Soon after the Taliban’s fall, the State Department sent one of its most intrepid diplomats, Ryan Crocker, to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
He had already served as ambassador to Kuwait, Lebanon, and Syria; he went on to serve in Pakistan, and in Iraq during the “surge.” He then retired and was enjoying a deanship at Texas A&M University. But President Obama asked him to return to Kabul a year ago, and Crocker thought he could not refuse.
This month, the 63-year-old Crocker will retire again, this time for health reasons, leaving Kabul in a crucial period of transition as the United States prepares to withdraw most of its troops by the end of 2014. I spoke to him by phone Thursday about what he has achieved and Afghanistan’s future.
“There is every chance” that some U.S. troops will remain as advisers after 2014, he told me. He stressed that continued U.S. economic and military aid will be essential to keep Afghanistan stable after our troop drawdown. He also said that there will not be “some kind of grand bargain with (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar” to stop the Afghan fighting, but that the Afghan government can win over individual Taliban leaders.
But first, the ambassador wanted to talk about the invaluable work that U.S. civilians have done on the war front.
Crocker presided over a surge of U.S. civilian personnel aimed at helping Afghan officials deliver better governance. He bristles at claims (mine included) that diplomats and aid workers are cut off from their Afghan counterparts, or have failed to make a difference.
“When I first got here in January 2002,” Crocker says, “9 percent of Afghans had access to health care. There were 20,000 mobile phones. Now there are 16 million mobile subscribers and more than 60 percent of Afghans live within an hour’s walk of health care.
“The number of students is up to eight million in a decade. We increased life expectancy by a decade in the last nine years. This is not nothing.”
Crocker says he made an immediate effort in 2011 to “get the right people in the right places.” He says his civilian staff regularly travels “outside the wire” to visit Afghan counterparts and inspect projects.
Some observers say the State Department needs a special corps of experienced officers for combat zones who would serve longer tours and have advanced language training. Crocker says such a corps “is already happening” through self-selection. Many civilians now stay longer or serve multiple tours.
“I have one person on her eighth year,” he says, referring to Deborah Alexander, who has served as a liaison with military colleagues in many provinces. She has lived in tents, a mud hut, and a shipping container, and worked with Afghans ranging from provincial governors to village women. Others join up as civilians after military tours in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Of course, many observers question whether economically pinched Western governments will continue aiding a corrupt Afghan government after 2014. Crocker warns what would happen after an aid cutoff: “Afghanistan collapsed after the Soviet withdrawal (in 1989) when the money stopped. No one wants to see history repeat itself. If we have to ante up a little more than intended, it is still pretty cheap insurance.”
The ambassador had just returned from Tokyo, where an international donor’s conference pledged $16 billion for Afghan economic development over the next four years. “Read the Tokyo document,” Crocker advised. It requires the Afghan government to reduce corruption before receiving all of the money. He insists that “there is a chance for improvement on corruption,” but it’s a long-term project.
Crocker also believes it is essential for NATO countries to continue financing Afghanistan’s security forces. Will those forces hold together after U.S. troops leave? They will fight, Crocker says, “as long as they feel they are fighting for something and as long as they are getting paid.”
One of Crocker’s major achievements was a strategic partnership agreement that opens the door for a limited number of U.S. forces after 2014 — details to be negotiated. “I think there is every chance that post-2014 we will continue to have a presence here,” Crocker says, “certainly to advise and assist.”
He thinks the Afghans will agree because they “know they face a real threat” from Taliban forces harbored by Pakistan. “We can’t assume that situation will change,” he added. He also stressed the need to resume a “high-level strategic dialogue” with Pakistan.
Crocker is skeptical about the prospects for a broad peace agreement with the Taliban, despite U.S. efforts to engage them over the last year. “There will be no negotiated deal with Mullah Omar,” he says. “It wouldn’t work here. You have a fractured, divided Taliban.”
He doubts that the Pakistan-based Haqqani faction of the Taliban, which is fighting U.S. troops in eastern Afghanistan, will ever reconcile. “We will have to find ways to kill as many Haqqanis as we can,” he says. He is more hopeful about getting “some significant number of (other) Taliban leaders willing to reconcile,” as well as getting foot soldiers to change sides.
Crocker stressed the importance of a recent encounter at a peace forum in Kyoto, Japan, between a high-ranking Taliban and a senior adviser to Karzai. He says the Taliban will eventually have to bargain with Kabul, not with the Americans.
“We haven’t talked to the Taliban in months,” he noted. “It has to be an Afghan deal.”
But Ryan Crocker won’t be around to help facilitate any deal. He is heading back to Washington, and then to Texas and academia. Unless he gets another desperate White House call for help.
• Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Comments (15)
Add commentGlad to hear...
...our hundreds of billions in tax dollars are providing some small benefit to citizens of another country...
and what a bargain they will have!
“the Taliban will eventually have to bargain with Kabul, not with the Americans.”
I like that; sums it up nicely. We negotiate with a machine-pistol in easy access. They will haggle with one another over who gets his fair share of our assurance dollars.
There seems to be a general acceptance
From this article, from listening to speakers regarding Afghanistan, looking at the history of the nation and the Karzai family, and reading other articles there seems to be a general, almost world-wide agreement that the greatest problem in Afghanistan is corruption.
A group known as "Transparency International" ranks nations on the basis of what appears to be corruption - or "perception of corruption." New Zealand ranks #1 for transparency and minimum corruption. The US is ranked # 24. Pakistan is # 124 Afghanistan is near the bottom of the list as #180, meaning it appears to be one of the most corrupt governments in the world.
Though there are indications of some success in reducing injustice in Afghanistan, and improvement in education and human rights, should we be asking citizens of our nation to spend hundreds of billions of dollars, the lives of our young people for many more years in sort of a "black hole" of corruption? I personally think that is the question a lot of Americans have.
To Wally
transparency does not apply to AF. It is quite simply a world apart from our western sensibilities and we are as arrogant as they are corrupt when it comes to assessing the cultural rift.
What works in AF only works in AF and if we entertain the idea that we can change them, get them to come around to our sensibilities, we will eventually fold. Because the law in AF cannot be broken - it's not sharia, it's not martial; it runs thru their marrow and they all understand it. We dont get it.
I have never met more fiercely loyal nor vengeful people than Afghanis.
Grendel, generall I agree
When you say it "runs through their marrow" it seems to be a way of describing their culture and tradition. It is common to people and societies around the world, past and present.
That is why, I think that sending hundreds of billions of dollars, having thousands of U.S. military ending their lives there, and to do so isn't the answer. We are not going to change what "runs through their marrow."
Afghanistan has a long, long history, it has its own "ups and downs" its own problems as a sovereign nation.
In my opinion it is time to pull out our troops, give aid to the nation as a nation, not to a very corrupt group that now is trying to control the country.
The US can't be the "nation builder" of the world for generations to come. We must allow other nations find their own solutions. Over two hundred years ago, immigrants living in the colonies of North America, rose up and created a nation. It was about the same time the people in France were saying "enough is enough." It may be time for us to remove ourselves and let them decide their future.
I'm on board, Wally,
except that we need the assurance that tomorrow's batch of knuckleheads doesnt spring up from what we've left behind in AF.
We have done a thorough job of confusing the Afghanis. Part of it is the change over of our own administrations in midstream, but where that was felt most was on the ground. Time was we could move into an area, pick out the Honcho, strike an arrangement, and move out. Now no one will step up to work with us because we've announced we're gone in 2 yrs and they all have phenomenal memories.
And you're right, "national building" is a bad model. Time was we vilified the term because it was demeaning to the natives. Now it's our quik exit policy - leave them with a feeble and barely recognized western-style construct, and throw some $$$ at them on our way to the tarmac, wish them well.
Grendel
When you say "leave them with a feeble and barely recognized western-style construct" seems to nullify what you wrote earlier. Maybe the people of Afghanistan don't want a "western-style construct" of government for their nation. Maybe they want their form of government, they want to live in their own culture and tradition as natives and residents of their region.
Yes, I agree, perhaps we have done a "thorough job of confusing the Afghan people" because we supposedly went there to get revenge on the Al Queda and Bin Laden in retaliation for the attack on the United States on 9/11 a decade ago. It seems our plan now is to remain there, give them billions of dollars, keep our troops there to impose a "western-style construct" of government. Now that Bin Laden is dead, isn't it time to pull out of Afghanistan, and tell them we, and other nations will try to help them build their nation as long as they eradicate as much as they can of the corruption in their present government?
I certainly hope that you understand not only the people of Afghanistan, but the history of their nation and the revolution that took place years ago, and what the Karzai family is trying to establish now.
Wally - we HAVE to leave something
we've thrown too much $$$ and lost too many Americans to leave without planting some token stamp -- but that's for our domestic consumption. It's politics, nothing more. Better to forget about helping the Afghani, but keep an eye on him.
I do understand the Afghani: he loves his rocks. We may have better rocks, but he will never love our rocks. What's more, the only thing better than his rocks are his cousin's rocks. And likewise.
Grendel
Apparently you know much more about individual, living Afghans than I do.
Sometime, though, as Americans we have to say not just to Afghans, but to others around the world that "We are not the saviors of the world." Now we may have the greatest and most expensive military in the world, but like the old Roman Empire, we can't be everywhere trying to impose our way of life on others. Military force is not the answer to world peace on a very small planet in space with a booming world population, climate change and economic globalization... and our own homeland and our people.
We have to find a "better way."
Grendel
About two thousand years ago, Rome was an empire. They had military forces on station from the Indus River (India) across what we call the Mideast today, through Europe up to northern England.
In the Mideast, specifically Israel, a young Jewish rebel arose whom we today call Jesus. He was crucified because he opposed the Roman military domination of his homeland and those who supported the Roman control.
TheRomans formed the "Pax Romana" the Peace of Rome as it was called, so that members of their empire could move across lands around the world as Romans. St. Paul was one of those. They apparently thought it was the greatest form of government in the world.
Then over a few centuries, the Romans found that they could no longer pay or support their military forces spread across much of the known world. Slowly they began to withdraw their forces or employ "babarians" to serve under them. Finally, the Roman Empire collapsed. And "barbarians" began to move around and across Europe, establishing their own "nations" with their languages, cultures, traditions. Eventually, through battles, plagues and a host of problems, one by one they emerged as "sovereign nations.'
This all "history" to many. But it is a lesson as well for us today.
Today the U.S. has troops around the world. We spend almost half of our national income on "defense." It is not the defense of our nation, but the defense of our empire, defense that we think that we are the greatest nation in the world.
Yet the world population is growing rapidly. People some consider "barbarians" are starting to move about, simply to survive. They bring with them, as they expand, different ideas, different cultural traditions, different religions and beliefs. They are emigrating and immigrating in a global economic system.
Yet here in the US the demand is that we spend almost half of our income to continue our military presence around the world. It is called "national defense," but it is really an attempt to be the "world's leader." We strive now to have a "Pax Washington" where all that many members of our nation believe is the one way of life that all others must accept. Like it or not, some seem to think that "our way is the only way" and want to use military force to enforce that belief.
We have to understand what we must learn from history. We have to accept the facts that we have learned from ten years of trying to impose the "Pax Washington" on the people of Afghanistan.
It is a time of political turmoil in the United States as we approach the 2012 national and state elections. We should not be confused by all the political rhetoric and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in advertising through the media.
We, as adults and voters need to decide if we want to be the new Roman Empire in decline, or those who want to move into a new world that is emerging.
Afghanistan, and the decisions made there, are a clue to which direction we as a nation will go.
Amazing back and forth
Amazing back and forth discussion. I'd love to witness this type of conversation over a beer or around a fire. Maybe calypso and Jo could come to add some 'color' and well, every good debate needs an antagonist. :p
@wally - America does not
@wally - America does not build empires with her military, she liberates...
@stu - I'll come to the gathering but I'm not sitting next to jo!
To Wally
1. Good morning;
2. America has not been about conquest, at least not since we seized what is now these united states and disenfranchised the locals. Bygones;
3. I share Calypso's sentiment to an extent, but there's more to 20th and 21th century US foreign policy: we necessarily have global interests and must flex our global influence --
4. partly owing to our domestic appetites, largely owing to the commitments we've made to guarantee our security;
5. that's why we'll go into a backwater former Yugoslav province to defend the Kosovars - NATO, or a desperate East African cess-pool like Somalia - UN.
6. But some of our overseas exploits are legacy to the fact that we got out of WWII relatively unscathed - I mean, we were spared annihilation - so we emerged positioned to assume world power status and we exercise it the American Way.
7. I get your points. In many ways we are like Napolean in that we have such an investment in our war-making ability that we HAVE to use it, maintain it, because the domestic economy would feel the sting if we didn't. Napolean HAD to keep his armies marching because he couldn't afford to let them come home to Belle France.
8. You may call it "Pax Washington," and there are a fair number of folks that like the sound of that. But it boils down to maintaining our standard of living and security at home. I think we can agree on that point.
9. We want out of AF, but we have an image to protect, or a facade to keep up.
10. I number things because I am slow and it keeps me focused.
perhaps the sole remaining imperial power since the time of Emperor Constantine is the Bishopric of Rome. Not bad for a political dynasty founded on an executed rebel from Palestine.
Totally correct Wally. We
Totally correct Wally. We have an empire and it is proven by the hundreds of military bases all over the world on non-US soil. War is business and business is good! Grendel, you really don't think we went into those areas for a warm fuzzy feeling do you?
@kpawsuh
Which bases are you talking about?
Europe? Necessary in post-WWII, now strategic supply, troop massing, and EW for potential contingencies.
Japan? Same, except there's also the element of force projection thru superiority on the high seas.
M-E? Presence and containment. We have vital energy interests there and hostile threats to them.
It's not empire-building, it's the reality of prudent foreign policy, which at its roots is to maintain our economic and physical security at home. That's why we dont annex, and we dont occupy any longer or more prolific than required.
so no, not for warm and fuzzy feeling. It's policy.