For years Afghanistan has been presented as having a stark choice between either Nato or the Taliban, with the obvious assumption that when the Nato forces stop their combat role in 2014 the Taliban will be able to simply walk back into Kabul and take over again.
However, 10 years of development have given the country a more likely third option, which is that Afghanistan’s new civil institutions will be up for the challenge, and that its armed forces will largely be able to contain any insurgency.
A visit to Afghanistan last week showed a determination from all sides to make things work, and very little expectation that the Taliban could ever succeed in dominating Afghanistan again.
Afghans are not blind to the failings of their state. They talk of the deep corruption which includes President Hamid Karzai and his family, the fragility of the links between central government in Kabul and the administration in the country’s 34 provinces, and their over-arching concerns that the Afghan armed forces may or may not be up the challenge of containing and defeating the Taliban and other armed groups which want to pursue their own local or criminal activities.
But Afghans also talk of the huge progress that has been made in rebuilding their nation since 2002 when American-led forces defeated the Taliban government and later handed over much of their mission to Nato.
Afghanistan suffered decades of neglect and destruction after the last king was deposed in 1973, and the Soviet Union invaded in 1979 starting a regime that faced continual assault from American-backed Mujahideen till they fled in 1989, ushering in years of warlord dominated civil war, which was brought to an end by the grim success of the Taliban in 1996 who lasted until December 2001 when the coalition took over.
This legacy left the civil administration in tatters and the army disbanded, so when the Nato troops poured down from the north and conquered the country in 2001, they found very little civilian structure ready to take over running the country.
It was the work of years to run a transitional administration, manage the process of a nationwide Loya Jirga, and eventually move to a new president and parliament, as well as provincial governors who manage their regions, often with the local oversight of provincial Shura councils.
A lot has been made of the slow pace of development and administrative confusion in Nato-dominated Afghanistan. For example, different countries in the coalition tackled the vacuum of governance in different ways, and there was been little active nationwide coordination or control over what the Americans, British, Danes or Swedes, for example, would do in areas they controlled.
Therefore it was encouraging to see a Provincial Governor hold his weekly meeting in Paktiya in the east of the country (where Nato and the Afghan Army are facing Taliban units who are operating out of safe havens in Pakistan).
Despite this tough environment, the governor touched on what was a moderate amount of violence (reports of a few checkpoints attacked, some clashes with insurgents, etc. but not a rolling tale of war and mayhem) but he also wanted to look at development issues like progress on schools and hospitals, as well as building tarred main roads. His meetings were held in an atmosphere of determined civil governance, rather than managing a war room.
Watchdog
In Kabul, MPs were anxious to debate progress on laws, and were watching developments on any hints that the president might want to change the election laws, possible to his own advantage. There was a clear sense that the parliamentarians were carrying out their function of being a watchdog over the executive.
The all-important military transition is going ahead, as Nato gives way from both leading and carrying out operations, to first handing over the lead to the Afghans but continuing to take part in operations, and then stepping back from even taking part in the operations, although retaining an advisory role in the background.
Today the Afghan armed forces are in charge of 80 percent of operations nationwide, which cover areas in which 75 per cent of the Afghan population live.
Afghans across the board blame Pakistan for allowing the Taliban to operate from safe havens in their territory, and they are very worried about their ability to stop cross-border activity from their larger neighbour.
They are also concerned that the 2014 presidential elections and the 2015 parliamentary elections should be done properly. But their vision of the next few years did not include the Taliban getting any where, and that was encouraging.
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