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Afghanistan is back on the political map.

President Trumps three major security appointments all have a profound interest in the country, which separates them from President Obamas. Defence Secretary James Mattis, National Security Adviser H R McMaster and Homeland Security chief John Kelly all have military experience in the region.

Kellys son, Lt Robert Michael Kelly, was killed in Sangin serving with the Marines. In a speech in 2014 Kelly said the war did not end because opinion-formers had grown war-weary.

In the UK, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is pledging more military muscle to shore up the Afghan army.

The renewed interest is partly because Islamic State has shown up in the south-east of the country and partly because Afghanistan is in a tantalising state of transition. So much Western blood and treasure has been invested in the country that it cannot be allowed to fall back in to being a terrorist state.

After decades of conflict the country has reached a kind of stalemate. The Afghan government, led by President Ashraf Ghani, controls the cities, the Taliban around 30 per cent of the rest of the country.

Everything about Afghanistan comes back to maps and borders. Iran on one side, Pakistan on the other, Russia involved against IS, China protecting its assets, particularly copper.

The saying goes that first came the Soviets, then the Americans and next it is the turn of the Chinese to try to control this country.

The British role is especially interesting. I have just returned from a couple of days in Kabul with a delegation from the Department for International Development (DfID). Priti Patel, its leader, describes the British mission as nation building a term very out of fashion during the George W Bush/ Donald Rumsfeld years.

The British Armys Camp Bastion may have vanished into the sand but everyone seems to accept that we have to stay with Afghanistan for the long haul now.

This means, along with training the Afghan army and providing aid for education and jobs, being party to Northern Ireland-style peace negotiations with the Taliban.

The acceptance of this is partly realism the Taliban has a solid base and steady recruitment from Pakistan. It is also a reflection of the changing face of terrorism.

President Ghani claims there are about 20 different terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan. The population may not like The Taliban, but at least they are home-grown unlike IS, which is regarded as foreign.

The Taliban is not asking for a caliphate and there is even talk of it having moderate members. Young men need employment and some have drifted to the Taliban for want of anything else.

One British military official repeats the old adage: You can buy a Pakistani but you can only rent an Afghan.

In Kabul there is no official Taliban presence, although there are enough insurgents to create tension.

It is more than a decade since I visited Kabul and its transitional phase still looks hairy. The DfID delegation travels by helicopter from the airport to the embassy in the fortified zone because the roads are considered too dangerous.

No one would think of travelling by road outside Kabul. They try to avoid convoys since an attack in 2014 on a British Embassy convoy in which six people died. Mobile reception is blocked while driving to protect against bombs triggered by phones.

The city is under surveillance from American airborne cameras.

Afghanistan is a cinematic place with a memory of tolerance and civic life before the rise of the Taliban in 1996.

The first lady, Rula Ghani, from a Christian Lebanese family, longs for the days when Afghanistan, much like her own country, was a cosmopolitan land of pleasure. It is a cruel reversal of feminism when mothers remember a freedom their daughters cannot know.

An Oxford-educated activist I meet in Kabul called Shaharzad Akbar says women everywhere are on their guard. She says that if she is out alone she becomes fearful of mens responses.

Women have retreated to the home in many areas. Virginity testing is still common practice. What inspires girls is access to phones, the internet and television, so they can compare their lives with women in the rest of the world.

Shaharzad said she watched Hillary Clinton lose the American election with bitter tears. Is that what happens? The crazy man gets it? What do women still have to do?

The criticism made of British and US policy in Afghanistan is that it was tactical rather than strategic. The population in return live for the short- term.

The President is doing his best to govern but the fragmented power bases are inherently unstable and the country seems always to be at the mercy of outside forces.

The latest threat is the one-and-a-half-million refugees returning to the country. Half-a-million have been expelled by Pakistan.

Some will certainly have been Taliban-trained. Refugees are also streaming back from Iran, and then there are those who did not get to Europe. Shaharzad observes that the world is in her country but wont allow Afghans in theirs.

Was ever a country so at the mercy of outside interests? Can Afghanistan defeat the Taliban if Pakistans madrassas continue to train the next generation?

Pakistan is suspicious of Afghanistans friendship with India. Iran is busy preserving the power of Shias.

Russia is believed to be ambivalent towards the Taliban, seeing a mischievous historical justice in disrupting the US/British intervention America did the same in supporting the Mujahideen against the Soviets.

Meanwhile, Russia contemplates gas pipelines and transport from the north. The UK looks to India.

In other words, Afghanistan is still at the centre of the Great Game.

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Sarah Sands: Will Afghanistan ever escape being a pawn in the Great Game? - Evening Standard

NEW DELHI [INDIA]: The foreign ministry of Afghanistan has lodged a formal protest with Pakistan over reported border violations by the latter after the closure of Torkham, Spin Boldak, Ghulam Khan and Angur Adda border crossings.

A statement issued by the foreign affairs ministry said the protest was conveyed to Pakistan's Ambassador Syed Abrar Hussain on Monday.

Pakistani troops, reportedly, resorted to rocket shellings over Khas Kunar, the Dara-e-Shali, Sarkano, Dara-e-Noli, Shadi Khel, and Dara-e-Shongri areas.

Director of the first Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Mosa Arefi also expressed deep concern over the persecution and force deportation of Afghan refugees by Pakistan's government and considered it in contrary to all tripartite obligations among Afghanistan, Pakistan and UNHCR.

Arefi said that the Turkham Gate is still closed which is a clear violation of all international norms of WTO and trade agreements between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"This closure also causes the Afghan and Pakistani businessmen as well as general public being affected every day," the statement read.

Pakistan's Ambassador said he would convey Afghanistan's concerns to authorities back home.

This is the third time that the Pakistani envoy has been summoned in the past two weeks as tensions between the neighbouring countries over terrorism and cross-border shelling escalated.

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Afghanistan summons Pakistan envoy, protests border violation - Economic Times

By Maj. Claude Lambert Best Defense guest columnist

Our war in Afghanistan has had not just a complex command and control structure, but also military command continuity challenges aside from its complex command and control architecture.

Changes of command, particularly at the highest levels, which put tremendous stress on the force and continuity of command, are just as important as the principle of unity of command. Therefore, as Washington mulls over whether to change direction in Afghanistan, command continuity should play a prominent role in the discussion.

From 2007 to 2014 there were seven International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commanders appointed to manage the war in Afghanistan. During this time, the longest tenure for an American ISAF commander was 19 months. Conversely, in World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower served as Commanding General of Allied Expeditionary forces in Europe from 1942-1945. Also, in Vietnam, two out of four U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam commanders served four years apiece providing significant continuity of command for the U.S. national command authority.

Throughout military history, commanders have come and gone in disputes over policy and execution. But it is difficult to deny that frequent changes of command at the highest levels are disruptive events. Even if the overall strategy does not change, newly installed commanders and their staffs routinely conduct 60 to 90 day assessments and strategy reviews that frequently shift or alter the momentum at the operational and tactical levels of war.

Major Claude A. Lambert is an active duty U.S. Army Strategist. The views expressed here are solely his own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, U.S. Army, or U.S. Special Operations Command.

Photo credit: the author

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Continued here:
Who's in command in Afghanistan? A scorecard that indicates a lack ... - Foreign Policy (blog)

Yesterday the Pentagon presented its recommendations to the White House for how to defeat ISIS. It is likely that the military campaign that will follow President Trump's final decision will look a good deal like President Obama's, albeit with looser restrictions, and possibly a dimmer view towards Iranian influence in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the National Security Council are all hard at work formulating a new approach in Afghanistan. They must resist thetemptation to recommend an "accelerated" but largely similar approach to the president.

What the last administration was doing to fight ISIS was moving too slowly, but at least it was moving in the right direction. ISIS is already on the road to defeat. In Afghanistan, however, the best you can say is that we are in a stalemate with various insurgent groups, most prominently the Taliban.

Afghanistan has always been a more challenging problem than Iraq, even if the policy community has failed to appreciate this for years at a time. The problemis not due tostupid clichs to the effect that Afghanistanis the "graveyard of empires"the country has spent much of its history being ruled by external powers. It has more to do with its weak tradition of central government and the fact that its Pakistani neighbors are heavily invested in preventing the rise of a strong Afghanistan with an independent foreign policy. As I wrote recently, Pakistan's interference is driven by fears that Afghanistan could align with India, thereby posing an existential risk to South Asia's Islamic Republic.

Any continuation of an American commitment in Afghanistan must reformulate our strategy with this regional calculus in mind. Of particular interest for this policy debate is a report prepared by Christopher Kolenda of the Center for a New American Security. Aside from highlighting the stunning fact that the U.S. has spent more money in Afghanistan than it did on the Marshall Plan, in real dollars, and that we continue to award Pakistan $742.2 million each yearin effect arming our adversarythe report contains a number of thought-provoking recommendations.

Kolenda rightly argues that it is time to get tougher on Pakistan, with measures that include "suspending major non-NATO ally status, designation as a state impeding counter-terrorism efforts, suspension of security assistance, targeted actions against specific individuals and organizations for supporting militant groups, discouraging future IMF bailouts, and designation as a state sponsor of terrorism." Kolenda also proposes further cultivating a U.S. partnership with India.

Such steps are welcome. But Kolenda proposes a tough line on Pakistan in part to bring Islamabad to the table for a grand bargain on Afghan neutrality. Kabul, backed by the international community, would declare itself neutral on questions of regional alignment, in return for pledges of non-interference from its neighbors.

This is, at best, far-fetched. Any strategy that relies on the Pakistanis (not to mention the Iranians) to pledge anything in good faith is unlikely to succeed.

India and Pakistan, with China watching from the sidelines, are engaged in a dangerous standoff in which the stakes, considering the two countries' nuclear arsenals, are survival. Rather than try to bring about a fragile balance that takes Afghanistan out of this equation, we should accept that Afghanistan will always be a factor in Indian and Pakistani decision making, and use that fact to achieve our own purposes in the region.

What are those purposes? Aside from a general preference for order over state collapse (which, when it happened in Iraq and Syria, led to the rise of ISIS) the United States is in Afghanistan in order to prevent it from becoming a Taliban-controlled space from which another 9/11 could be launched. But after sixteen years of war, this justification grows ever weaker. There are plenty of places from which organizations like al-Qaeda and ISIS dream of harming the westSyria, Yemen, and Libya top the listand we do not occupy them with thousands of American troops. Sometimes a lean counter-terror strategy makes sense.

If we choose to continue to fight the re-establishment of a Taliban state in Kabul, we need to get smart, and we need to figure out how such an effort fits into a broader, regionally integrated strategy. We must reduce our focus on building the Afghan state and on helping it control terrainoutside of major population centers. The Afghan state, with sufficient international assistance to forestall its collapse, will have to build itself over time. Rather, we should expand the battlespace to apply pressure on the Taliban in places it does not expect and where it cannot resistspecifically, on its sources of support.

Such a battlespace expansion therefore ought to include diplomatic measures targeting Pakistan. In addition to Kolenda's recommendations, we should explicitly link our support for India to our effort to fight the Taliban. If a pro-India Afghanistan is what Pakistan fears, then let's give it to them. India has long had a low-profile assistance footprint in Afghanistan. Why not encourage and facilitate the enlargement of that footprint?

In addition, perhaps the U.S.pose of neutrality on the dispute over Kashmir needs a review. Pakistan also has a whole host of internal security problems, including a long-standing and low-simmering ethnic insurgency in its Baloch region. Why are we so concerned with helping Pakistan with this problem, however indirectly, through our security assistance funds? Last time I checked, we have the power to make such problems worse. (Meanwhile, our direct military assistance to Afghanistan must have a small enough footprint that it does not require access to Pakistani ports for its sustainment.)

The existence of a Pakistani nuclear arsenal makes some nervous about applying too much pressure on Islamabad. While we must plan for catastrophic scenarios like a Pakistani state collapse, the fear of such an event is a trump card that Pakistan cynically plays to forestall international pressure before it is applied. Moreover, Pakistan has long been building a relationship with China to hedge against a possible break with America. Fine. Let Beijing pay Islamabad's billsand let's see how much both sides prefer that arrangement.

Our attentionshould not be oriented on the terrain controlled by the Taliban, or on the quixotic project of turning Afghanistan into a western state, but on the true sources of support for theinsurgency within the Pakistani state. We must be prepared to inflict pain on those sources in creative and unconventional ways. Afghanistan will only be secure when such men decide the pain isn't worth it anymore, or if they conclude that their support for the insurgency is having the unexpected effect of weakeningtheir regional position. If the culpable elements of thePakistani state then cease to provide succor and refuge for Afghan insurgents, a negotiated solution will become possibleand not before.

A tougher line on Pakistan could fit well into a long-term, integrated U.S. strategy for the Indo-Pacific region. In light of communist China's regional and global ambitions, New Delhi's democratic government is a natural ally for the United States. Further alignment would make sense even if we weren't already dealing with an insurgency in Afghanistan. If Pakistan insists on forcing a closer U.S. alignment with India at its own expenseso be it.

The rest is here:
Our New Afghanistan Strategy Must Get Tough on Pakistan - Washington Free Beacon (blog)

SARNIA A Sarnia family doctor who left his war-torn country says he saw the end of a hard-earned medical career flash before his eyes when he was detained by U.S. border agents and quizzed about his tribe.

Dr. Sardar Ahmad, who left Afghanistan on a prestigious Fulbright scholarship, said he was detained for more than five hours at the Blue Water Bridge, Canadas second-busiest U.S. border crossing, for reasons the Canadian citizen still isnt clear about three days later.

During his detainment Friday, Ahmad said U.S. border agents asked him what tribe he belonged to and the name of his tribe chief, whether he had seen a lot of gunmen growing up in Afghanistan and specific questions about the family he left behind there.

It was frustrating for me because I was worried, I was scared, I didnt know what was going to happen next, the 43-year-old doctor said Monday.

You never know. They could put you in jail. You could lose your career everything all, overnight.

Ahmad, who came to Canada in 2007, had been trying to cross the bridge to Michigan on Friday to visit the Nexus office.

I was scared, I didnt know what was going to happen next.

A few days earlier, Ahmad said hedreceived an email that his Nexus card to expedite border crossings had been revoked. He decided to go over on his lunch break Friday to visit the office in person.

As soon as he told the U.S. border agent his situation, Ahmad said he was pulled over, had his car keys taken from him and held for questioning for hours, all as eldeerly patients waited for him back at his clinic.

I was telling (the U.S. border agents), I need to call my clinic to at least cancel the patients, and they said, No, you cant touch the phone, Ahmad said. He noted a border agent eventually allowed him to call his clinic before he was eventually cleared but declined to enter the U.S. hours later.

In an email Monday, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson said the agency cannot discuss an individuals processing due to privacy legislation, but the CBP is committed to the fair, impartial and respectful treatment of all members of the trade and traveling public.

Ahmads ordeal comes just weeks after a Moroccan-born Canadian citizen reported being questioned about her Muslim religion and her views on U.S. President Donald Trump at a U.S. border crossing in Quebec. She was denied entry into the U.S.

Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign a new refugee and immigration travel order one anticipated to follow in the same vein of his earlier effort to ban Syrian refugees, as well as citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, from entering the U.S.

Federal judges blocked the travel ban Trump signed late last month, but a White House source has saidTrump plans to introduce a new ban with some minor technical differences but with the same basic policy outcome.

Several members of Sarnia-Lambtons Muslim community have been outspoken about fears of travelling to the U.S. in light of the proposed travel ban.

Monday, Sarnia-Lambton MP Marilyn Gladu described Ahmads experience at the border as unacceptable, but she wasnt surprised to learn of his story.

Its not the first Ive heard of these issues, she said. Weve been hearing in the House of Commons of these issues across Canada where people are being racially profiled when they go across the border.

Weve escalated this issue to the government.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has also been put on notice about the U.S. governments revocation of some Nexus cards, Gladu noted.

On Feb. 8, Goodale announced that all Canadian permanent residents who had their Nexus cards revoked because of the Trump immigration ban have now had their cards reinstated, but Gladu said Monday Ahmads experience suggests this wasnt the case.

Ahmad said he still has questions why his Nexus card was revoked, but now has no interest travelling to the U.S. where he once lived.

Born in Afghanistan, Ahmad moved to the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship through the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

He eventually moved to Canada where he completed his medical residency in Petrolia a year ago.

He said Fridays experience reminded him that he has everything in Canada. I was telling (the U.S. border agents), I dont have to go here, he said. I live in the most beautiful country in the world.

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Afghanistan-born Ontario doctor says he was questioned more than ... - National Post