With incumbent Hamid Karzai constitutionally bound to step down as President of Afghanistan, and the results of a second round run-off vote due to be released on Monday amid accusations of electoral fraud, Afghanistan's future is looking eerily similar to Iraq's current state of affairs. Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun representing the Afghani majority, was once the darling of the West but has long since fallen out of favor amid cries of corruption and cronyism, similar to his Iraqi counterpart, embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. And the similarities don't stop there. The United States is withdrawing troops and there is no standing agreement to maintain an American force beyond the end of 2014. Meanwhile, the Taliban insurgency is intensifying in anticipation of the ongoing NATO troop withdrawal. The current election has come down to a run-off between Abdullah Abdullah, a former anti-Taliban resistance fighter who draws his support from the Tajik minority in northern Afghanistan and Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist, representing the Pashtun majority in the south and east of the country. If the election is contested, there is the very real possibility that the rift could intensify along ethnic lines, and devolve into violence. Ghani has already claimed victory, citing the vocal support of clerics, a higher turnout of women, a series of televised town-hall style meetings and polling day transport for potential voters, as the keys to his victory. Abdullah, contends that the results have been skewed by blatant fraud and has withdrawn from the process, and organized protests across Kabul, with thousands of demonstrators marching through the city, many chanting "Death to Ghani." If the election results cannot be trusted, Afghanistan, a nation already struggling to deal with a Taliban-lead insurgency that won't go away, may find itself struggling to preserve its fragile democracy. The Taliban, vowing to disrupt the election process, set fire to some 200 oil tankers supplying fuel for Nato forces in an attack just outside Kabul on Saturday. On Thursday, militants fired rockets into Kabul's international airport, destroying a helicopter. Similar to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Sunni Islamic Caliphate that now spans the borders of Syria and Iraq, Mullah Mohammed Omar's Sunni Taliban Insurgency is now fighting a war that spans the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The failure of the Obama administration to preserve the forward momentum of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan is resulting into a complete destabilization of the region. The gestalt of Radical Islam is undergoing a worldwide metamorphosis, as disparate groups split, join, and reform—coalescing in the wake of the exceptional American foreign policy failures that have piled up over the many decades since the end of the Second World War. The unification is accelerating under policies of the current administration in Washington, that has been characterized by uncharacteristic weakness, indecisiveness, and lack of leadership from the Oval Office. If President Obama fails to reach an acceptable security agreement with the new Afghan President, we could see the insurgency in Afghanistan intensify and expand. All NATO combat forces are due to leave by the end of this year. Several thousand soldiers may stay to help train the Afghan army, but sitting President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign a long-term cooperation deal with the United States, preferring to leave that decision to his successor. Both candidates have agreed to sign the agreement that ensures an American presence until 2016. But even if that agreement is achieved, what happens after 2016? The Taliban are well-aware that eventually the Americans will leave, and then the insurgency will be free to exploit the ethnic and sectarian cracks in Afghanistan. 2016 in Afghanistan could look a lot like 2014 has for Iraq.
