Aboard The Democracy Train

WASHINGTON, March 29 — This year, America’s war in Afghanistan will pass a grim milestone as it surpasses the Civil War in duration, as measured against the final withdrawal of Union forces from the South. Only the conflict in Vietnam lasted longer. United States troops have been in Afghanistan since October 2001 as part of a force that peaked at nearly 140,000 troops (of which about 100,000 were American) and is estimated to have cost the taxpayers at least $783 billion.

Despite this heavy expenditure, the United States commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., recently called for a modest troop increase to prevent a deteriorating stalemate. The fall of Sangin in Helmand Province to the Taliban this month is a tactical loss that may be reversed, but it certainly suggests the situation is getting worse. With the Trump administration’s plan to increase the military budget while slashing the diplomatic one, there is a risk that American policy toward Afghanistan will be defined in purely military terms.

Absent from the current debate is a clear statement of our objectives — and a way to end the Afghan war while preserving the investment and the gains we have made, at the cost of some 2,350 American lives. It has always been clear to senior military officers like Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was the American commander in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, as well as to diplomats like me, that the war could end only through a political settlement, a process through which the Afghan government and the Taliban would reconcile their differences in an agreement also acceptable to the international community.

The challenges of bringing about such a reconciliation are formidable, but the basic outline of a deal is tantalizingly obvious. Despite more than 15 years of warfare, the United States has never had a fundamental quarrel with the Taliban per se; it was the group’s hosting of Al Qaeda that drove our intervention after the Sept. 11 attacks. For its part, the Taliban has never expressed any desire to impose its medieval ideology outside of Afghanistan, and certainly not in the United States.

The core Afghan government requirements for a settlement are that the Taliban ceases violence, breaks with international terrorism and accepts the Afghan Constitution. The Taliban, for its part, insists that all foreign forces withdraw. No doubt, both sides have additional desiderata, but the basic positions do not seem unbridgeable. This is particularly the case now that the Islamic State has emerged in Afghanistan, in conflict with both the government and the Taliban.

Under President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan government has supported reconciliation efforts. And there is no question that ordinary Afghans overwhelmingly support peace, even as most also oppose a return of the Taliban’s brutal regime of the 1990s.

At its heart, the Afghan conflict is between rural traditionalists and urban modernizers, and this has been the case since Afghan Communists seized power in 1978. However, regional powers have also played a predatory role.
Pakistan’s cynical support for the Taliban is merely the most visible of the hedging strategies that various neighbors, including the Iranians and the Russians, have adopted to ensure that they have some armed Afghan faction beholden to their interests. A comprehensive political settlement would remove the security dilemma that drives these counterproductive interventions.

So what is the way forward for an Afghan peace process?

The first step is clear, and has come close to fruition over the years. The Taliban should be allowed to open an office, most likely in Doha, Qatar, to conduct peace talks with the Afghan government. This was very nearly accomplished in 2013, but the Taliban overreached by raising its flag and putting up signs identifying the office as representing the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” The American government and the Afghan government, under President Hamid Karzai, rightly rejected these trappings of an embassy, and the deal collapsed.

All potential partners, including the government of Qatar, have learned the lessons of that debacle and have every incentive to avoid repeating it. This is an area for quiet diplomacy, led by the United States.

Once talks begin, our government will have to define its position. Even after all these years of fighting, the United States sometimes deludes itself into thinking it is not a party to the conflict; the Taliban believes otherwise. In coordination with our Afghan allies, the United States should be prepared to put on the table the conditions under which we would consider pulling our forces out of Afghanistan. Any withdrawal would have to be phased in response to the Taliban’s living up to its commitments, including guarantees that Afghan territory will never be used to enable attacks on America.

The more difficult aspect of the discussion will be among the Afghans themselves as they address the central issues that have divided them for decades. The American position should be to ensure there is no backsliding from the progress Afghanistan has made on human rights, including women’s rights, and constitutional government.

Since there have been no negotiations yet, it is difficult to assess what the Taliban’s actual demands would be. Their concern about the Afghan Constitution may be simply that they were not a party to its drafting. Like other countries’ constitutions, Afghanistan’s can be amended.

The United States must remain committed throughout to strengthening the Afghan state, including support for the Afghan Army, so that the Afghan government delegation has a strong negotiating position. Any final settlement would have to include the terms under which the Taliban enters the political system under the Constitution, specific arrangements to ensure that Afghan territory would not be used to attack others and regional commitments to end proxy warfare on Afghan territory.

I hold no brief for the Taliban — two of my friends were murdered by the group. It is brutal and indiscriminate in its violence, and its position on women’s rights has rightly been condemned by the international community. But these are not good arguments for perpetuating conflict in one of the world’s poorest countries. That would not only be a disservice to the Afghan people, but would also probably be unsupportable among the American people.
We have a president who believes in the art of a deal. We should negotiate a hard bargain with the Taliban.
Richard G. Olson was the United States ambassador to Pakistan from 2012 to 2015 and the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2015 to 2016.

DUBAI, March 25: Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

1.1 million people are expected to pass through the busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports’ senior vice president for communications Anita Mehra said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Dubai-based Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai. In an attempt to appease its customers, the airline announced it would be offering complimentary packing and shipping services at gates to enable passengers to use their electronic devices after check-in and until boarding.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

The US ban affects nine airlines from eight countries: Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

“All Etihad Airways guests travelling to the United States clear US Immigration and Customs at the US Preclearance facility in Terminal 3, the only one of its kind in the Middle East,” read a statement emailed to AFP.

“When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again.”

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.

The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.

Baghdad, March 24: The American-led military coalition in Iraq said Friday that it was investigating reports that scores of civilians — perhaps as many as 200, residents said — had been killed in recent American airstrikes in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city at the center of an offensive to drive out the Islamic State.

If confirmed, the series of airstrikes would rank among the highest civilian death tolls in an American air mission since the United States went to war in Iraq in 2003. And the reports of civilian deaths in Mosul came immediately after two recent incidents in Syria, where the coalition is also battling the Islamic State from the air, in which activists and local residents said dozens of civilians had been killed.

Taken together, the surge of reported civilian deaths raised questions about whether once-strict rules of engagement meant to minimize civilian casualties were being relaxed under the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight the Islamic State more aggressively.

American military officials insisted on Friday that the rules of engagement had not changed. They acknowledged, however, that American airstrikes in Syria and Iraq had been heavier in an effort to press the Islamic State on multiple fronts.

Col. John J. Thomas, a spokesman for the United States Central Command, said that the military was seeking to determine whether the explosion in Mosul might have been prompted by an American or coalition airstrike, or was a bomb or booby trap placed by the Islamic State.

“It’s a complicated question, and we’ve literally had people working nonstop throughout the night to understand it,” Colonel Thomas said in an interview. He said the explosion and the reasons behind it had “gotten attention at the highest level.”

As to who was responsible, he said, “at the moment, the answer is: We don’t know.”

Iraqi officers, though, say they know exactly what happened: Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi, a commander of the Iraqi special forces, said that the civilian deaths were a result of a coalition airstrike that his men had called in, to take out snipers on the roofs of three houses in a neighborhood called Mosul Jidideh. General Saadi said the special forces were unaware that the houses’ basements were filled with civilians.

“After the bombing we were surprised by the civilian victims,” the general said, “and I think it was a trap by ISIS to stop the bombing operations and turn public opinion against us.”

General Saadi said he had demanded that the coalition pause its air campaign to assess what happened and to take stricter measures to prevent more civilian victims. Another Iraqi special forces officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that there had been a noticeable relaxing of the coalition’s rules of engagement since President Trump took office.

Before, Iraqi officers were highly critical of the Obama administration’s rules, saying that many requests for airstrikes were denied because of the risk that civilians would be hurt. Now, the officer said, it has become much easier to call in airstrikes.

Some American military officials had also chafed at what they viewed as long and onerous White House procedures for approving strikes under the Obama administration. Mr. Trump has indicated that he is more inclined to delegate authority for launching strikes to the Pentagon and commanders in the field.

This is the second time this week that the military has opened an investigation into civilian deaths reported to have been caused by American airstrikes. On Tuesday, Central Command said it was investigating an American airstrike in Syria on March 16 that officials said killed dozens of Qaeda operatives at a meeting place that activists and local residents maintain was part of a religious complex.

Pentagon officials said that intelligence had indicated that Al Qaeda used the partly constructed community meeting hall as a gathering place and as a place to educate and indoctrinate fighters.

This is indefensibly sloppy work by the military, and as the Commander-in-Chief will not take responsibility for his actions.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 49 people had been killed in what the group described as a massacre of civilians who were undergoing religious instruction in an assembly hall and dining area for worshipers. The group has produced photos taken at the site after the strike that show a black sign outside a still-standing adjoining structure that identified it as part of the Omar ibn al-Khatab mosque.

Chris Woods, director of the observatory, a nonprofit group that monitors civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, said that in March alone the number of reported civilian fatalities has shot up to 1,058, from 465 in December, the last full month of the Obama administration.

“We don’t know whether that’s a reflection of the increased tempo of the campaign or whether it reflects changes in the rules of engagement,” he said. But, he added, the recent spike in numbers “does suggest something has shifted.”

American military officials said that what has shifted is that the Iraqi military, backed by the American-led coalition, is in the middle of its biggest fight so far — the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

In particular, the campaign for West Mosul has involved block-by-block fighting in an urban environment.
“There’s been no loosening of the rules of engagement,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “There are three major offensives going on right now, at the same time,” he said, citing the battle for West Mosul; the encirclement of Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State’s de facto capital; and the fight for the Tabqa Dam in Syria.
Captain Davis said that the investigation was looking into whether Islamic State fighters were responsible for the explosion in Mosul, or if an airstrike set something off.

“There are other people on the battlefield, too,” he said. “It’s close quarters.”

American officials said that even the timing of the strike was still in question. Col. Joseph E. Scrocca, a spokesman for the American-led command in Baghdad, said in a statement Friday that the strike under investigation happened between March 17 and Thursday.

The civilian death toll in Mosul was already widely described as heavy on account of Islamic State snipers and bombs, and intensified urban fighting in which artillery has been used. But there have been numerous reports from witnesses, including rescue workers and residents fleeing the fighting, about bodies being buried under rubble after heavy air bombardment.

Many of the reports centered on the Mosul Jidideh neighborhood, where residents said airstrikes hit a number of houses in recent days, killing dozens, including many children.

Capt. Ahmed Nuri, a soldier with Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces, who work closely with the American military and call in airstrikes, said on Thursday that his men, facing heavy sniper fire, helped collect five bodies from the rubble of a destroyed home. He said four of them were brothers — named Ali, Omar, Khalid and Saad — whose bodies were delivered to their grieving mother.

The mother, Captain Nuri said, identified the fifth dead body as that of an Islamic State sniper who had been firing at advancing Iraqi forces from the roof of their house.

Local officials have reacted with outrage at the latest civilian deaths, warning that they will make it more difficult to fully take the city, and will alienate civilians still in Mosul, whom the Iraqi government is counting on for assistance.

“The repeated mistakes will make the mission to liberate Mosul from Daesh harder, and will push civilians still living under Daesh to be uncooperative with the security forces,” said Abdulsattar Alhabu, the mayor of Mosul, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Mr. Alhabu estimated that at least 200 civilians had been killed in airstrikes in recent days in Mosul.