The Foreign Service Journal, December 2014

38 DECEMBER 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL closer and closer to the capital. ough there is no immi- nent danger that Pres. Ghani’s government will be militarily defeated, the struggle has signi cantly weakened it at the outset. ere is a sort of stability; but there are also huge gov- ernance challenges for an administration that is more divided and less legitimate than it should have been. Keeping the Process on Track e key to managing the traumatic transition was always to inject as much certainty as possible into an uncertain situation. e election was an essential part of this strategy, intended as it was to ensure the continuity of the 2004 constitution—which, for better or worse, set out rules for power that were at least super - cially accepted by powerful elites. is con dence was shaken by two developments. First, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced in December 2013 that he would not sign any new Bilateral Security Agreement with the United States. en, after energetic diplomacy failed to budge Karzai, President Barack Obama announced in May that the U.S. would leave just 9,800 combat troops in Afghanistan in 2015, which would be withdrawn by the end of 2016. Pres. Ghani’s government has now signed the BSA, but the Obama administration still plans to remove nearly all troops before leaving o ce. Looked at in the most positive light, this can be a forcing mechanism for Afghan leaders to develop suf- cient cohesiveness to function on their own. e jury is still out on whether they are capable of it. In the meantime, U.S. policymakers and diplomats must develop new habits of their own. Afghan “rentierism” means that money fromoutside has always had an outsized in uence on Afghan domestic politics. is has preventedWashington from having a typical bilateral relationship with Kabul. At a conceptual level, the relationship has been de ned, especially since the mid- 2000s, by U.S. rhetoric pushing Afghan leaders to “take the lead”— even as Washington continues to invest billions of dollars without much to show for it. The key to managing the traumatic transition was always to inject as much certainty as possible into an uncertain situation. Nargis Nehan, director of Equality for Peace and Democracy, gives a press conference in February during a seminar on women and elections in Kabul. The seminar brought presidential contenders, including eventual winner Ashraf Ghani, together to field questions from leading women’s rights advocates and civil society representatives from around the nation. Casey Garret Johnson