Afghanistan Analysis: My Oh My, What to Do About Corruption? (Kaplan)

Writing before yesterday's Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, Fred Kaplan of Slate ponders, "What Can We Do About Corruption in Afghanistan?"

The analysis is not as notable for insight as it is for the utter resignation in the conclusion:

For now, Karzai seems to think that the United States has a bigger stake in the war's success than he does and, therefore, that he's the one with the leverage in this relationship. The Obama administration's challenge is to convince Karzai that if he doesn't clean up his act, he really will pay a price—we really might leave or, short of that, funnel arms, money, and other resources to provincial chiefs whose elevation would pose a challenge to Karzai's authority. This is easier said than done, and carries its own risks for Afghanistan's stability. But the alternative is to write "a blank check" and "blindly stay the course," as Obama once said he wouldn't do, and that way seems to lie a quagmire or worse.

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It's tempting to skip over the recent news stories about fighting corruption in Afghanistan. ("Of course there's corruption," you might have muttered while turning the page.) But resist the urge; go back and read them. They're just as important as the stories about fighting the Taliban in Kandahar—maybe more so.

In a counterinsurgency war, such as the one we're waging in Afghanistan, the legitimacy of the host government, in the eyes of its own people, is key to the prospects for success. And legitimacy is nearly unachievable if the government is blatantly corrupt.

The Obama administration is now debating what to do about the blatant corruption of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai.

All the players recognize the connection between the war on corruption and the war against the Taliban—and the former's crucial effect on the latter.

Last September, in hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked why the Taliban were doing so well despite the U.S. military's vastly larger forces. The problem, Mullen replied, is "clearly the lack of legitimacy of the [Afghan] government." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked, "We could send a million troops, and that wouldn't restore legitimacy in the government?" Mullen replied, "That is correct."

Around the same time, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, wrote in a secret 66-page memo (which was leaked to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward) that the aim of a counterinsurgency strategy is to "provide for the needs of the population by, with, and through the Afghan government." A "responsible and accountable government," which the Afghan people "find acceptable," was just as important as a secure environment. However, McChrystal went on, "widespread corruption by various officials … has given Afghans little reason to support the government," a condition that sows "fertile ground for the insurgency."

Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the senior U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, made the same point to Dexter Filkins of the New York Times: "If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy in Afghanistan, and we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves."

That was the subject of a Sept. 13 meeting between President Barack Obama and several high-ranking officials from the Pentagon, the State Department, the Justice Department, and the CIA: How to pressure Karzai to crack down on corruption and thus wipe away the perception that we're "backing thugs."

The problem is that Karzai and his cronies are, in many cases, at the center of the corruption. Earlier in the year, the reform drive seemed to be moving forward; the Obama administration was funding a massive anti-corruption program and training a cadre of Afghan investigators. Then, this summer, their wiretaps caught one of Karzai's top aides, Mohammed Zia Salehi, soliciting bribes. He was arrested and thrown in jail—but then released under orders from Karzai.

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