Sameer Lalwani: All Publications, Events and Press

What Next for Afghanistan? | The Guardian (London)

Erin Drankoski — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:42:00 -0500

Sameer Lalwani is a research fellow at the Washington-based New America Foundation:

"I think the expectation will be for the Obama administration to leverage pressure on the Karzai government to 'clean up' his governing style but I doubt Karzai will do so, certainly not quickly," said Lalwani.

Pakistan's Other Problem Area: Baluchistan | TIME

Cecille Isidro — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:51:00 -0400

... based on their prior strategic choices," says Sameer Lalwani, a Pakistan watcher at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. ...

Pakistan Army against Taliban: What are the Waziristan goals? | Christian Science Monitor

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:20:00 -0400

... argues Sameer Lalwani, author of a new report for the New America Foundation that examines the Army's capabilities to carry out counterinsurgency. ...

AfPak | WTOP

Erin Drankoski — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:03:00 -0400

COIN vs COTE | The News (Pakistani Daily)

Erin Drankoski — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:16:00 -0400

Sameer Lalwani (whom I initially mistook for a Pakistani) has released his assessment of Pakistani capabilities for a counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign. ... Original Article

The 3-Minute Interview: Sameer Lalwani | Washington Examiner

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:20:00 -0400

Sameer Lalwani is a research fellow for the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and a contributor to the AfPak Channel at ...

Pakistan: Getting Waziristan Right This Time | Reuters

Cecille Isidro — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:30:00 -0400

Sameer Lalwani in a study for the New America Foundation says that the Pakistan Army is already overstretched with the Swat operation and lacks the capacity ...

Afghanistan (NYT Op-Ed) | New England Cable News

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:58:00 -0400

Putting the ‘I’ in Aid

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:54:00 -0400

The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is right to warn that efforts to rebuild that country depend on winning the "struggle to gain the support of the people." And few issues do more to stoke the resentment of ordinary Afghans than the tens of billions of dollars of foreign aid from which they have seen little or no benefit. They see legions of Westerners sitting in the backs of S.U.V.'s clogging the streets of Kabul and ask themselves what exactly those foreigners have done to improve their daily lives.

Novel Solution for Saving Afghanistan: Tax the Expats | Wired News

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:33:00 -0400

Writing today in the New York Times, Peter Bergen and Sameer Lalwani note that a hefty chunk of the billions in foreign aid flowing to Afghanistan is ...

Pakistan and COIN | Threat Matrix Blog

Erin Drankoski — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:28:00 -0400

Over at the New America Foundation, Sameer Lalwani has produced what I think is the best assessment out there on the problems in Pakistan's northwest and the Pakistani military's ability to counter the threat. ... Original Article

Pakistani Capabilities for a Counterinsurgency Campaign: A Net Assessment

adminn — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:35:00 -0400

Executive Summary

Afghanistan | WTOP

Erin Drankoski — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:14:00 -0400

Obama's Pakistan Problem

Erin Drankoski — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 06:17:00 -0400

During the 1980s covert campaign against the Soviets, Pakistan's General Zia ul-Haq told CIA Director William Casey that being an ally of the United States was like living on the banks of a major river—"The soil is wonderfully fertile, but every four or eight years the river changes course and you may find yourself alone in the desert." Since then, Pakistan has remained cognizant of Zia's warning and insulated itself from fully allying with the United States.

Analysis of the Afghanistan Presidential Elections | WTOP

Cecille Isidro — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:09:00 -0400

Sameer Lalwani, research fellow at New America Foundation, discusses the upcoming presidential election in Afghanistan. Original clip

Obama’s Task: Reprioritizing U.S. Foreign Policy

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:14:00 -0500

While the battered state of the economy in the days winding down to the presidential election determined the fortunes of Senator Barack Obama in his victory over Senator John McCain, it was arguably his pragmatic foreign policy vision that helped him edge out the heavily favored Senator Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

As Obama assumes the presidency in January, he will need to tap into that pragmatic foreign policy vision, trading hubris for modesty, by operating with a principle of what grand strategist Barry Posen terms “strategic restraint.” This requires reducing America's costly engagements and overextended forces and resources while prioritizing the challenges that threaten America's national security in the short and medium term. In terms of our rebalancing our engagements, the Obama administration will need to continue the drawdown of forces in Iraq, hold steady in Afghanistan, and refrain from unnecessarily deploying in other parts of the world, particularly the Darfur region of the Sudan.

In Iraq, Obama largely has it right to withdraw combat forces over 16 months given the costs that add up to over 4,000 American lives, a price tag of roughly $3 trillion, and a battered American reputation in the world. Though the surge of 2007 has been touted for security improvements, it has not improved the strategic outlook with a real path for political reconciliation and integration of forces.

Moreover, the sources of the surge's tactical success are quite varied and unclear, including factors external to the U.S. such as the stand down of the Sadr's Mahdi army, the Sunni “awakening” councils' decision to turn on al-Qaeda, and Iran wielding more constructive influence. Nevertheless, this tactical upswing, the growing strength of Iraqi armed forces, and the rising oil-revenue-generated economic prospects all provide an opportunity to declare “victory” and begin to draw down combat troop levels.

In Afghanistan, Obama must not make the mistake of transferring a “surge” strategy and deploying more troops by drawing on the wrong lessons of Iraq. As Lt. Commander Jon Lindsey writes, “Merely surging in Afghanistan in the absence of other violence-reducing factors will probably fail to deliver the desired results. It is much more important to address the hard problems -- mediation of tensions between India and Pakistan, improved coalition and interagency coordination, greater focus on non-kinetic operations -- which are independent of force ratios.”

Moreover, the mission has crept from taking out al-Qaeda and its bases to a lengthy counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban, a real political actor (whether we like it or not) which commands a fair amount of support in the southern provinces and tribal regions of Pakistan, as well as counter-narcotics operations and a wholesale re-engineering of Afghan society. At some point, scaling back will have to be considered, as efforts to “drain the swamp” have only widened it by taking on more enemies in the tribal frontiers.

As an aside, given Obama's previous statements, stability in Pakistan -- a nuclear power with more than five times the population of Afghanistan and a history of conflict with its nuclear neighbor -- is far more important than Afghanistan. Forcing concessions or cross-border incursions that weaken the Pakistani government's legitimacy or military control of their territory are simply not worth the few targets they yield. Investing in greater cooperation, joint training, and intelligence sharing would provide far greater returns to both countries.

Though both Obama and McCain both pledged greater support of the Darfur region and the issue is very dear to Obama and a number of his national security advisors, it is vital for the Obama administration to refrain from further engagements and not to get bogged down in Darfur. The political, military, financial, and reputational costs to the United States would be too great.

What is happening in Darfur is a crime against humanity, it is not a near or medium threat to the United States, which no longer has the luxury of intervening anywhere for the sake of lofty humanitarian goals given our own entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the looming threats on the horizon to which this current administration has given short shrift.

Moreover, the moral imperatives are much more complex than first sight. Sudan is fighting a brutal counterinsurgency on the cheap against armed rebels, who have refused on more than one occasion to internationally negotiated peace deals, to prevent a precedent of violent regional secession. To intervene on behalf of one side without a full appraisal of the conflict dynamics risks a moral hazard problem of encouraging further rebel resistance and prolonging the conflict.

Finally, the perception of a U.S. occupation of another Muslim Arab country would only compound our troubles in the Middle East and Islamic world, scuttle what is left of our international reputation, and provide a recruitment boon to jihadists. Bolstering the current international mission composed of African Union and United Nations forces with financial, logistical, intelligence assets, and military equipment resources (like helicopters) to ensure a ceasefire would be far better for everyone than sending in the marines.

Meanwhile, the United States needs to begin to refocus on two other pressing issues that have been on the back burner for sometime. First, we need to seriously attend to the problem of nuclear proliferation by ensuring the disablement of North Korea's nuclear reactors and halting Iranian nuclear enrichment (perhaps in exchange for a fuel bank and a small scale enrichment research lab).

The North Korean and Iranian challenges (not to mention Obama's plans for climate change and energy security) cannot be adequately addressed without the support of China and Russia, requiring us to modify our position on relations that have ranged from neglect to outright belligerence over the past eight years. Though it may appear callous at times, strategic prioritization requires steering clear of unnecessary conflicts and entanglements (even in rhetoric) over less critical regions like Georgia, Tibet or Sudan to focus on more pressing issues with wider consequences.

The other major priority is the challenge that lies in the Middle East. Reinvigorating the peace process between Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Syria by resuming America's role as an honest broker can be the game-changing move that stems the tide of instability and creates a virtuous cycle of events throughout the region. Such a move can undercut the animating backdrop of jihadist terrorists, bolster the credibility of moderate states and reform-mind leadership, defang Iran by detaching Syria and Lebanon from them, convene a contact group of regional actors to assist in stabilizing Iraq and the Gulf, and restore American leadership prestige to the region.

America's economic downturn is not a normal business cycle and will require the Obama administration to redirect attention inward to rebuilding the fundamentals of the U.S. economy, which is the bulwark of U.S. power abroad. Consequently, his administration will have to scale back U.S. commitments abroad, prioritize challenges, and focus on the greatest threats to the United States.

Obama’s Foreign Policy Toward South Asia: Some Suggestions

Cecille Isidro — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:54:00 -0400

Should an Obama-Biden administration take office in January 2009, their top foreign policy priority will have to focus on the situation in Iraq, which has consumed U.S. lives, treasure, military readiness, and credibility. They will also need to address the derivative strategic dilemmas that have both resulted from and compounded the situation in Iraq, including a resurgent Iran, a reconstituted al-Qaeda, and an Arab-Israeli peace process unraveling by the hour. But though the U.S. might seem consumed with the strategic quagmire in the Middle East, it would be wise to simultaneously attend to the risks and potential opportunities that lay waiting in South Asia.

Speaking at a conference Denver, Colorado, Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University suggested resurrecting the antiquated State Department concept of India as part of the Middle East in order to ordain it a strategic anchor that could shoulder greater regional responsibility. The current administration, with the support of Senators Barack Obama and Joe Biden, has pursued this objective partially through brokering the US-India nuclear deal. The deal seeks to remove obstacles to a strategic partnership that would allow for greater security cooperation on vital regional issues as well as provide a measure of geopolitical pluralism while China rises as a leading global power.

Since the nuclear deal recently cleared the Indian parliament and the Nuclear Supplier's Group by a hair's breadth, the next round will require significant political capital and hand-holding of the U.S. Congress and the Indian government to reassure skeptics and finalize the deal, a task akin to herding cats. Since Congress is unlikely to approve this before they break for recess at the end of September, an Obama/Biden administration would have to be committed from day one to get this through. Valid concerns still remain over the bill such as the vagueness of language and ambiguity over future testing. Ultimately, it is in the interest of both parties to secure a deal that appears to bolster rather than undermine the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Even India is concerned about proliferation and its cascading effect, particularly in its own backyard.

Despite the promise of this deal, U.S.-India relations cannot operate in a vacuum as the U.S. faces a greater challenge (and simultaneous opportunity) in Pakistan. The current administration has thus far compartmentalized its India and Pakistan policies when in fact they need to be linked to a broader regional strategy. Vice presidential candidate Sen. Biden has suggested that Pakistan poses the "real" front in the war on terror. While this is true, it has been poorly conceptualized, obscured due to a myopic focus on Afghanistan, counterterrorism tactics, and the Pakistani military as the sole interlocutors and partners.

To reconcile these tensions, the United States first needs to ditch the "war on terror" trope that has been roundly criticized for being strategically bankrupt and inviting both regional backlash and legal dilemmas. Instead, the U.S. should adopt what the former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry described at the Democratic National Convention in Denver -- a strategy of global counterinsurgency. Because counterinsurgency, as described by leading military theorists and practitioners, is 80 percent nonmilitary, the concept places a premium on political efforts to win over populations by addressing grievances and providing economic relief and development.

Next, the approach to Pakistan requires three principal tactics: 1) work closely with the Pakistan military, which continues to be one of the most professional and efficient institutions in Pakistan, to build long-term cooperation and support for the U.S. military; 2) refrain from taking political sides at the ballot box that compromises our brand, our long-term relationship, and invariably becomes the embrace of death for any Pakistani politicians; and 3) seriously start to invest in Pakistani people and institutions for the long term with much greater economic support for education, employment, and infrastructure development to afford the average Pakistani a real stake in the U.S. relationship. Sen. Biden proposed last fall for building real prospects (particularly in the poorer frontier provinces) to combat listlessness and disenfranchisement, but now his charge as vice president will be to turn that into a reality.

An outside the box maneuver would be to bring the Saudi government into the process of Pakistani development as they also have a long-term stake in combating the extremism that seeks to topple their regime. The Saudis have a spotty record in Pakistan with their track record of funding the mujahideen and radicalizing madrassas (though often aided and abetted by the U.S.). However, the Saudis have a credibility in Pakistan that the U.S. lacks. The reformist, internationalist King Abdullah has been deploying Saudi wealth from the recent oil boom into education, employment, and infrastructure investments throughout the Middle East, and might welcome the prospect of a joint U.S.-Saudi program to invest in the Pakistani development agenda.

Finally, because the strategic opportunities and dilemmas in India and Pakistan are tethered to each other, they must be approached in a comprehensive fashion. As is often said of the Middle East, one cannot address security problems in South Asia a la carte, and in this case, the path to dealing with both is by working to orchestrate an Indo-Pakistan peace deal. Such a move would quell the ever-looming threat of an escalatory nuclear exchange and alter the strategic calculus that currently incents the Pakistani military to provide some material support to the Taliban and other radical elements for strategic depth. Though the cause of the Indo-Pakistan peace process was brought further along by former Pakistani President Musharraf, the U.S. has not actively championed this front since President Clinton. A President Obama would be wise to send a Vice President Biden to begin the work on this comprehensive framework in South Asia.

One quick way to jump-start the Indo-Pakistan peace process early in an Obama administration would be to drop U.S. objections to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline, which has stalled in part due to U.S. pressure on India. This could be leveraged in exchange for some further concessions on the India nuclear deal while propping India up as a regional stabilizer in the Middle East. And the more the U.S. does to foster positive relations between Iran and its neighbors, the more likely it is to allay fears of strategic encirclement, particularly by nuclear states, which in part feeds Iran's own nuclear ambitions.

In the end, a U.S. long-term engagement in South Asia is the only way to meet pressing strategic objectives related to the Middle East and misnamed "War on Terror." Engagement on strategic cooperation, politico-economic institutional development, and the peace process is the chief interest of all parties in the region. But the primary inhibitor to this virtuous cycle of cooperation will be if this is viewed as a zero-sum game rather than a win-win proposition. If an Obama administration takes office in January, the Indian and Pakistani governments need to rise above their political infighting and meet the U.S. halfway to inaugurate a new round of regional stability.

Why We’d Miss Musharraf

Cecille Isidro — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:18:00 -0400

These are rough days for Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan’s president is beset on all sides by critical U.S. politicians and pundits, a hostile judicial establishment, a resurgent al Qaeda, and an increasingly militant religious extremist wing. Smelling weakness, two ambitious former prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, are plotting their triumphant returns from exile. Musharraf may finally be running out of options. Speculation is rampant that he may soon have no choice but to take off his military uniform and work out a power-sharing arrangement with Sharif, Bhutto, or both.

We don’t yet know how the backroom deals will work out, and Pakistani politics are notoriously difficult to predict. (To wit, Sharif landed in Islamabad on September 10th and found himself deported four hours later.) But observers can count on a couple of time-honored truths remaining true. Despite all the talk of elections and civilian rule, meaningful democracy will not emerge in Pakistan anytime soon, nor will the military abandon its grip on government. Pakistan’s military possesses much greater staying power than most U.S. analysts assume, and it will remain the most potent and important political institution in the country for the foreseeable future.

Pakistan’s 60 years of history illustrate why this is so. When India and Pakistan parted ways in 1947, most of the British Indian Army’s Muslim officers -- who constituted the bulk of the officer corps -- went to Pakistan, while the bulk of civilian expertise went to India. This set the course for the military to dominate not only decisions of national security, but also domestic policy. Much like in Egypt and Turkey, the officer corps saw itself as the vanguard of Pakistan’s modernization. Under the military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan, a Nasser or Ataturk of his day, Pakistan witnessed a period of successful leadership and economic growth in the 1960s. This was followed by Pakistan’s most disastrous period of instability under the civilian government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s father.

Today, the younger Bhutto and her successor Sharif are presenting themselves as the saviors of Pakistan’s beleaguered democratic institutions. This begs the question: How real were these institutions before Musharraf came to power? Pakistan has yet to form modern political parties that cut across clan and kinship lines. Instead, the country has produced one dynastic party, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, and a collection of local bosses and landowners, some of which make up various fragments of the Pakistan Muslim League.

Moreover, as foreign-policy analyst Anatol Lieven has noted, “All civilian governments have been guilty of corruption, election rigging and the imprisonment or murder of political opponents, in some cases to a worse degree than the military administrations that followed.” Under the 10 years of civilian rule by Bhutto’s and Sharif’s constantly warring neofeudal parties, Pakistan was a democracy in name only. Far from building democratic institutions, their governments -- bereft of competence and riddled with corruption -- consistently undermined them. Bhutto was run out of the country for skimming millions off the top of government contracts; Sharif orchestrated the storming of the Supreme Court by street thugs as he was being tried for contempt. In an effort to efface their legacies, both former prime ministers are hoping to duck the legal charges that await them upon their return.

If only in contrast, the military fairly exudes bureaucratic efficiency and meritocracy. The Musharraf government has presided over Pakistan’s most successful economy, averaging 7 percent annual growth over the past five years. Compare this with the anemic 3 percent average in the 1990s under civilian rule. True, the military is diverting more state patronage into its own coffers these days. But arguably the military, instilled with a sense of loyalty to the state largely absent from civilian governments, remains more restrained in its corruption and graft. Indeed, Pakistani generals probably do more to circulate patronage to the lower ranks than their bureaucratic counterparts.

Some in Washington believe that civilian leaders would do more to crack down on Islamist militants and better cooperate with U.S. counterterrorism efforts on the Afghan-Pakistani border. That’s a false hope: Civil-military relations and national-security decision-making cannot change overnight. In the past, civilian governments have deferred to the Army to manage civil unrest, especially in the frontier provinces. And as it did with nuclear weapons development, the military often acts without the full knowledge of civilian leaders.

A deeply unpopular United States and the prevailing ethnic fissures also render it politically untenable for a civilian government to do Washington’s bidding. Neither Bhutto nor Sharif will crack down on the tribal regions, whatever promises they are privately making these days. Nor will Bhutto or Sharif challenge the military’s strategic calculus, which is to hedge against Indian encirclement via Afghanistan and U.S. abandonment of Pakistan, as occurred in the early 1990s. Like it or not, the military is the player that matters when it comes to such vital U.S. interests as fighting al Qaeda, stabilizing Afghanistan, and stemming nuclear proliferation -- but military leaders are increasingly nervous that the United States will desert them again.

Rather than embracing false harbingers of democracy, the United States should deepen its ties with the Pakistani military through further commitments in funding, joint officer training, and intelligence sharing in order to procure the full support of the military leadership against the Taliban and al Qaeda. And for Pakistan’s people, the U.S. government needs to do more to channel visible development aid and encourage the growth of real democratic institutions instead of feudal patronage networks like those of Bhutto and Sharif.

With all the political maneuvering going on, it will be difficult for U.S. policymakers to resist their democratic impulses. Instinctually, it feels wrong to back a military leader over his civilian rivals -- and the charges of hypocrisy will sting. Pakistan’s troubles, however, require much more than quick fixes such as elections and power-sharing deals. The question is, does the United States have the patience to stay engaged for the long haul? There’s a first time for everything.

The War on Poppies

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 02:41:00 -0400

Stepping onto the balcony of the governor’s mansion in Uruzgan in southern Afghanistan, you quickly grasp the scale of the drug problem gripping the country. Beginning at the walls of the mansion and stretching as far as the eye can see are hundreds of acres of poppy fields ready for harvesting for opium sap, pretty much the only way to earn a living in poverty-stricken Uruzgan.

In late April, at the height of poppy-growing season, a team of more than 200 police officers from Kabul led by contractors working for the American company DynCorp International arrived in Uruzgan to undertake the first eradication efforts in the province. After some tense negotiations with local officials, the teams went out to begin destroying the poppy fields. For two days, nothing much happened, mostly because of a dispute about which fields were to be eradicated. But on the third day, when the work was getting underway in earnest, a Taliban-led force bearing small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars appeared from nowhere and attacked the eradication teams as they destroyed the fields. Four Afghan police officers were seriously injured.

The Uruzgan attack demonstrated, for those who hadn’t yet figured it out, just how the Taliban is seeking to exploit popular resentment against eradication efforts. All across the country, Afghan support for poppy cultivation is on the upswing; 40% of Afghans now consider it acceptable if there is no other way to earn a living, and in the southwest, where much of the poppy crop is grown, two out of three people say it is acceptable. In Uruzgan’s neighboring province, Helmand -- which supplies about half the world’s opium, the raw material for heroin -- favorable ratings for the Taliban now run as high as 27% (compared with 10% in the whole of Afghanistan).

Instead of taking such findings to heart, the Bush administration’s counter-narcotics policy over the last three years has placed eradication at its center, even though it has been met with growing Afghan skepticism and, in some cases, violence, and has coincided with a general decline in public support for the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan. Why is the policy so unpopular? Consider that Afghanistan’s farmers will produce an estimated 9,000 tons of opium this year from 477,000 acres, according to a United Nations report released last week, and that the total farm value of the crop will be about $1 billion. Most farmers who cultivate poppies do so because few other options -- either alternative crops or alternative livelihoods -- exist in their part of the world. You simply cannot eviscerate the livelihoods of the estimated 3 million Afghans who grow poppies and not expect a backlash.

What’s more, our policy is not effective. Though the U.S. spends about the same amount on counter-narcotics activities in Afghanistan annually as all Afghan poppy farmers combined take home in a year, our policies have not prevented record-setting poppy crops from springing up with every succeeding year, nor have they prevented Afghanistan from becoming a quasi-narcostate where corruption is rampant. Last week’s U.N. report said Afghanistan continues to be the center of the world’s heroin trade, accounting for 93% of global opium production. It noted a 17% spike in poppy cultivation in the last year, on the heels of a record 59% rise the year before.

The U.S. government, in short, is deeply committed to an unsuccessful drug policy that helps its enemies. The Taliban derives not only substantial financial benefits from the opium trade, according to U.S. military officials in Afghanistan, but wins political benefits from its supportive stance on poppy growing, masterfully exploiting situations in which U.S.-sponsored eradication forces are pitted against poor farmers.

Eradication has also become a wedge in the fragile relationship of the NATO countries that are part of the coalition in Afghanistan. Many European countries, including the Dutch, who have forces stationed in Uruzgan, oppose the American eradication policy. The U.S. needs its NATO partners to maintain the legitimacy of the multinational force in Afghanistan. Holding to a failed eradication policy threatens those relationships.

In early August, the U.S. State Department presented its updated counter-narcotics strategy for Afghanistan. For the most part, the proposal offered few new initiatives other than a welcome emphasis on cracking down on drug kingpins. At its center, the strategy still depends on eradication efforts, along with veiled hints that the U.S. government may also pursue aerial chemical spraying, a tactic that many fear will further alienate the Afghan population. The increased funds set aside in the new plan to help farmers find alternative livelihoods -- $50 million to $60 million -- are woefully inadequate and constitute a paltry 6% of American counter-narcotics spending in Afghanistan for 2007. Eradication continues to receive the largest share of the budget.

The State Department strategy misses the forest for the trees. The priority of the United States and NATO should be first to thwart the Taliban insurgency while bettering the lives of typical Afghans through significant economic and reconstruction efforts to win hearts and minds. Doing nothing on the poppy front would do more to achieve this goal than the counterproductive eradication path the U.S. currently pursues. The U.S. should adopt a "first do no harm" policy that temporarily suspends eradication while implementing a promising portfolio of new initiatives to build up alternatives for farmers.

To begin with, the U.S. needs to invest in building up the legitimate Afghan economy. Though poppy fetches much higher prices than most other crops, subsidies, price supports and seeds for alternative crops should be offered to offset that price gap. Because other crops often face pitfalls such as the absence of distributors, domestic demand or consistent prices abroad, the international community should help Kabul set up an agency, modeled on the Canadian Wheat Board, that would purchase crops from farmers at consistent prices, and market and distribute them internationally. The U.S. and other NATO countries should open their markets and extend trade preferences to Afghan agricultural products and handicrafts.

Currently, the U.S. funds alternative livelihoods at one-third the rate of eradication efforts -- and the money is still not making its way into the pockets of farmers. Because of bureaucratic inefficiencies, only 1% of the $100 million in funds for alternative livelihoods had been disbursed as of March, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. One reason for this is that the Afghan narcotics ministry lacks the staff and skills to quickly and effectively disburse funds. So the task should be outsourced -- in the same manner the U.S. outsources its eradication efforts to private companies like DynCorp -- until the Afghan government develops the capacity to get the job done.

The U.S. and NATO should also endorse a pilot project proposed by the Senlis Council, an international nongovernmental organization with offices in southern Afghanistan, to harness poppy cultivation for the production of legal medicinal opiates such as morphine for sale to countries, such as Brazil, that are in short supply of cheap pain drugs for patients.

The U.S. must stop targeting poor farmers and focus on the traffickers who make the bulk of the profits from heroin. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents on the ground should step up efforts to interrupt money-laundering networks and interdict labs and shipments. The DEA should also turn Afghanistan’s shame-based culture to its advantage by making public the list of top Afghan drug suspects, including government officials, as it did in the 1990s, when it publicized the names of Colombia’s drug kingpins.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Council on Foreign Relations estimate that the elimination of narcotics from the Afghan economy will take well over a decade. Given that time frame, our counter-narcotics policy needs to be guided by a clear strategic purpose -- providing security and defeating the Taliban. These are not simple drug dealers but narcoterrorists with a political agenda. A "first do no harm" approach would ensure that battling the drug trade does not compromise the fight against the terrorists.

Reframing the Arab Reform Agenda

Cecille Isidro — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:40:00 -0400

A growing strain of opinion suggests the reform project in the Arab world is dead and consequently the United States should revive democracy promotion in the Middle East. Whether attributed to the rise in oil prices, the outbreak of sectarianism, or America’s lackluster performance in Iraq, the requiem for Arab reform may be premature.

Modernization of both Arab culture and the Arab state began long before US engagement after 9/11 and it continues today independent of the "West." And most Middle East commentators, save a few like my colleague Afshin Molavi, have not bothered to capture the economic promise that resides in this gradualist reform model.

Take the case of Saudi Arabia. Symbols like veiled women prohibited from driving permeate our conception of Saudi society, but these images often overshadow major advances like the fact that women compose nearly 60% of higher education students (rivaling, if not outdistancing the U.S.).

Moreover, skeptics have been slow to acknowledge how deftly King Abdullah has maneuvered in such a short period of time, steering Saudi Arabia’s entrance into the World Trade Organization, cutting import duties, privatizing telecommunications and preparing to liberalize the airline industry. Even less attention has been paid to his striking $200 billion venture to develop new cities and economic zones. McKinsey & Associates notes that in the long-run, Saudi Arabia’s diversified investment in seven major economic cities spread throughout the country will decentralize power away from the conservative heartland surrounding Riyadh, provide sought-after work and residence for nearly 10 percent of its population, and transform the country into a modern, investor-driven economy.

Critics have thoroughly savaged Egypt for its dubious elections and constitutional reforms but few have recognized the import of the recent mortgage finance laws passed in 2006 which could reestablish a vibrant middle class. Business Today Egypt heralded the breakthrough writing, "Mortgages could revolutionize not just the financial system, but also the nation’s very social fabric."

Morocco has initiated an extensive revamp of its public university system in conjunction with the French government and World Bank that will bear undeniable political dimensions and implications. Even in Syria economic reforms have picked up speed -- corporate tax rates were cut this year by 30%, the government is preparing to float bonds for the first time ever, and its country rating has jumped 40 spots on the World Bank’s indicator for the ease of starting a business.

These reforms fall quite in line with expressed Arab demands. Zogby polling from 2004 revealed the Arab world ranked quality of life issues -- employment, healthcare, education -- far higher than the lofty political issues the U.S. was trumpeting. Though non-democratic states are falsely caricatured as completely unaccountable to their constituents, public opinion matters a great deal to Arab states and determines how they govern. Arab opinion has demanded tangible economic reforms that improve daily life and governments are beginning to deliver with more jobs, expanded access to credit and lending, and greater opportunities for higher education.

Undoubtedly both governments and their constituents recognize they have a long way to go, but rather than tearing up the existing political order, they have undertaken a gradualist approach to revamp the social contract. And while support for U.S. economic assistance exists in some countries, there is a wholesale rejection, according to Arab public opinion polls, of U.S. involvement in political reform. One thing is certain -- Arab governments are listening more intently to their people than we are. And as Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, notes, "The easiest way to sideline a reform is to claim that it is pro-American."

While our political reform efforts are viewed with suspicion and are consequently ineffective, we still retain a comparative advantage on the economic reform track which does not threaten Arab states and in fact can complement state-led reforms.

Support for economic reform below the radar can yield eventual political dividends. Arab states are not in need of funds so much as the know-how and expertise to develop sophisticated financial instruments. Thus a USAID team has been assisting Egypt to develop the mortgage finance framework based on global best practices. This will help strengthen the modern Egyptian middle class through credit and home ownership.

The U.S. should do more to develop and fund imaginative ways of bolstering economic reforms so as to help create a social basis for future democracy. At present, unfortunately, the only groups popular and well-organized enough to win elections in the near term are the Islamist parties. As a matter of sequencing, broadening the middle class will expand the constituency for reform and develop other parties with real grassroots networks that can eventually compete in the electoral arena.

It is important to remind ourselves that recent U.S. democracy promotion in the Middle East was part of a strategic calculus. Tethered to the (faulty) national security plan of "draining the swamp" that produced 9/11, it was intended to eliminate extremist threats. This being the case, democracy promotion cannot be treated as an absolute goal, but must be balanced against other strategic priorities in the region.

Our strategic ties with present authoritarian Arab states remain both vital and fragile. We depend on them for intelligence cooperation against al Qaeda, suppression of Islamist radicalism, limiting popular anti-Americanism, and containing Iran. Undermining these vital U.S. allies by sermonizing over democracy will serve nobody’s interests, especially when most ordinary Arabs do not regard democracy as their most important interest.

By contrast, enabling economic reforms with a view to building modern middle classes as a foundation for real long-term democracy benefits both our partners and us.