NATO Summit Chicago: World Leaders To Tackle Afghanistan's Future

CHICAGO — The NATO alliance that has fought for a decade in Afghanistan is helping that nation shift toward stability and peace, but there will be "hard days ahead," President Barack Obama said Sunday as alliance leaders insisted the fighting coalition will remain effective despite France's plans to yank combat troops out early.

With a global economic crisis and waning public support for the war in the backdrop, world leaders opened a NATO summit confronted by questions about Afghanistan's post-conflict future: money for security forces, coming elections and more. They were also papering over the crack in the fighting alliance with the planned French withdrawal.

"We still have a lot of work to do and there will be great challenges ahead," Obama said. "The loss of life continues in Afghanistan and there will be hard days ahead. "

The end of the war is in sight, Obama said following a lengthy discussion with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on the sidelines of the NATO summit. The military alliance is pledged to remain in Afghanistan into 2014, but will seal plans Sunday and Monday to shift foreign forces off the front lines a year faster than once planned.

Afghan forces will take the lead throughout the nation next year, instead of in 2014, despite uneven performance under U.S. and other outside tutelage so far. The shift is in large part a response to plummeting public support for the war in Europe and the United States, contributors of most of the 130,000 foreign troops now fighting the Taliban-led insurgency. A majority of Americans now say the war is unwinnable or not worth continuing.

Karzai said his nation is looking forward to the end of war, "so that Afghanistan is no longer a burden on the shoulder of our friends in the international community, on the shoulders of the United States and our other allies."

Obama said NATO partners would discuss "a vision for post-2014 in which we have ended our combat role, the Afghan war as we understand it is over, but our commitment to friendship and partnership to Afghanistan continues."

Newly elected French President Francois Hollande has said he will withdraw all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end – a full two years before the timeline agreed to by nations in the U.S.-led NATO coalition.

"There will be no rush for the exits," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged."

Rasmussen denied there were fresh cracks in the alliance. He suggested a deal will emerge for France to move into a noncombat role but continue to support the international mission.

Before the one-hour meeting with Karzai, a senior U.S. official said Obama would focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban.

Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, opening the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.

Obama and Karzai will discuss ways to ensure that political rivals can compete fairly in the run-up to the election, as well as ways to reduce fraud and support the winner who emerges, the official said.

Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the U.S. applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out, protesting what he said was an impossible level of corruption.

The election chapter opened a rift between the U.S. and Karzai, who suspected that the Obama administration wanted to replace him.

The Obama administration has mostly repaired its relationship with Karzai, but mistrust remains on both sides.

The U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said before the meeting that Obama and Karzai also were to discuss prospects for a political settlement or peace pact between Karzai's government and the Taliban-led insurgency. The Taliban pulled out of U.S.-led talks in March, but separate talks among Afghan and other contacts continue, the U.S. official said.

The official said Obama believes political reconciliation is essential to the country's future security.

The Taliban is urging nations fighting in Afghanistan to follow France's lead and pull their international forces from the war this year.

"We call upon all the other NATO member countries to avoid working for the political interests of American officials and answer the call of your own people by immediately removing all your troops from Afghanistan," the group said in a statement before the meeting.

The insurgent group cited declining public support for the war in the West and said political leaders should listen to their constituents and get out of Afghanistan.

The national security-focused NATO summit caps an extraordinary weekend of international summitry. Obama and the leaders of the world's leading industrial nations convened at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, for two days of talks focused in large part on Europe's economic crisis.

Joining Obama and many of the G-8 leaders in Chicago are the heads of NATO alliance nations and other countries with a stake in the Afghan war.

Prominent among those nations is Pakistan. Tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan have been running high following several incidents, including the U.S. raid in Pakistan that led to the death of Osama bin Laden and a U.S. airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.

Both countries have been seeking to restore normal relations. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's acceptance of an invitation to attend the NATO summit was seen as an indication that his country would reopen major roads used to supply NATO fighting forces in Afghanistan, a key U.S. demand.

White House officials said that while they believe an agreement on reopening the supply routes will be reached, they do not expect that to happen during the NATO meetings. The two nations are haggling over how much Pakistan will be paid to allow the heavy transport truck to pass through. A senior U.S. official said the two sides are far apart. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

Officials have indicated that Obama and Zardari will not hold a separate bilateral meeting until the matter is resolved. Although miffed, Zardari is expected to see Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other U.S. officials in Chicago.

"I do hope that we will see a reopening of the transit routes in the very near future," Rasmussen said. "These negotiations will continue, but I am hopeful that they will be concluded in a positive manner."

Pakistan and the U.S.: A new beginning?

Allies have had a rocky year, but the relationship can be salvaged

The NATO summit in Chicago will focus on the endgame in Afghanistan on the heels of U.S. House debate on bills that will shape the nature of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. The tone of this debate and the diplomacy of the Obama administration will send a clear signal to the 180 million people of Pakistan as to whether the world's oldest democracy will stand with one of the world's newest democracies to defeat terrorism and extremism for a politically stable and economically viable South Asia. Many are pessimistic.

However, a series of confidence-building measures could recast our bilateral relationship. If the war against extremism is to succeed, the war of words between democratic allies must end.

The U.S. and Pakistan have had a rocky year. The unilateral raid on Abbottabad, the Raymond Davis CIA provocation, the U.S.-led NATO air assault in Salalah that tragically killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and the continuing unauthorized drone attacks on Pakistani soil have frayed our 60-year special relationship.

We can dwell on the things that have separated us or work toward rebuilding the relationship.

Pakistan has taken the first step to restoring normalcy to U.S.-Pakistan relations by working to reopen the NATO supply routes that were closed after the Salalah tragedy.

Significant progress could be made toward resetting the relationship between our countries if the U.S. were to:

•Finally apologize for the battlefield deaths at Salalah.

•Reimburse the Coalition Support Funds — U.S. repayments to Pakistan for the cost of battling terrorism — owed to Pakistan, a very small part of the $78 billion that Pakistan has lost on account of the war against extremism since 2001.

•Increase the sharing of counterterrorism intelligence to assist our military in combating extremism.

•Cease the controversial drone operations that violate our sovereignty and the norms of international law.

•Shift to a policy of trade not aid by providing enhanced access to U.S. markets for Pakistan's exports.

These game-changing steps would serve as a deathblow to extremist expansion in the region.

As the U.S. prepares to exit from South and Central Asia — again — in 2014, those of us who live and will remain in the region have a legitimate interest in a stable and responsible security transition in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has paid an enormous price in our battle against al-Qaida, with more than 37,000 civilians and nearly 6,300 security forces killed. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto gave her life fighting this scourge. Given this level of clear commitment, coupled with sacrifice, it is unseemly for our resolve against terrorism to be questioned by the West.

The 46 nations fighting in Afghanistan represent countries with an aggregate gross domestic product of more than $365 trillion, and an aggregate military force of nearly 22 million troops. When this unprecedented coalition cannot contain the terrorists on the Afghan side of the border, it is naive to assume that Pakistan alone can completely eliminate terrorist activity on our side of the border. We have 140,000 troops in daily combat against the militants in FATA, Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and Waziristan. We are hardly passive allies in our existential battle against militancy.

America may not be aware that our successful (and costly) effort to clear thousands of terrorists from Swat, Bajaur and Mohmand has been undermined by militants who now find sanctuary in eastern Afghanistan from which they continuously attack our civilians and our soldiers. Despite the enormous efforts taken and huge casualties suffered, Pakistan's efforts are in vain if NATO cannot provide the anvil to Pakistan's hammer.

The threat to Pakistan is real and constant. The daily attacks shatter lives on a level we could never have imagined before 2001. Each military offensive launched in our tribal areas results in immediate attacks on our schools, hospitals, markets and religious shrines across our nation. Yet we are resilient. We continue the fight.

My embassy updates the U.S. Congress on a weekly basis of the toll this fight has taken on the men, women and children of our country — a staggering 43,726 confirmed dead. Just last week an additional 34 Pakistani civilians and 18 security personnel were killed in my country as we fight this war. This is our reality.

While some may question our commitment and ask whether we are doing enough, the truth is that Pakistan — our government, civilians and our soldiers — want a swift victory over terror more than anyone. Our existence depends on it. In order to succeed, America and Pakistan must forge a new beginning together, starting today.

Sherry Rehman is Pakistan's ambassador to the United States.

Who are the Taliban and what do they want? 5 key points

While a broad array of insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan often get labeled as simply the 'Taliban,' in reality there are several groups fighting the Afghan government and Western forces. They often act independently of one another and have distinct command structures, ideologies, and strategies. Here, the Monitor maps out the diversity of the insurgency.

This is an updated version of a Monitor briefing originally published on Apr. 16, 2009 and written by Anand Gopal.

Afghan insurgents

● The original Taliban

The most established group is the Taliban that led the Afghan government in the 1990s. Led byMullah Omar and others who held top positions in the pre-invasion government, the Taliban has traditionally held the most sway in southern Afghanistan, where it has deep roots. US officials believe that senior leaders are based in Pakistan, possibly Quetta.

● Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami

A prominent ally under the Taliban umbrella is Hizb-e-Islami, a group formed by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the 1970s to fight the Soviet-backed government and later the Soviet invasion. Throughout the 1980s, Hizb-e-Islami was an ally of Pakistan and the United States.

After the US invasion in 2001, a faction of Hizb-e-Islami led by Mr. Hekmatyar joined the insurgency. It is strongest in the northern regions of the country, Afghanistan expert Antonio Giustozzi told the Monitor in 2009. With its long history, Hizb-e-Islami may have extensive contacts in the government and police.

While many Taliban fighters are poor and uneducated, Hizb-e-Islami members have usually gone to school, even college. Perhaps as a result, they tend to have a more lenient interpretation of Islam than other insurgent groups do – for example, they often allow music and parties.