Afghanistan today inaugurated a new president after months of election wrangling that threatened to trigger nationwide unrest and complicate the US withdrawal. Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, succeeded Hamid Karzai as the country’s newly elected leader, and Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, became the chief executive, a newly created position whose role is akin to a prime minister’s.
The peaceful and first-ever democratic transfer of power marks a real milestone in Afghanistan’s turbulent history, but it was far from being a smooth one: massive fraud in the second round of voting pushed the country to the brink of disintegration, and it took enormous international pressure and mediation – including several phone calls by President Obama to both candidates and visits by Secretary of State Kerry to Kabul – to break the deadlock and convince the two rival teams to form a government of national unity.
Although it is far from certain whether the two teams would be able to set aside partisanship and work together to address pressing security and governance challenges, the power-sharing arrangement was arguably the best outcome to save Afghanistan from descending into anarchy right now. The election campaign had inflamed dangerous ethnic and factional tension across the country and the winner of the fraud-tainted process would have lacked broad-based legitimacy to govern effectively without including his rival in the government.
However, even if the two teams manage to foster a sincere and workable partnership, the new government will be unable to tackle the myriad of problems it inherits without long-term international military and financial support. The Afghan security forces have made remarkable progress in size and capabilities, but they are still unable to contain the Taliban on its own as evidenced by the terrorist group’s military gains this year as foreign troops draw down. Moreover, foreign aid makes up about 90% of the country’s GDP and the country is unlikely to become economically self-sufficient for the next decade. Last year, drugs cultivation in Afghanistan hit a new record and the illicit drug business threatens to fuel corruption and insecurity at an ever greater scale as foreign funding begins to diminish.
While the Obama administration should welcome the inauguration of the new government in Kabul, it will be a grave mistake if the US and its allies use Afghanistan’s peaceful transfer of power as an excuse to justify their exit strategy. As in Iraq, a premature withdrawal is a recipe for disaster and allows the Taliban and al Qaeda to reestablish themselves in parts of Afghanistan and destabilize neighboring Pakistan.
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