On Afghan Security: Insights of a leading scholar

Sowing Afghan security
Robert I. Rotberg
The Boston Globe JANUARY 13, 2006

There is a striking antidote to worsening security in Afghanistan, where suicide bombing and convoy ambushes now occur every day. Increasingly, these Taliban- and Al Qaeda-sponsored attacks are linked to opium and heroin trafficking. Afghanistan supplies 80 percent of Europe's heroin and is the largest grower of poppies in the world. Instead of legalizing poppy growing or attempting to eradicate the stubborn plants and destroy the livelihoods of impoverished farmers, why not pay the farmers to grow something else?

Afghans already grow wheat as their staple grain. Simply exhorting farmers to turn away from poppies to wheat, saffron and pomegranates will not work. But providing serious, guaranteed, long-term incentives that will encourage farmers to grow wheat in preference to poppies could well produce addictions to wheat instead of heroin. Senior Afghans, meeting in December at Harvard University with American and British researchers, believe that wheat is the answer.

Americans spend about $3 billion a year attempting and failing to expunge the Afghan poppy crop. The conclusions of a project on Afghanistan mounted by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government estimate that providing annual guarantees for purchases of wheat at triple the world price would cost less than eradication.

To be credible for farmers, the guarantees would have to be established for five- and 10-year periods, not just annually. A marketing board could do the buying, and the problems of supply that would have to be watched carefully would concern smuggling wheat into the country rather than smuggling opium out.

The results could also be eaten by hungry Afghans, or exported to neighboring Pakistan or Tajikistan. And Europe would benefit immensely from reduced supplies of heroin.

By thus ending the major battles to eradicate what is now the main peasant commodity, and the source of great profits for warlords and middlemen, subsidizing wheat would also contribute to peace. It might also help to undercut some of the appeal of the Taliban. Terrorism now connected with narco-trafficking would also cease, thus improving overall national security.

If the scourge of poppy growing can be reduced and then eliminated, Afghanistan might stand a chance to prosper and develop well. Otherwise, its future will be precarious, and the new government will continue to be a collection of its sections, with little unity.

Making headway on poppies and drugs would provide the central government of Afghanistan with a sense of common purpose that could draw the proto-nation together. Today the central government has only limited visibility and legitimacy beyond Kabul, the capital. A handle on the poppy problem would also give Kabul an edge over regional power brokers. The United States and the European Union should use their collective financial muscle to assist President Hamid Karzai's government and the new national Parliament in this way, and not by attacking farmers trying to be productive by any means that they know how.

To accomplish these and other worthy objectives, Afghanistan needs to be well governed. The key governance deliverable is security. Second is a much enhanced rule of law. A climate of impunity for powerful people now prevails, and must be altered. The state must not continue to be complicit in the abuse of ordinary civilians.

America and the EU must do more to help the Karzai government to develop its legal apparatuses and codes. Even when the police make arrests, their investigations are weak, and the legal system plays favorites. There are few assurances of predictability or integrity, with many local warlords imposing their own dictates on civil and criminal disputes.

Afghanistan also requires an ability to recognize and protect individual rights. Battling harder against corruption is also critical, although this is a task largely for the Karzai government and not for outsiders.

These obstacles impede Afghanistan's emergence from conflict and chaos. With skillful internal leadership and outside assistance, however, these barriers can be overcome. But the time horizon is five years, not months or single years. The role of foreign donors will remain critical for that period, and beyond. More coordination among those donors will be essential, but Afghanistan must provide the priorities more than it now does.

If drug-related and judicial reforms happen, and if Afghan and NATO forces can reduce insecurity, then - and only then - Afghanistan will emerge as a strong ally and an effective developing nation.

(Robert I. Rotberg is director of the Program on Intrastate Conflict at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and president of the World Peace Foundation)