The assassination of former President Burhanuddin Rabbani is a signal of things to come: the Taliban have demonstrated that they have upper the hand over the Afghan military and police. The Taliban have shown that they are not weakening and that they will not settle the conflict in Afghanistan on any terms but their own. They want Afghanistan for themselves and they have shown, over the course of the last month or so, that they can wrangle with any comers who want to take them on in a fight. Indeed it’s not at all unlikely that this is the first volley in what may be a relapsed civil war that has already immiserated Afghanistan for many decades.

Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik and a former leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, had served as head of the Afghan High Peace Council, the group tasked to work out a negotiation between the battling sides. Rabbani managed to convince his former colleagues and other leaders of the Northern Alliance that it would be in their interest to negotiate with their enemy, the Taliban. With his murder, there can be little doubt that many Afghan leaders are squarely facing the prospect of a new turn at civil war that has destroyed the social, economic and political fabric of Afghanistan over the course of the last thirty years.

Rabbani’s assassination is therefore thoroughly political. It is a declaration that not only is the U.S. led peace effort doomed to fail, but that the Afghan led effort to reconcile the Taliban with Kabul will also fail. (Perhaps  it is a declaration that the peace effort has already failed.) The U.S and its NATO allies had then better rethink their exit strategy out of Afghanistan, the Taliban seem to taunt: not even those considered out of reach are truly out of reach.

Indeed Rabbani’s assassination smacks a little of the September 2001 assassination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud–two days before the al Qaeda sponsored 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil. Shah Masoud’s assassination demonstrated that the Taliban had cleared the way for a period of unchallenged rule. It declared the end of the civil conflict that had riven Afghan politics to the core-Pashtun tribes seemingly against nearly everyone else. Despite the 2001 U.S. invasion which finally (and many thought truly) ended the civil war in Afghanistan Ahmed Shah Masoud’s assassination nevertheless structured the politics to Afghanistan for the last ten years. Consider that were Ahmed Shah Masoud still alive Hamid Karzai might today be some provincial governor of little note or regard.

Burhanuddin Rabbani’s murder in his own home in what many consider to have been the safest neighborhood in Kabul is a loud declaration that not even Kabul, thriving politically and economically under  President Karzai’s hub of influence, is outside the reach of the Taliban. It is a declaration  that everyone is fair game-even reformed and respected political leaders like Rabbani who credibly cast himself as a peacemaker in this iteration of Afghanistan’s contested politics. He seemed to embody the very hope that Afghanistan might surmount its current run of internecine conflict. Rabbani’s assassination, and the removal of his presence and the moral weight of his views burnished by his decades long anti-Soviet leadership, has now made the negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban a blatantly, naked partisan affair. It is a declaration which can have only one logical consequence: war, dressed up in its urban, civil disguise.

The leaders of the Northern Alliance including former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah have declared that Rabbani’s assassination proves that the Taliban will not negotiate militarily or politically. That it does no good to call an insurgent a ‘dear brother’ as President Karzai is wont to do. Rather the Taliban seem to be gearing up for civil war, one they intend to win by fighting in way that no well-trained military can counter–much less an inchoate and incompetent one like the Afghan military tasked to take over the security operations of Afghanistan entire in two years. It’s a good bet that the Taliban will attack Afghan leaders when least expected in a manner that is most unexpected.

It has been reported that Rabbani was assassinated by a suicide bomber who hid explosives in his turban. Indeed reports suggest that the man was allowed into such close proximity with the aged leader that moments before he was killed Rabbani’s assassin embraced him warmly. Given the means by which Rabbani was killed no one could have stopped the attack. The Taliban’s strategy now seems to be to fight in a way that no one– not even U.S and ISAF soldiers– can stop them. The recent 20 hour siege against the U.S Embassy and a NATO base suggests just that strategy: surprise urban guerilla warfare. It’s not so much that the Taliban attacked international institutions; it’s that they humiliated the supposedly well-trained Afghan military stationed in and around Kabul.Thus the target of their attacks and therefore their scorn seems to be the Afghan military and Afghan leaders-in short any standing Afghan institution.

Dexter Filkins writing for the New Yorker enumerated a list of upper-tier Afghan leaders who have been killed recently:

“Taliban assassins have killed Syed Khili, the chief of police of Kunduz Province; Daoud Daoud, the chief of police for northern Afghanistan; Khan Mohammed Mujahid, the chief of police of Kandahar Province; Jan Mohammad Khan, a close friend and adviser to President Hamid Karzai; and, most spectacularly, the President’s half-brother and political chieftain, Ahmed Wali Karzai.”

There can be little doubt that Afghan and U.S officials are now increasingly wondering whether President Hamid Karzai might soon become a member of that list.

(Image courtesy of Getty Images)

Ten years ago the story of the Taliban as a criminal organization began its unfolding international public narrative. Ten years ago the story of Islamist rebellion and insurgency in Afghanistan dovetailed directly with the story of American politics in the 21st century. That story is run through with cheap talk, carnage, forsaken promises and missed opportunities to right old wrongs. So it’s worth thinking today, a day past the 9/11 commemorations: what if things had gone differently ten years ago? What if there had been no devastating act of terrorism ten years ago on September 11th 2001? What might have been the case in Afghanistan then?

A bit of recent history: Ten years ago, box cutters in hand, nineteen men from countries in the Middle East friendly to the United States–not one of them from Afghanistan– brought about the terrible events in downtown New York City and Washington D.C that soon after set America and Americans on the path to a decade long war. Even though al Qaeda sponsored terrorists attacked the United States, the Bush administration alleged that Taliban leader Mullah Omar, then no less than the chief executive of the government of Afghanistan, was a co-conspirator of the attacks and thus could not be blameless. Therefore when the Taliban promised to expel bin Laden, then-President George W. Bush argued the Taliban’s promise was non-credible and readily invaded Afghanistan.

That invasion turned into a war not of attrition but rather of retribution in places- valleys, mountains and cities- that have never held much strategic interest for the United States. In ten years tit for tat attacks that though tactically successful have not yielded long-term strategic gains and instead have been all together too costly. More than 2500 American and NATO coalitions soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. Some estimates suggest that more than 20,000 Afghan civilians have been killed in Afghanistan as a direct result of the invasion and NATO operations there. Other estimates present figures double that number. Hard fought territory has shifted from the Taliban’s possession to the invading U.S and NATO forces and back again. And there have very few developments that justify for many Americans and international observers the invasion and what has turned out to be America’s longest war. However, earlier this year twenty three highly trained U.S Navy Seals set right the call of retributive justice: in May Osama bin Laden was found in a military cantonment town in Pakistan and was killed on sight. The story of the 9/11 attacks had come full circle it seemed: events played out that did not touch Afghan soil, nor were they brought about by Afghan souls yet ran through the whole of Afghanistan.

The events of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and even the death of bin Laden have all been unalloyed world shakers and it is hard to imagine that things could have taken a different turn. But suppose the attackers had been foiled at some earlier time. Or if, like the young Nigerian man Umar Abdulmuttalab, they had failed in their attempt to bring about the destruction that indeed took place, perhaps things might have been different.

Suppose that the attacks on 9/11/2001 had not occurred. The U.S. would not have invaded Afghanistan then. Thus, barring being overrun out of Kabul by the ethnic Tajik and Uzbek Northern Alliance, the Taliban would have remained in power. And internal democratic and strategic politics would have determined their fate.

Consider then that if the U.S had never invaded Afghanistan and had not interfered in internal Afghan politics the Taliban might have fallen of their own accord, victims of their own politics and policies. For though widely feared after their mid-90’s takeover, the Taliban were never a part of the life of the average Afghan man, woman, child in far-flung villages and towns in Northern and Western Afghanistan. Theirs was rule by Leviathan social order: a strict version of Shari’a applied in civil and criminal matters. But very few people ever came before the auspices of the Taliban’s varied and antiquated version of Islamic justice.  It is not hard to imagine that their brutal rule would have spurred on an insurgency from a grass-roots alliance made up of all their near innumerable enemies.

And there’s the Taliban’s entirely negative balance sheet on Afghanistan’s economy. Steering a traditional agrarian economy, and later through failed attempts at central planning, the Taliban let Afghanistan’s infrastructure and wider assets go to hay. Productivity never staggered higher than that under the perpetual civil war the country had slogged through for at least two decades. Supposing then that the Taliban managed to stay in power in the absence of the 9/11 attacks, their tenure in power would not have been assured.

As the Taliban’s brutal and ad hoc run in power failed to generate social order based on investments in infrastructure that sustained stability and economic growth in distant corners of Afghanistan, it’s not unlikely that another round of insurgent civil conflict might have burst into full-on civil war in Northern and Western Afghanistan. No doubt India and Iran would have parlayed their influence onto any such rebellion. No doubt in turn that Pakistan would have redoubled its intelligence and operational work on behalf of the Taliban in order to combat India’s growing influence in the North and the West.

But through it all the United States would not have been involved in Afghanistan. The U.S. government could have put the surplus $1 trillion that it spent on its post 9/11 wars back into its domestic economy to grow out of the Great Recession which no doubt would have bowed markets whatever the events of some cool September day in 2001. American soldiers would have been spared grueling rotations into and out of war zones. Indeed without the attacks of September 11th the U.S. would not have embarked on the unending and boundless”War on Terror”. (I assume that without 9/11 President George Bush would not have the pretext to go to war against Saddam Hussein.)

Yet this happier story runs into the problem of narrative splicing: even if the 9/11 attacks had not happened, everything else about the region would have been the same. Everything that was in place in the region a month before the attacks would have remained the case. Barring some strategic change in the Taliban’s assessment of its then mutual advantage relationship, al Qaeda would have continued to enjoy safe haven in Afghanistan in exchange for tactical attacks against the Taliban’s enemies. Perhaps through terrorism, violent repression and by generating the fear of repression, the Taliban would have only gotten stronger as they consolidated their rule in Afghanistan.

Now perhaps the United States would have succeeded in negotiating Osama bin Laden’s arrest for his role in the attack in Yemen against the USS Cole. Though an interesting possibility, this is unlikely to have been the case. This even though there have been reports that the Taliban were ready to hand over Osama bin Laden . For the U.S. did not think such offers were credible. (There’s little doubt that those reports then and now are cheap talk: there’s no cost to reporting facts that cannot now be of any consequence whatsoever.)

The Taliban would have carried on its repressive policies against women, minorities and any and all enemies of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. And along with al Qaeda the Taliban, its nationalist objectives met, would have supported the call and function of global terrorism unchecked. Given this all-too plausible scenario, it’s not difficult to think that Afghanistan would have remained a failed state, a pariah state–little different than the vicious regime that has torn asunder the country and the people of Sudan.

There can be little doubt then that even despite having failed to put up what we now call the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the government of Afghanistan would have aided and abetted al Qaeda’s plots against the United States. It’s not implausible to think that at least one of those plots might have been successful. And perhaps that attack would have been successful on an overwhelmingly large scale, just as the terrible events of that September day were successful from the perspective of the terrorists who perpetrated those attacks.

Suppose then there were a successful attack on U.S. soil of the sort that actually did occur in September ten years ago. After a cataclysmic event, the U.S government under a Republican or a Democratic president would have marshaled every available asset to go to war against the organization that perpetrated the attack-al Qaeda-and the country which harbored it-Afghanistan.

Given any successful attack in the United States that originated from Afghanistan the U.S would have invaded. The planning and goals behind the invasion would surely have been different but whatever the slightly varied story, the U.S and its allies would have encountered facts on the ground similar to those that in the factual world seem like boundless and unending war.

On the occasion of Eid, the celebration at the end of the month of Ramadan, Mullah Omar declared the Taliban are willing to deal politically with the U.S and President Karzai’s government Kabul. The Taliban leader let it be known that even though he is now principally interested in a workable prisoner swap, in the long run he is ready to work in good faith with the other side of the bargaining table to achieve his ultimate political goals.  This is a tremendously important development because this means the Taliban are openly inviting the specter of ending the conflict in Afghanistan on political terms.

Recent reportage on leaks on secret high level U.S and Taliban talks suggests that those negotiations that many thought have been going well, are off. President Hamid Karzai is said to have been behind the concerted effort to bring down the talks this past June.  This news has caused many analysts to worry that the best hope for a settled peace in Afghanistan has slipped past the NATO allies.

Ahmed Rashid, the noted Pakistani journalist, in a new piece for the New York Review of Books, claims otherwise. He asserts the talks are going well despite the leaks. For the leaks were meant to derail the talks. That is, chatter about the negotiations had been designed to ultimately and finally scuttle any progress behind the scenes to get the Taliban and their U.S. and NATO opponents to see eye to eye. Rashid insists that the talks are ongoing despite interference from Kabul. If true, this is a significant development.

Here’s Rashid’s view on the matter, at length:

“By acknowledging that there have been contacts with the Americans, Mullah Omar is sending a clear message to his fighters that future political talks are a possibility, while signaling to the Americans that he may eventually be prepared to broaden the scope of the dialogue and those already participating in it.”

“He categorically accepts that “all” ethnic groups “will have participation” in governing Afghanistan in the future and tries to play down the position taken by some non-Pashtuns in the former Northern Alliance that they will never negotiate with the Taliban. He opposes long-term US bases in Afghanistan and does not accept a limited withdrawal of US-NATO troops; he wants the US and NATO to “immediately” withdraw all their forces. He hopes to be at peace with his neighbors and the world, he writes, and he will do nothing to aggravate tensions. But the Taliban will not accept an imposed regime and they demand complete independence for Afghanistan. (This is as much a message to Pakistan as it is to the US.)”

Mullah Omar’s message is as much about strategy as it is strategic. He is signaling that he is willing to play politics in multidimensional political space with numerous partners and opponents if certain conditions are met. This isn’t a bad start, nor is it necessarily a cheap signal. The Taliban might have been weakened over the course of the 30,000 soldier surge into Southern Afghanistan (analysts still debate the truth of the matter) and perhaps above and beyond rhetoric, he is demanding the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and NATO combat troops to get the pressure off his back. Therefore if talks are ongoing this means that the U.S are willing to deal on terms that may well favor Mullah Omar.

But whatever the truth of the matter in on the negotiations, rhetoric matters. Mullah Omar envisions a politics for Afghanistan for Afghans. He is against long-term U.S. bases, which are now being gamed out in more docile parts of the country. He is against U.S. puppet-mastery. Omar is signaling that he is willing to work with Karzai in Kabul, though he could do without Karzai in or out of power. The U.S. political leadership would do well to heed this rhetoric, for it is a rhetoric that is shared by a large majority of Afghans.

No doubt the U.S negotiators have extended to the Taliban more than they might admit publicly. Indeed, many in Afghanistan claim that immediate withdrawal out of Afghanistan is one of the most important requirements for halting conflict there. Therefore, as such any movement toward or away from that position will trigger a meaningful signal for how the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan will turn.

The Karzai government for its part seems disinclined to sit aside by the sidelines. Many analysts have claimed that he (or someone in his executive team) is responsible for the June leaks that arrested the high-level U.S – Taliban talks. Yet, Karzai is term limited out. One wonders what stake he has in seeing talks fail since any settled negotiations are likely to be finalized many years after he leaves office. One wonders whether he still has a dog in the race: does he intend to hold onto power for the longer term?

There is no doubt that Karzai wants peace with the Taliban on his own terms, whatever Mullah Omar declares. Does Karzai want that peace won and delivered on those terms because he expects to be in power well after the scheduled 2014 drawdown.

The report of the deadly twinned attack against the British Council in Kabul this morning serve to confirm the hypothesis that militants associated with the Taliban are ramping up their strategy to target civilians as well as military assets. The Taliban have claimed direct responsibility for the attack in which at least 8 people, nearly all Afghans civilians, were killed.

This attack and many others like it, seemingly directed at civilians, looks more like a an armed social offensive, an “us against them” insurgency”, heavily branded with the hallmarks of a nationalist movement that propagandizes spilling the blood of individuals and groups deemed colonizers and occupiers and those deemed their local lackies. (There is more than a tinge of ritual sacrifice here.)

In a strikingly horrific set of moves over the past year the Taliban seem ready to declare that the colonizers include not only those who are not indigenous born, but also all those who might work with foreign governments and aid groups. It’s not a stretch then to think that the Taliban are ready to redefine the term “indigenous”– and therefore, “valued”– to be coextensive with their self-professed identity: to be Afghan is to be Taliban. And therefore, to push the argument, to be Taliban simply is to be Afghan-nothing more or less.

This strategic turn is a formidable one; one that bears ill-tidings for Afghanistan. Consider a recent report in the New York Times: “On [this past] Thursday morning, two mines planted on a road in western Herat Province exploded, destroying a minibus and a truck and killing 23 civilians and wounding eight, according to Afghan officials.” Moreover “the attacks had occurred in an area frequented by the Taliban but with no coalition forces present, and apparently had been deliberately aimed at civilians.”

This development implies that either the Taliban have made the calculation that all bets are off–that all civilians can be legitimate targets; they’ll argue for and against the merits of the death of innocent Afghan nationals on a case by case basis. (The Taliban might expect that Afghans will view the murder of diplomats and aid workers as just as legitimate as they might view the killing of ISAF soldiers, though there seems little direct evidence of that view). Or, there is no argument at all here: Afghanistan is simply in a state of nature, a state of perpetual war. According to this view, the caricature of the Hobbesian argument for might as right wins out; let the consequences be whatever they might be.

And why is this? Why might the Taliban have taken the latter view? Because they are convinced that when NATO and its allies depart from Afghanistan in 2014 and leave behind whatever small intelligence and strike capabilities as seems fit, the Taliban will snatch effective power from Kabul. For NATO’s recently changed and ongoing counter-terrorism strategy cannot protect and sustain the central government in Kabul for an indefinite period of time. And indeed, the Taliban can afford to see out NATO and have muscularly asserted just such a strategy. For they know they have time on their hands.

And they know that more than their enemies, Kabul, the Northern Alliance, and other smaller nationalist groups, they stand united in their one goal: total domination of every square mile of Afghanistan-this, in spirit if not in the number of flags planted on the ground. They have placed in their rifle sights the ethnic Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks and other groups who make up the Northern Alliance. The Taliban mean to once again make Afghanistan a country fit only for themselves.

The fact that the Taliban are responsible for most of the civilians killed in Afghanistan seems beside the point. The Taliban certainly seem as if they do not expect, nor are they bothered by, any strong social backlash against them. This, because there isn’t any. Though the United Nations estimates that 80% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan have been caused by anti-government elements, the Taliban have yet to suffer public shame and broad denouncements for it. Part of the blame is simply, again, a caricature of a Hobbesian story: in a seemingly lawless land the people of Afghanistan would rather have a Leviathan impose order, even if that order represses some people all of the time. The Taliban have successfully branded themselves as that Leviathan. For they claim to be less expropriative than the central government in Kabul. Indeed, this is a winning argument against the central government in Kabul.

There have been far too many cases of government officials who have demanded outrageously large bribes and, indeed, tracts of land in exchange for the most insignificant bit of contract coordination and fulfillment. The average Afghan, who in the past seldom interacted with representatives from Kabul or their local operatives, has had little need to secure protection against his neighbors. The structure of clan politics typically sufficed to establish both norms of conduct and shame that have sustained contract exchange over time. Kabul’s interference into local politics has disrupted that social and economic exchange for people in far flung parts of the country. Indeed, the people affected by the call for bribes have sought protection from the Taliban–often the local young charismatic leader who has seen fit to hitch up with the loosely associated nationalist movements that have provided the local support and fire for the Taliban insurgency.

The Taliban seem to have determined that it can take the propaganda hits in Kabul and Kandahar that might be ginned against them. Kabul is enemy territory for the Taliban and Kandahar remains the site of the most vicious dug-in-fights in Afghanistan. Heads will roll and as they do the Taliban will notch up their possession of tracts of real estate, village by village if need be. Or so they might think. Or so, certainly their moves tends to reveal. As long as they can maintain control in the farther reaches of Afghanistan, they can afford to ransack the larger, more centrally located, cities. One day they will fall, the Taliban might strategize. And it is enough to strike fear amongst the population that that day will come on the backs of those Afghans who stand against them.

Afghanistan seems to be sinking- that is, whatever there is left to sink. Earlier this month, the King of Kandahar, Ahmed Wali Karzai, was assassinated and predictable political exchange immediately ground to a halt. The powerful thorn on the side of Afghan pols, General David Petraeus, left to take up his new role as CIA Director in Langley, Virgina. General John Allen took over command of the Afghan war, a move that still remains something of a question mark. To top it all, the powerful Mayor of Kandahar, Ghulam Haider Hamidi was assassinated on July 27th by a suicide bomber. All this threatens to disrupt whatever predictability and coherence there was in Afghan politics.

Kandahar- until recently the hub of the Taliban insurgency and the opium trade- is the political heart of Southern Afghanistan. It is kept in check by a few powerful warlords who are close to President Karzai, and who serve as the coalition that keeps him entrenched in power. Now much of that coalition has fallen apart as Kandahar’s political leaders have been handicapped by one political assassination after another.

Only two weeks ago, Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s half brother, was killed by a close family associate. Appointed the head of a powerless Provincial Council, Ahmed Wali nevertheless rose to become the most powerful man in Kandahar. He embodied power: he had the ability and knew the right people to get things done, even if he did not hold a notable official position. Ahmed Wali’s death shot off a round of infighting and jostling to take his ground in the South. The man considered most likely to emerge victorious in the struggle was the Mayor of Kandahar, Ghulam Haider Hamidi. He was killed in a suicide attack only a day or so ago. Add to this news, ruinous to Afghan pols, the fact that President Karzai’s adviser and close personal friend Jan Muhammed Khan was also killed a few days ago, and politics in Kandahar might seem to have come unchained.

Indeed whether true or not, the Taliban have already taken credit for each one of these murders. The last month has been a public relations bonanza for the insurgents. It remains to be seen whether the Taliban will succeed in pushing forth an offensive against NATO’s ISAF troops in the midst of this power vacuum, where Afghanistan’s international allies have been hobbled by the complete absence of anyone who can get anything done anytime soon. (No doubt the Taliban are even now mounting just such an offensive to drive back into Kandahar. Certainly their recent high profile attacks on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul will burnish the image of their strike capabilities.)

Further consider General David Petraeus’ departure from Afghanistan to lead the CIA at the request of U.S. President Barack Obama. General John Allen, Petraeus’ replacement in the field, has yet to be militarily tested on Afghan terrain, even if the task set before him is much more difficult than the one that was given to his predecessor. Put all this together and note that there’s been no real correction to put upright Afghanistan’s lilting, sinking ship.

Sink or float, it can’t help that though Afghanistan’s politics are extremely centralized, its governance is highly decentralized. A handful of far flung warlords friendly to President Hamid Karzai rule Afghanistan as if it were a geo-polity barely stitched together with the indistinguishable thread of opium dollars. Until recently, both the central government based in Kabul, run by the deeply flawed President Karzai, and its international NATO allies could reliably count on politics as usual to chug along precisely, perfectly corrupt as usual. The greased palm conducted the politics of the day. To avoid international investigation, warlords helped NATO and ISAF’s logistical effort to secure a foothold in Southern Afghanistan.

With men like Ahmed Wali and Ghulam Haider Hamidi gone, the most troubling issue roiling Afghanistan is that there may now be fewer than a handful of men in Kandahar or elsewhere who might pull politics and mutual exchange into their hands and thereby make a restive pet out of a snarling monster. For good or for ill, if Afghanistan is to remain stable politically, even if pitifully weak and corruptible, those men must be seated with crowns as the nepotistic warlords might then be given incentive to marshal their assets to aid NATO’s counterinsurgency and counter-terrorist effort.

If President Karzai is to hold onto effective power until his term expires in 2014 he will need to put his approved stamp of privilege and access into the hands of men in whom he has confidence, and maybe even trust. And here’s the thick mud to mire it all: Ahmed Wali Karzai and Ghulam Hamidi were killed at close range by men who were allowed into their presence and confidence: the former was killed by gunshot wounds to the head, the other killed by a suicide bomber who hid his lethal bounty under his turban.

The test of President Karzai’s political strength will be to choose men to support him and who, against the threat of assassination, have the temerity to stand up and stabilize Afghanistan before the international drawdown’s 2014 deadline. The test of  NATO allies’ strength and endurance will be to countenance the corruption and malfeasance that will surely break out while those men go about their business.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother and, seemingly, sole proprietor of Kandahar-the birth place of the Taliban in Afghanistan–has been assassinated by a close family associate. The reason behind the assassination has not been revealed.

This news fundamentally roils politics, strategy and hedging in and for Afghanistan. Ahmed Wali, the most important linchpin of politics and peace in Kandahar, who wielded de facto executive power through his personal and political connections has just been removed from the scene of cagey politics he himself helped establish. Now no one knows what tomorrow and the day after, the week after, will look like in Kandahar. Any scenario one might picture is likely to be grim. Expect a round of assassinations as powerful families who head powerful tribes kill off each other to secure effective power in Kandahar.

Consider that politics in Afghanistan is nothing but clientelistic exchange. NATO and its principal backer in Afghanistan, the United States, has been exchanging money, gifts and promises of contracts for some variant of predictable peace. Ahmed Wali Karzai, though head of the near powerless Kandahar provincial council–another man occupies the role of governor of Kandahar- nevertheless was nevertheless the most important power broker in Kandahar. He was also tagged as a principal mover and manipulator of the poppy trade. What’s more he was long accused of being an insider in the Afghan drug trade that partly sustains the Taliban. Nevertheless the suspicions gingerly directed at him for double crossing the U.S. and its allies were trumped by the necessity of backing the man who seemed to embody all effective and operational power in Kandahar. That he was also the younger brother of the corrupt President Hamid Karzai and had risen in power and prestige in lock-step with the elder Karzai’s internationally backed rise to executive power did not hurt his political and financial fortunes. He was considered to have been in the CIA’s payroll throughout President Bush’s run of Afghanistan.

This anchor of clientelism, then, protected both the Karzai family and at least some American and NATO interests in Afghanistan. The death of Ahmed Wali Karzai now signals a complete and irreversible rupture in the clientelistic program.

Afghanistan is a near-frontier country; the rule of law does not exist there as an injunction to sway minds and cojole mutual advantage moves. This could not be more true of Southern Afghanistan. Therefore there cannot be peace in Kandahar if there does not exist an individual who can guarantee some modicum of peace-a strong man. Ahmed Wali was that strong man. He helped secure Kandahar for NATO interests by providing security and logistical aid to ISAF forces and its supply convoys. Now, put aside the issue of peace, and its demands: Ahmed Wali’s assassination signals the start of an all-out war between powerful tribal factions in Kandahar. Not only will there be no peace (a negative proposition), the region might well erupt into internecine conflict that will only drain out the resources that NATO has put aside to secure stability until its final drawdown in 2014.

And that is the fundamentally troubling issue for the United States and its NATO allies: it cannot afford more instability and more bloodshed just when countries like Canada and France are irreversibly drawing out of Afghanistan. Boots on the ground are increasingly spread thinner; and now a truly disruptive state of affairs looms on the horizon in Afghanistan.

Finally consider that just at the moment that NATO and its allies are trying to convince low and mid-level Taliban to switch allegiances to Kabul, the Taliban are likely to trumpet Ahmed Wali’s assassination as their doing, whatever the truth of that claim. They will point to this attack as their strongest signal yet that Kabul remains weak; that those who would support the Kabul government had best think twice. This propaganda victory, masked in claims of a moral victory, is sure to scare off Taliban leaders who until earlier today might have considered switching to Kabul in some hope that the Karzai clan headed by Hamid and Ahmed Wali might secure their futures.

Sixty-eight year old Bob Woodward, an associate editor at the Washington Post, is considered one of America’s most informed investigative journalists. In 1972, his disclosure and consistent reporting with Carl Bernstein of the Watergate Scandal led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Woodward, a Pulitzer Prize winning author of 12 bestselling non-fictions, published his book Obama’s Wars in 2010 which focuses on the war in Afghanistan and the internal debates in Washington, Islamabad and Kabul about the war.

In an exclusive interview with Dawn.com, Bob Woodward talks about the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the midst of America’s gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Q: Washington has now confirmed contacts with Taliban for brokering peace in Afghanistan. Had the Americans already contemplated embarking upon a negotiation process with the Taliban or is this a decision made as a last resort because mere military action has not worked?

A: Oh yes, that is the way you end a conflict, isn’t it? In my book, Obama’s War, the Americans say that they won’t defeat the Taliban but will make them a part of the fabric of Afghanistan. A political settlement eventually has to be the end of the conflict.

Q: What is the feeling like in the Obama administration as it prepares to pull out of Afghanistan? Is there a sense of achievement or is it marked with a feeling of regret for not achieving the objectives set earlier in 2001?

A: It is, as the phrase goes, fragile and reversible.

Q: Does that mean al Qaeda will regroup and reemerge in Afghanistan in the future?

A: No, I don’t think so. They will be crazy to return with the deployments and the capabilities the US has in Afghanistan. In my book, I talk of CIA’s 300-man army in Afghanistan, the Counter Terrorism Pursuit Teams (CTPTs). If the United States had these CTPTs prior to 9/11, it would have perhaps easily driven bin Laden and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in spite of the protection provided to them by the then ruling Taliban regime.

My assessment maybe wrong as it is based on an “if-question” but the point is you don’t necessarily need a lot of force to keep al Qaeda out of Afghanistan.

Q: In your book, there is a continued fear of another 9/11-like attack on the United States? Do you think that is a genuine concern?

A: Yes, it is.

Q: And you also argue that the Afghan war has actually shifted to Pakistan. How much as the war trickled down to Pakistan?

A: In my book, I quote President Obama saying that the “poison” (war) is in Pakistan. The killing of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan is the proof of that. The Pakistani military and the intelligence officials continued to say that that bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders were not in Pakistan. It was their official position.

Q: So how upset is Washington with Pakistan after the killing of bin Laden on the Pakistani soil?

A: The US is very upset with Pakistan but it is one of those things that both the countries can’t do much about because they need each other. I think both the countries are being very naïve. They are thinking that when they are working together then there will be a total overlap of national interest. This does not happen in international politics. They have to live with this reality.

Q: Do the Americans hold the Pakistani intelligence services responsible for harbouring bin Laden?

A: Yes that is right. It is already known but what has not been established yet is who at what level collaborated with al Qaeda. People in the US government have said that there is no evidence which can substantiate that Pakistan’s top leadership, President Zardari, army chief Kayani and ISI head Shuja Pasha, directly knew that bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.

Q: Is Washington worried about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear program?

A: Oh yes. That is a real worry. But that is one of those realities that everyone has been able to live with so far.

Q: In your book, you term the Quetta Shura as the central pillar of Taliban, which manages operations and appoints commanders. How significant is the Quetta Shura?

A: The Quetta Shura is definitely a serious issue because it’s the top leadership of the Taliban. It is a part of the potential negotiation. The US has stepped up its efforts in Pakistan. The Quetta Shura is real.

Q: Who are the Americans more comfortable talking to, Asif Zardari or General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani?

A: The United States realises that Kayani has the real power in Pakistan. Obama is trying to talk to Kayani about the importance of having a civilian leadership and a democratic government. I am sure Kayani buys that argument.

Q: Is Kayani as popular with Washington as Musharraf?

A: [Laughs] No. Certainly not. Kayani does not have the political ambition that Musharraf had. At least people in the US think he does not want to become the president of Pakistan.

Q: With the announcement of the US roadmap for pull-out from Afghanistan, there is a growing fear of desertion in Pakistan similar to what the Americans did after the end of the Cold War. Is the history going to repeat itself?

A: That is what a lot of people in the United States are trying to avoid because they are aware of the history. During the relationships between the countries, there come times when people get excited about good things happening and they become upset with bad things occurring. At times, countries lie to each other. You have to totally learn to deal with that. The future is going to be a test for both the countries. I don’t think bad things won’t happen but there should be accommodation for both the countries for each other.

Q: Does the United States differentiate between al Qaeda and Taliban or are all of them seen from the same lens?

A: I don’t think the American people can differentiate between the two. The Taliban are not held in the US in high regard because of their extremist practices and they killed a lot of American soldiers. However, the Taliban have not attacked the United States successfully yet although they tried to do so with the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad at Time Square.

Q: Will diplomatic relations between Pakistan and the US further worsen in the future?

A: Their relationship is precarious but I don’t think it is going to fall apart.

Q: What is the best way for the United States to engage Pakistan after it leaves Afghanistan?

A: If you read between the lines, everyone seems to be talking about withdrawing by 2014. The United States military, on the other hand, still wants to leave 15, 000 to 25, 000 troops in Afghanistan though this decision has still not been worked out. Everyone knows the perils of a total withdrawal.

Q: To what extent has the Raymond Davis episode and then bin Laden’s killing damaged cooperation between the CIA and the ISI?

A: The current relationship is based more on verification rather than trust. Both the secret services have similar goals in certain areas and dissimilar goals and interests elsewhere. In Obama’s Wars, I say Pakistan is a “powder keg” whose ingredients are political instability, weak civilian control, a powerful army and a strong intelligence system which still has a strategy of cooperating with the US on the one hand and supporting the extremist groups on the other hand. The other ingredients of the Pakistani powder keg include its nuclear program; position between Afghanistan and unresolved problems with India.

Malik Siraj Akbar, a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow based in Washington DC, is a visiting journalist at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) of the Center for Public Integrity (CPI).

As Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, writing for the Times, report this plan is far bolder than anything the military had supported.  Yet this was the political winner within the administration, the one that split the difference between having left Afghanistan yesterday with the whole all 100,000 ground troops and the far more moderate and militarily sensible move to give the troops fighting the Taliban a fighting chance.

President Obama’s decision on the particulars of the drawdown have been beset by the argument that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan for nearly ten years and that as such, somehow, it’s high time to leave Afghanistan. In fact, the U.S. moved away from Afghanistan as soon as President Bush invaded Iraq in 2003. Since then less than 40,000 U.S. soldiers had been defending Afghanistan, until President Obama pushed up troop deployment to about 70,000, nearly double the previous troop presence.  It is breath-taking then, that President Obama decided to lighten the troop load in Afghanistan. No doubt he thinks that the battle against al Qaeda and the Taliban can be fought with less troop intensive methods, for instance, counter-terrorist methods like night raids and predator drone strikes.

In fact the decision to withdraw signals a political decision that 70,000 troops would allow a sufficiently strong troop presence in Afghanistan until the U.S. finally disengages in 2014. This move is sure to put decisive pressure on President Hamid Karzai to accept that he and others in power in Afghanistan need to govern in a way that will complement a changing U.S. strategy. Indeed, this will force Mr. Karzai to accept the brunt of resurgent U.S counter-terrorism activity, whatever political benefits demagoguery might bring.

What are the benefits, then, of this move to withdraw troops? It is certainly a political decision, more than a military one. The benefits are thus likely to be political as well.  It offers a chance for President Obama to credibly show that he is a peacetime president as much as he is a war-hawk.  That, after Iraq he will drawn down action in Afghanistan and will (one hopes soon) disengage in Libya- a policy that seems to offer some substance to his Nobel Peace prize.

This move also shores up Vice President Biden’s standing in the American political arena, at the expense of lions like out-going Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. This move also leaves some breathing room for the president to negotiate with his Republican opposition on the U.S. budget and its deficits, and the broader, and deeper, problem of U.S. sovereign debt. Further, it undercuts GOP presidential nomination front-runner Mitt Romney’s demands that the U.S. withdraw swiftly out of Afghanistan.

The costs of the move? The president’s decision to drawdown more significantly and more swiftly will impact the way the war in Afghanistan is fought. This move effectively decapitates counterinsurgency as a fact of the matter on the ground. Indeed, Cooper and Landler report that out of the top 30 most wanted al Qaeda leaders, U.S. counter-terrorism efforts have killed 2o, all over the course of the last year and a half – during Obama’s watch.  Needless to say, counter-terrorism has won over counter-insurgency, clearly evident after the May 2nd raid in Abottabad that netted and killed Osama bin Laden.

Still, the real loser of this move might well be General David Petraeus, the man who literally wrote the counterinsurgency manual, and then personally oversaw its implementation in Afghanistan from strategic and field leadership positions. Now, as the incoming Director of the CIA, his job will be to draw down counterinsurgency- his pet project- and redouble the agency’s efforts toward counter-terrorism.  There is little doubt that he will be successful in this effort- he has seemed to have failed at little else. Nevertheless, President Obama’s decision just made Patraeus’ upcoming job at the CIA a bit more pressing, a bit more strategically cutting than the stings and arrows with which his predecessor had to deal.

This rather militarily dicey and politically expedient move is being made right in the midst of wholesale national security changes in Washington D.C and sheer drop troubles in Afghanistan. And at the expense of repeating recent news, those troubles in Afghanistan are plentiful.

Leaving aside the difficult counter-insurgency and combat moves against a resurgent Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has strongly (demagogically) argued against Special Forces night raids, the crux of the military counterinsurgency effort there. Indeed, Mr. Karzai went so far as to announce that much less his government in Kabul, the U.S government and its military have been engaging in quiet talks with the Taliban to reach a peaceful solution to the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan.

What’s more the administration is vested in personnel changes at the highest levels in its civilian and military leadership of U.S. national security. While the overwhelmingly popular Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is leaving, his replacement is the well-regarded current CIA chief Leon Panetta.  Moreover, Director Panetta’s replacement is the widely respected General David Petraeus. These personnel changes are a promising start to a new turn in Afghanistan; but they are still untested changes. Indeed, General Petraeus’s absence on the field is itself an X-factor that for now has no means of measure or evaluation.

Already there’s strong buzz that within the fall of 2012 President Obama will drawdown the 30,000 surge troops he placed in Afghanistan. The only variable, according to these recent reports, is when and how quickly he would do so.  This move would seem to stand against out-going Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ advice that for now only 5000 or so troops should be taken out of the field-mostly logistic and support personnel-to move forward with the momentum that the military claims it has over the insurgents in Afghanistan. According to this logic, the maximum number of troops should stay in Afghanistan to fight off the Taliban well into the 2012 spring and summer fighting season, drawing down late into teh fall when fighting trickles down-though hardly at glacial pace.

Whatever move President Obama makes, the military will still have nearly 70,000 troops in Afghanistan, though they will be stretched even more thin that they have been recently.  (Keep in mind that the military has shuffled its counterinsurgency strategy partly because it has not had enough troops to patrol the country well enough to have eyes and ears in most parts of Afghanistan.)

No doubt there are domestic pressures to push forth with a strong and decisive withdrawal out of Afghanistan (as well as Iraq). The Democratic Party leadership in the U.S Congress has been pushing for a meaningful withdrawal that might offer the U.S the ability to concentrate on investing into the falteringly recovering economy. Moreover, an insurgent bloc of fiscal hawks within the Republican Party have also made moves to push for a steady withdrawal.

Now, the Pew Research Center shows that for the first time a majority of American favor a rapid withdrawal out of Afghanistan, even if they think the war in Afghanistan was fought of the right reasons. Indeed, the majority opinion on withdrawal in Afghanistan was reached only after the killing of Osama bin Laden. This suggests that Americans think that the cause of justice behind the invasion of Afghanistan has reached its end, contrary to the the Obama administrations’ position on the matter.

Indeed whatever the reality of war on the ground, President Obama is surely to loathe going against public opinion when he has only recently successfully delivered the bounty on bin Laden.  The stalling economy is under his principal ownership now and he needs all the help he can get, personal, political, to survive in office past the 2012 election.

Nevertheless, political expediency aside, the final decision on remove all U.S. troops from Afghan soil will have to be condition-based. And those conditions will be based on current and immediately future, turn to near-present conditions. Expect President Obama to leave plenty of room to not be tied in place by his own words during his address to the nation and the world tonight. Expect him to try to split the difference in drawing down troops to a level between what the military mandates as necessary to fight on in Afghanistan and what the president’s advisors deem necessary to win the 2012 election, a year and more out.

After all, the man known to be a pragmatist is sure to make a pragmatic decision that balances evenly the scales he’s being weighed on and that weighs on him.

Just today, in Kandahar Province, Secretary Gates said that  he’d advise the Obama administration to keep as many battle ready boots on the ground.  The New York Times quote him as follows: “I would try and maximize my combat capability as long as this process goes on — I think that’s a no-brainer…I’d opt to keep the shooters, and take the support out first.”

As Thom Shanker, writing for the Times, reports holding combat troops steady while drawing down logistical support teams for those troops would be consistent with President Obama’s hard July deadline to begin a formal drawdown that would conclude by 2014.  It’s likely that, as happened in Iraq, the president will delegate out to his generals the manner in which those troops are sent back home over the course of the three year draw-down.  Reports bouncing around Washington DC suggests generals and commanders on the field feel they have the winds on their backs from the 30,000 surge troops put into play- to break the momentum of that tail wind would be fool-hardy.  Consequently even at the high end of projected troop withdrawal, less than 5000 troops will likely be scheduled to return home.

This sounds all well and good for the military and security aims in Afghanistan. There’s strong evidence that President Obama supports just such a plan–even though there’s a growing debate within his new defense team about the pace of the drawdown. Still what Secretary Gates has to say coincides with what commanders in the field think. Unfortunately what Secretary Gates argued runs up against Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s rather more ambitious views on the withdrawal in Afghanistan. ABC News recently reported that Pelosi wants a much more substantial drawdown than is currently being entertained by the administration.  Given that Pelosi is a strong voice in the liberal wing of the party which has for long decried the nearly decade long investment in money, time and lives in Afghanistan and given that through his moves in Afghanistan the president is sure to disenchant a sizable bloc of the liberals, these pronouncements aren’t likely push liberals into the president’s voting bloc. Indeed, the president can ill-afford to rebellion within his own party over the war.

In a move sure to worry Secretary Gates, Minority Leader Pelosi is linking the substance and numbers behind  the drawdown to runaway spending. According to this argument drawing down would not only secure the safety of American troops, it would also save the deficit hawk Congress the money that might be better spent at home.  As the country as trudged through more than three years of an anemic post-recession economic recovery, Pelosi’s argument has some chance of carrying the day, in public opinion if not in outright legislative votes.

However it cuts, linking this decades long war to out of control public spending is a winning argument. Indeed, a number of Republican Congressmen have broken with the GOP “strong on defense” mantra and have sidled up to the liberal Democratic opinion that there the war on poverty is a war that the country needs to fight at home and win.

As June runs down, the clock with it, and as General Petraeus offers the president his opinion on how the drawdown out of Afghanistan should proceed, domestic politics is sure to intervene.  What will the President do? Seek a long-term solution to Afghanistan’s security or choose that policy option which helps his chances at the ballot box come November 2012?  How will the presidents new national security team help him reach his end point in Afghanistan? For, President Obama’s pragmatism and his commitment to American troops not withstanding, his options are not limitless.  And whatever those options might be, they are fully circumscribed by the feasible set of policy choices available to him in a party-split Washington D.C.

But this is a different time under unpromising circumstances.  This year, this season, this summer President Barack Obama has pledged to begin the steady removal of combat troops from Afghanistan while further redistributing the troops who will remain stationed there to confront an ever-more energized enemy-the Taliban. Things are touch and go now and it’s not so much the fact of the deaths that seems to gut one, even though each such death is regrettable, inexcusable, even if explicable.  It’s rather that the U.S and its NATO allies can ill-afford to make the kinds of grave mistakes it has made recently even as the commanders of the field have ramped up counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency moves against the Taliban.  Those  attacks have proved to be deeply unpopular since many innocent people seemed to have died in those operations.

The NATO led attack that accidentally killed 14 innocent victims, indeed mostly women and children, in Helmand Province over the weekend comes only a bit more than a month before the July drawdown. It also comes a month and more after the Taliban’s declared spring offensive.  These attacks gone awry not only infuriate the Afghan on the street and his brothers in far-off villages, they also provide cover for President Karzai’s double dealings with his so-called NATO allies.  And there is finally the regrettable fact that these accidental, unfortunate killings stir up already inflamed public passions which are then readily swayed by the recruitment narratives the Taliban spins.

These attacks are then a gift to the Taliban in the way that they double back on the U.S precisely by making the local populace stand against the U.S and its NATO allies.  These attacks then hinder the goals of counterinsurgency and push back the small successes docketed in Afghanistan.

Indeed, just today at least 4 NATO troops were killed in renewed  Taliban attacks. This follows a deadly Taliban attack wherein at least two Afghan police commanders and German troops were killed and the the German NATO officer who is in charge of the North was Afghanistan was wounded.  In the meantime the Taliban attacked the western city of Herat, long thought politically settled and peaceful-long considered an area with which the Taliban had not bothered.  This move might well signal that the Taliban are spreading across the country trying to show up in places where their presence was not missed.  Certainly the attack signals that not even Herat is safe from the Taliban’s maneuvers.  It is not a coincidence that Herat has been designated one of the first cities that will be handed back to Afghans under the terms of the drawdown beginning July of this year.

Time will tell whether the hungry angry folks on the streets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere will  believe him. Time will tell whether President Obama did indeed square that circle between the competing demands of principles and interests. But at least young millions the world might stand at bay at the simple fact that the President of the United States Barack Obama delivered this speech that the State Department for the sake of –and one hopes for the benefit of–that chanting and sweating masses demanding the exercise of its political voice.

President Obama argued that the U.S. has broken the Taliban’s back and with it, the Taliban’s momentum.  He argued that the politics of intolerance and majoritarian violence cannot share space with the aspiration of the many millions that have come out to protest autocratic governments the world over.  Indeed, he held that even if the aspiration for democracy and self-rule contrasted with narrowly defined American interests, the U.S would support those vision of self-rule and individual claims to dignity.  That sounds fine in principle; what does that mean for the people on the ground in Afghanistan?

To get to that, assume that the violence and politics in Afghanistan is the outcome of sectarian distrust and hatred, Pashtun’s against Hazara’s and Tajiks.  Obama argued that sectarian political values need not lead to sectarian violence.  He offered the following carrot “if you take the risk that reform entails, you will have the full support of the United States.” The stick? The status quo!

Hence, as long as narrowly-defined promotion of partisan politics in Kabul gave way to genuine shared values or at least attempts to garner those values, the United States would support that effort. Indeed the president’s claims implied that even if the young and the vibrant masses came out against avowed American strategic interests, the exercise of that speech would go untrammeled. This is perhaps the best that the President could offer; perhaps the best that the young man in Kabul or Herat might suppose he’d get at the bargaining table-though it’s hardly enough to satisfy him.

The consensus view within the administration and its foreign policy arm has been a position that the president offered to the world in 2009 in Cairo but articulated with some gusto only this afternoon: “We look forward to working with all who embrace genuine and inclusive democracy. What we will oppose is an attempt by any group to restrict the rights of others, and to hold power through coercion – not consent. Because democracy depends not only on elections, but also strong and accountable institutions, and respect for the rights of minorities.”  Hence President Karzai’s sham electoral win in the last election cycle would fall according to this new articulated position.  Elections aren’t sufficient, though they are necessary for democracy to take hold. There must be a solid base and support for robust democratic politics that views the rights of minorities on the same balanced scale as that of the majority.

So far, that seems a distant dream in Afghanistan. Still, perhaps something of this vision can yet be salvaged in Afghanistan. Perhaps the young man on the street, the young man that President Obama has taken so much care to appease might rest a bit easier tonight in the knowledge that whatever else might be the case, his political speech and cry for action won’t be constrained.

(Though the broadcast is not yet available in its entirety, please find an excerpt that aired on the PBS Newshour as well as links to eye opening, thought provoking online exclusives that attach to that documentary here. Consider for instance, a near tell-all interview with former Afghan intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, that you’ll find here.)

The strongest story within the multi-narrative piece cobbled together with great finesse is the story of journalist Najibullah Quraishi’s stay behind the lines with an al Qaeda commander and troops, as they train, bargain and wind themselves up for their promised renewed fight with the U.S. and NATO troops.  We already know that al Qaeda has always been in a testy relationship with the Taliban; yet they happily join forces to confront the U.S and NATO presence in Afghanistan.  At war al Qaeda are friends of the Taliban, even if they are often uneasy political allies.

However, al Qaeda and its members swear fealty to Osama bin Laden.  Not to some principle, not to some country or concept-bin Laden, sur tout. With his death-al Qaeda will cast that fact as martyrdom-what of al Qaeda, now, in the near future and in time to come; what will turn up of what we now know as al Qaeda?  This, especially as the much noted Arab Spring draws energy from the youth of countries in the wider Middle East, energy that al Qaeda had professed and hoped to monopolize.

In a prepared two page statement, the Taliban claimed that,

“The war in our country will not come to an end unless and until the foreign invading forces pull out of Afghanistan,” that, “foreign invading forces, members of their spy networks and other spies, high-ranking officials of the Kabul puppet administration … and heads of foreign and local companies working for the enemy and contractors” are suitable targets.

The statement also warned civilians to steer clear of military convoys and foreign institutions. It read, “All Afghan people should bear in mind to keep away from gatherings, convoys and centers of the enemy so that they will not become harmed during attacks of mujahedin against the enemy.”

Now, the U.S and ISAF troops have long anticipated a ramped up springtime insurgency and have promised  in their turn a spring thaw offensive against the Taliban. Recent reports have held up Southern Provinces of Helmand and Kandahar as the locus of lethal fights, where the U.S and ISAF soldiers will push back the Taliban.  As such the statement is cheap talk-the declaration of attacks is, by itself, noise.

However the warning that Afghans should stay clear of public spaces traversed by the Western authorities in Afghanistan is a strong signal that an attack is imminent and that multiple attacks are likely to be frequent.  This, because, not delivering on the promised attacks would imply that the Taliban are not as powerful as they claim to be (most sources claim that the Taliban are not nearly as powerful as public opinion in Afghanistan holds.)  The Taliban cannot afford to be perceived as weak.  Indeed to drive away the suspicions of military and political impotence, the Taliban must ramp up their offensives against American and ISAF soldiers.  Declaring that civilians had best step away from any putative combat zone increases the likelihood that a lethal attack is in the works, oddly enough, because people have just been told that an attack is in the works.

That is to say that the lethal, spectacular and frequent attacks on U.S and ISAF soldiers are the Taliban’s attempt to showboat. Though, they are likely to do so with deadly results.

The White House will announce on Thursday  that President Obama has chosen current Director of Central Intelligence, former Congressman and former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta as the next Secretary of Defense.  The current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates is likely to leave office during the summer; in the event Panetta will likely have a swift confirmation through the Senate due in no small part thanks to his rich friendships there.  There are rumors and foresworn opinions that once in office in the Pentagon Panetta will slash the Pentagon budget, forcing a much more rapid exit out of Afghanistan than was thought credible.

In Panetta’s place, the president is known to have picked the current Afghanistan NATO commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus to head the CIA.  There can be little doubt that this move will ensure that the CIA and its leadership will soon be well-versed in insurgency and counterinsurgency doctrines.  This, as the spring thaw unleashes devastating, catapulting waves of violence across the peaks and valleys of Afghanistan.

Intelligence and counterintelligence  has played a tremendously important role in the conduct of the war in Afghanistan.  Now, as news of the release of jailed insurgents proliferates the airwaves and the electronic ether, and on its heels, news of another in a series murders and attacks committed by supposedly friendly Afghan soldiers bleeds through the evening broadcast, it has become increasingly urgent that U.S and NATO soldiers be able to tell apart friend from foe and once told and set apart, the soldiers on the ground must be able the occurrence of other similar events.

This is likely to be a difficult turn even with the proposed investment in wider use of biometric technology.  Still, the real time assessments that must be done to tell apart a signal from cheap talk will have to become a center-point of the war effort, and its more than likely that General David Petraeus will eventually take his place in Langley in order to transition the intelligence effort in Afghanistan to reflect the dangerous realities in that country. No doubt given a much more assertive CIA that has to fend off the less than satisfying moves of its partner organizations in odd countries, General Petraeus is likely to reassert the dominance of what many consider to be a more militarized CIA.

Nevertheless, there are those who, like me, are properly concerned that the departures of these respected leaders from their nearly god-given roles might imply instability for what remains of the war effort in Afghanistan.  There’s certainly room to worry but, perhaps, little need; President Obama has worked hard to square that circle.  First, he is known to have chosen former -and wildly successful-Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker as the man who will replace as Ambassador to Afghanistan the disastrously impolitic General Karl Eikenberry. For sometime at least this move might well reunite the political and military dream team of Crocker and Petraeus.  Concerned stakeholders in Washington D.C and Kabul will surely think this good news.

Secondly General Petraeus’ replacement is known to be current Deputy Commander of the U.S Central Command (Centcom), Marine Lt. General John Allen, a marine with experience in intelligence and rich contacts in defense think tanks like the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Council on Foreign Relations.  That’s a fairly rich resume for a man who’s likely to lead a more intelligence heavy war effort in concert with a new CIA Director who also boasts a rich military resume.

Concerned Americans and soldiers on the ground are sure to have their worried allayed that Lt. General Allen has all the requisite skills to maneuver the U.S out of Afghanistan, even while holding down the real estate U.S and NATO soldiers have taken from the Taliban.  He would not have been President Obama’s pick otherwise.  His nomination along with the Leon Panetta’s and David Petraeus’s office shuffle might well kick start a stronger running engine in the war waged and the settled peace delivered in Afghanistan.