Good morning, everybody. Pleasure to welcome you to the Carnegie Endowment, and a particular pleasure to welcome back to the endowment Dr. Abdullah. We’re hearing more and more that 2008 is going to be the year of Afghanistan, or should be the year of Afghanistan. We will see whether that comes to pass, but without any question there is an urgent need for greater attention and for greater effort, international effort. The problems are growing, as is the likelihood that the country could slip back into the grip of unrestrained violence. A few months from now, early April, NATO will convene its summit in Bucharest, and Afghanistan will be top among the issues that will be discussed. And so leading up to that time we here at Carnegie have decided to organize a series of events to focus on the leading challenges that the country faces this year and that both the Afghani government and the international community have to jointly confront. Among these are first, of course, the sufficiency and leadership of the military effort; the question of whether additional troops are needed, how many; whether the leadership of the existing forces is appropriately directed for counterinsurgency efforts. Second, of course, the counter-narcotics effort, where the record over the past seven years has been dismal, and the reconstruction process, and how that’s going; and central to all of these, of course, the question of the performance of the Afghan government, its ability to deliver basic services and to manage corruption. To lead off this series, we really couldn’t have a better person with us to address at least some of these issues, maybe all, and what’s on your minds than Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, who is currently secretary general of the Masud Foundation. As I think everybody here knows, he was also foreign secretary of the country from 2002 to 2006. He, before that, held many posts in the transitional government, as spokesman for the government. He is trained originally as a physician and opthamologist; in his period in Peshawar led efforts to take care of Afghan refugees there in the mid-’80s before joining Commander Masud’s effort for in the mid – , well, better part of a decade. So the trajectory of his life has really mirrored that of his country; he’s been at the center of events now for 25 years, and we are looking forward to hearing from him, an insider’s view of where we are, what must be done and the alternative roles of – priorities for the international community and Afghan government. So thank you so much, we’re looking forward to hearing from you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to thank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for providing me this opportunity to talk about the issue of Afghanistan, the situation in Afghanistan, and at very short notice. I informed them of my willingness to come and to speak here, and it was confirmed soon after. It is like, after two years since I haven’t been in Washington, so my first trip after two years. In Washington, things have not changed that much – (chuckles) – but a lot has changed in Afghanistan in this course. I’ll go a little bit back to – I’m going to start with 2001 before getting to the present situation, and then talk about the future prospects. Before 2001, there was little hope that Afghanistan would be restored as a country, as a state, in its nation – as a nation will be given the chance to live at peace within itself and with the others. Al Qaeda had taken root there, and it was like its global capital. Then came an opportunity in the midst of the tragedy here in Washington and New York. As a result of that, the people of Afghanistan got together, and the international community joined hands, and then, the processes started. The main element in the process was the option or the choice of the Afghan people to start voting for general elections; one person, one vote. I was in Germany and one of the questions was that, wasn’t it early for Afghanistan or too early, or does it work at all for Afghanistan to opt for general elections. And my point has been, and this is my firm belief, knowing the context of the situation fully, at that time in Afghanistan in the conditions of our country, in the views of our people, that would have been the only way to get out of that quagmire which pervaded in Afghanistan for 25 years. We had exercised and experienced every other option in the course of the past 25 years. It had not worked, and had worked against the interests of our people that led to the situation, which was there. So it wasn’t, like, an idea being suggested and imposed on Afghanistan, the idea of going for elections as the way of participation in the history of the country and the nation. I think your help, the help of the international community, made it possible to materialize that dream. Apart from that, one or two other things happened in the course of events. Taliban and al Qaeda were uprooted from Afghanistan; it took just a few weeks before they lost their bases, and that is telling a story of total loss of support among the population or absence of any support from the population because at that time, we were not talking about several thousands of ISAF or NATO or coalition forces. It started with a few hundred of your troops, that and the people on the ground, that Taliban and al Qaeda lost their bases in Afghanistan. There was an assumption that it is a spent force, al Qaeda and Taliban, and the threat perception within Afghanistan was from the actors within the country rather than the Taliban, which were provided essentially outside Afghanistan and taking root back. That, I think, affected the rest of our strategies. So the threat perception is from the internal forces, then your whole efforts will be focused how to manage it. And then, at the same time, outside Afghanistan in the neighboring country, Pakistan, there was an assumption that the presence of the U.S. as well as the international community in Afghanistan is a temporary one. And that broad concept of using extremism as an instrument of achieving foreign policy objectives had not changed in Pakistan. In Taliban, in our negotiations with them, they will tell you that it’s a domestic issue for Afghanistan and no action was taken against Taliban, backed the leadership of Taliban, which were that and not only that, but they enjoyed some support as well. So the threat developed within Pakistan. Once Taliban lost their bases, they established their bases in Pakistan. That was the critical moment. I’m talking in the course of 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, so that’s the framework of time that I’m talking about. At the same time, the United States got engaged in Iraq. That, in itself, was a major factor. And Pakistan, of course, was cooperating from time to time by handing over a few members of al Qaeda, and that was also something which was appreciated a great deal. As a result, the Taliban got stronger in Pakistan and started attacks on Afghanistan; within the country, that consensus which existed at the beginning was damaged in the course of events which followed. I mean, from a situation which President Karzai was supported by a majority, an absolute majority of the people and later on elected by an absolute majority vote, towards a situation as of now, where this political atmosphere is one of absolute mistrust between the players, but I see the players. I mean, in this broad vision of a moderate Islamic country, a democratic country, a peaceful country which respects the rights of its citizens and live at peace with one another, all the political forces within Afghanistan are shading this common vision. But when you see the action on the ground, or the way that the state institutions are functioning then you don’t get that promise anymore. So that consensus within the country was also damaged. But then, we had more or less a consensus in the region; I mentioned about the Pakistan factor. Recently, we are hearing about things which are happening from Iran as well so it means that Iran, which has started playing a constructive role, at least to the extent that these reports about the situation is not as such. And among the international community, in a broad sense there is a willingness to continue support, but we hear from time to time sometimes different signals. So, altogether we are not what we should have been after six years from Bonn agreement because of all these factors and all these developments. The situation, to this situation is such that at least, from what I can see and I can witness, we need a review of the situation in order to draw some lessons. And when I say we, us, I mean Afghans and the international community all together. There are one or two immediate lessons out of what we have witnessed. For example, it is important, it is critical – it was important, it was critical that we hold general elections, but the assumption that you have the popular mandate and because of the votes that sufficed, and you don’t have to consider all the other factors which are important in developments in a country like Afghanistan, was not the right assumption. I mean, had that assumption been right, so we have an elected government which millions of people voted for President Karzai, so what is it that we are saying that the gap between the people, and the government is a growing gap. What’s the factor behind it? So this needs to be looked at thoroughly. We had opted for presidential system and the power is concentrated in the center; is it functioning the way it was expected? It has to be looked at. The fact that – just by giving examples – I won’t go into details of this and leave enough time for questions later on – the fact that we are deciding in Kabul about everything which is happening, from the level of a district up to the provinces and so on and so forth, in not allowing the provincial councils to play an effective role in the provinces – is it helpful? I don’t think so. We have examples of appointments of governors which were kicked out of one province by the people, appointed to the next; again, the same thing, appointed to the next. The third province before him going there, the people said that we don’t want him. He is being appointed to the fourth province. This is not working; we need to look at it. And why it’s important and critical – these sort of things might happen somewhere else as well, in a stable situation, but that’s different. Here, we miss an opportunity, a great opportunity, of having the people with us which are in its totality, but we don’t have them to be more hopeful and to be participants in their lives. So there will be a lot of examples of such. The fact that we moved from the interim government without any doubt – ignore my participation in these governments. For a while, it was more effective. There were some shortcomings; perhaps there it was taken care of in the transitional government, but it was also effective government. And then, we have elected government and the people expected this to be even more effective. Do we have it? No. That’s very evident, and I don’t want to get into details of this; that will be talking about my own colleagues, but that’s a point. The present relations between the parliament and the government is not acceptable, and of course it’s not to putting the blame on one person, which is the president; of course the people have voted for the president, and even those who have not voted for the president, they have equal rights to expect him to do things about it, but it’s for the political leadership as a whole. And there has to be an end to this political stalemate, and the political leaders should get together to work it out. And it’s like a rope which everybody’s pulling towards itself, and how long do we do this? And it’s a responsibility not for this generation, but for the future generations as well. And we – like it or not, our role was like the founding fathers of a nation because a new Afghanistan was born. In whatever we do, it will be taken as an example for the future as well. If we don’t leave lessons that the people could look at it and be proud of it in the future, we miss another opportunity. So these are things – some of the points which I wanted to emphasize, but by emphasizing on these points I’m not saying that – I’m not ignoring or underestimating all those positive developments which have taken place in the lives of the people of Afghanistan. And for millions of our people there was no hope, no prospect. They started their new life; refugees have started returning back. We had our constitution, and a lot has happened that it will be more than what I can speak about today. But it’s critical in order to consolidate those achievements, to start the process which is more promising, which takes into account these grievances of the people, expectations of the people and work as a guideline for the people so the people see their future in it. It’s critical, and the time is now. For my trip to Washington at this stage, it’s mainly public events like this which I will be addressing. My aim at this time was that I know that some time to come, there will be a new administration, and I was told by our American friends time and again that in the first one of two years the focus will be mainly domestic issues. I want to emphasize at this stage that we don’t have more time to miss. So together we have done a lot, and we should have done much more, but still there is opportunity. Don’t let this opportunity to slip out of our hand. For us, it will be gone forever and it will be no exaggeration if I emphasize on the repercussions for the rest of the world. So on that note, I stop and wait for your questions.
