Afghanistan Digest | 31 Jan 2014 Edition
Digest of the day's top stories
1. Afghan Roads Falling Apart
They look like victims of an insurgent attack — their limbs in need of amputation, their skulls cracked — but the patients who pour daily into the Ghazni Provincial Hospital are casualties of another Afghan crisis.
They are motorists who drove on the road network built by the U.S. government and other Western donors — a $4 billion project that was once a symbol of promise in post-Taliban Afghanistan but is now falling apart.
Western officials say the Afghan government is unable to maintain even a fraction of the roads and highways constructed since 2001, when the country had less than 50 miles of paved roads. The deterioration has hurt commerce and slowed military operations. In many places, the roads once deemed the hallmark of America’s development effort have turned into death traps, full of cars careening into massive bomb-blast craters or sliding off crumbling pavement.
Why This Matters
The issue here is that the United States put a ton of capital investment into the Afghan road network. What it did not plan for was maintenance funding, or the ability of the Afghan government to develop the ability to pick up their own mainteance costs for the thousands of kilometers of road that the Americans and other donors built. So the American taxpayers paid for them, and the Afghan people don't benefit from them. The most likely solution here is going to be a fresh infusion of funds for those maintenance costs. Not as alarming as it sounds, and in the best interests of both American investment and Afghanistan.
2. Hagel Not Happy with Karzai's Delay
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has expressed his impatience with a delay by the Afghan president in signing an agreement that permits U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan beyond this year.
"You can’t just keep deferring and deferring," Hagel told reporters late on January 29, when commenting on President Hamid Karzai's reluctance to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA).
Hagel said the BSA needs to be signed soon "because at some point the realities of planning and budgeting and all that is required collide.
Why This Matters
This isn't nearly as alarming as some observers are going to make it. It's indicative that the Obama administration isn't terribly happy with Karzai, but this isn't a threat of increased likelihood of the zero option for US troops. All of that combined with the strong likelihood that the Americans have already made a deal on the BSA without Karzai, and this is just another round of the Transition Theater of the Absurd.
3. Spanta thinks US needs to pick a side
The U.S. must choose between having Afghanistan or Pakistan as a strategic partner before Kabul is willing to sign the Bilateral Security Agrement (BSA), Afghan National Security Advisor Dr. Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said on Thursday.
Dr. Spanta emphasized that the U.S. knows Pakistan is the main "obstacle" to the Afghan government's peace talks with the Taliban, yet refuses to acknowledge it.
"The United States is trying to tell the world and the people of Afghanistan that both the wolf and the sheep are their strategic friends," Dr. Spanta said. "Afghanistan's Southern and Eastern borders have been under attack for years, and those who are under attack are our women and children."
Why This Matters
Post elections, Spanta may still be around, and still be someone the United States will need to deal with after Karzai's gone. This is not a choice that the US is going to make: Pakistan in many ways is a more viable strategic partner (albeit a shaky one) when it comes to US plans for the region, but there are still US interests to be served in the Afghan equation, as well. This narrative will probably be around for a long time to come.









