Analysts Suggest Afghan Government Is Rocky
At a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conference this morning in Washington, expert analysts argued that transition in Afghanistan hasn't been going nearly as smoothly as some accounts have suggested.
In the time of political transition that has followed America's 2001 invasion of the country, ministries have been "doled out as if they are door prizes," the result of which is a political system that has "encouraged nepotism and intense rivalries," said William Maley, director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University.
He added that the country's lower house of parliament is "increasingly a theater for ethnicization" of Afghan politics.
Marvin Weinbaum, a former Department of State Afghanistan analyst and currently a scholar-in-residence at the Public Policy Center of the Middle East Institute, said that sanctuaries are key to any successful insurgency and that the Taliban and al Qaeda have found sanctuary in Pakistan. He added that "the primary interest of al Qaeda is instability in Pakistan, less so in Afghanistan."
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf "lacks capacity to do much on the front line," and, "the possibility that Musharraf's days are numbered means it's less likely that he takes any risks on the frontier," adds Weinbaum. "Musharraf lacks the political capacity to do what he needs to do."
The experts widely downplayed Iranian support of the Taliban or al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The Taliban has been anti-Shia in the past, said retired Ambassador Teresita Chaffer, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. What's more, Iran has historically considered al Qaeda an "instrument of Saudi Arabia," added Weinbaum. The analysts added that Afghan sources they have spoken with have "given no weight to the increasing connection of Iran and al Qaeda."
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