After the kind of delay that only makes sense if you’re George Lucas and you haven’t figured out a way to bring Jar Jar back into Episode VII so you keep delaying the next movie hoping that maybe by the time it’s released people will have forgiven you for the first time around, the US and Afghanistan signed off on the Bilateral Security Agreement this week.
Since neither Obama nor Ghani could be bothered to break dinner dates with Modi or a Magic Schoolbus tour of Kabul, the agreement was signed by Ambassador Cunningham and newly appointed national security adviser Hanif Atmar. Because protocol is still a thing diplomats and Ariana Grande care about in equal proportions, it’s expected that presidential signatures will be affixed to this document at a later date. This is not, as I wrongfully postulated on Twitter, a ploy by Ghani to get himself some breathing room and give himself the chance to back out of this deal if he wants to in the future.
Which, if I were him, I would do: Afghanistan’s in the weakest position any country possible when it comes to signing any agreements with the United States. Watching this whole process has been a running *Sopranos* outtake, and the only thing missing from today’s festivities were more gold chains and some velour tracksuits. The BSA’s just the next stage in the saga of the offer Ghani can’t afford to refuse.
I’ve read the BSA between Afghanistan & the U.S. thoroughly. I assure all Afghans that this agreement is in our national interest.
— Ashraf Ghani (@ashrafghani) September 30, 2014
I know I’m going after the same target I have before, and that’s the nature of this deal and the one that’s put together the national unity government. The Americans couldn’t be more in charge of this situation if they’d made Afghanistan the 51st state, which given the recent influx of governors this last week, might not be the worst idea I’ve ever had when it comes to Afghanistan’s future. The real problem here is that the Afghans really have no choice: no other donor is going to step up and dump the kind of money Afghan security forces need to protect themselves into this country. Part of me wants to see the Americans pack it up and head for the exits, letting the Afghans fend for themselves. But that’s about as logical as anything Jenny McCarthy says about vaccinations, but in this case the vaccination (foreign aid for security) probably is worth than the disease (the insurgency). I’m aware that I just made it sound plausible that not vaccinating your kids is a good idea. I’m not saying that at all…it’s more like chemo for inoperable cancer. It’s going to hurt a lot, and probably is just going to kill off the patient.
The BSA and SOFA agreements are a clear sign of our commitment to supporting security and stability in Afghanistan. — ISAF (@ISAFmedia) September 30, 2014
Why am I so down on the BSA? For a few reasons:
It’s not enough to make Afghan forces sustainable
Unless something changes dramatically around the timeframe for this thing, there’s really very little time left over the next few years for this thing to do any good. Granted, this is going to open the door to longer conversations about an extended American troop presence here, but this deal isn’t about the Afghan forces. It’s all about those-who-have-no-name.
This is about the war on terror
The rhetoric is thick about this being about training Afghan security forces, but we’ve been doing that (in a dedicated manner) since 2011. A few more years is not going to change that. 1,800 of the 9,800 troops left here are going to continue to prosecute the counter-terror mission. Unless the timeline extends, this objective serves American, not Afghan interests.
It’s not going to fix the airpower problem
Afghan forces keep getting their ass handed to them because they lack aerial firepower. And by “handed to them,” I mean they’re unable to sustain the kind of battlefield superiority that’s going to make it possible to push the insurgency back for good. Unless the Afghan Air Force gets up to speed a lot faster than current plans (full Afghanization of the force by 2017), and takes delivery of a lot more close air support (CAS) airframes in the interim, they’re still going to be relying on the Americans to fight that for them. American CAS hasn’t entirely gone away, and I’d expect an increase in the coming days since this has been signed.
The progress we have made on security has come at a great cost. We must never forget those, military and civilian, who lost their lives in our shared struggle, nor our sons and daughters who have returned home bearing both the visible and invisible marks of conflict. We suffer these losses side-by-side. — Ambassador Cunningham
What Good This Does
It’s not all bad. There are some good things in store for the Afghans:
- Mentoring timelines could be extended, which could do some real good
- Commitments to improved equipment and training
- More support from the Americans to counter the insurgency near term
What this doesn’t really answer (yet) is what happens when all foreign troops finally pack it in for good in the next three years. What this doesn’t answer is what’s going to happen then. And that’s a question that has never been asked enough here: Then what? Another lopsided agreement with the Americans doesn’t answer that, and it should.