia of failed military campaigns in Afghanistan are not a coincidence. U.S. failure in Afghanistan is a real possibility.