The Next 12 Months in Afghanistan: The Highest Stakes

UPDATE: The post below the fold was my response to the report, earlier today, that the Obama Administration had decided to send 40 thousand additional American troops to Afghanistan. The White House is now denying a decision has been made.

The central question in the debate that has bitterly divided the progressive community since president Barack Obama's election one year ago was answered tonight. Approximately 40 thousand additional American troops will be sent to Afghanistan in increments of several thousand each month, beginning early next year. By the end of 2010, the total number of US forces in the country will reach 100 thousand. The president is expected to make the official announcement when he returns from China next week.

For better or worse, the last push to get it right in Afghanistan is about to begin. The debate over strategy is by no means over, nor should it be. And it is imperative that we see the big picture. The next year in Afghanistan will be definitive for more reasons than the increased number of American soldiers in the country.

Next September, Afghans will go to the polls again, this time to vote in their second parliament since the end of Taliban rule. That the parliamentary elections be free and fair is of the gravest importance. After the blatantly unfair presidential election this year, the Afghan government is bleeding legitimacy, in the eyes of its own people and those of coalition publics.

The Asia Foundation's recent Afghan public opinion report is a snapshot of Afghanistan just before last August's presidential election. The findings freeze in time a moment of stubborn hope, hesitant optimism, and broad support for democracy and the rule of law. Seventy-one percent of respondents expressed confidence in the national government. Sixty-eight percent percent said they believed their parliament was addressing the country’s major problems. Reconstruction and expanded education were among the chief accomplishments Afghans listed of their government over the past eight years, and lack of security and economic opportunities were among respondents' chief complaints.

For all the inked spilled about how difficult Afghanistan is to govern, the Afghan people indisputably desire a government that protects them, listens to them, and lifts them out of poverty. The resolution of the presidential election dealt a serious and avoidable wound to the democratization process. Afghans know that when they press inked fingers to ballots next year, their future hinges on both the process and outcome meeting the minimum international standards. With the executive now discredited, the deeply flawed and equally diverse National Assembly is now Afghan democracy's last, best hope.

The international community, too, knows this. Whether it will collectively summon the political will necessary to avoid the errors of the last election, and in so doing honor the Afghan people's commitment to democratic processes, remains an open question.

Ready.

Set.

Here we go.

[Photo: An Afghan voter in Shar-e-Kohna, Faizabad, Badakhshan, 20 August 2009. Jawad Jalali (UNAMA)]