The Foreign Service Journal, December 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2014 93 peace negotiated by outsiders will never hold, but there is a role for the United States. Here he posits admittedly ideal- ized pro les of Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2020. ere are modest but achievable measures that will assist in achieving these outcomes. First, Tomsen urges the United States and its allies not to abandon Afghanistan to anarchy. e Ghani government’s signing of the Status of Forces Agree- ment and Bilateral Security Agreement, with continued salary support of Afghan national security forces, could be the rst of these measures. Tomsen calls for reduced U.S. pres- ence in a lower-level anti–terrorism cam- paign primarily run by Afghans. Here, also, the SOFA and BSA will be helpful. In a better world, a portion of current U.S. and allied funding could be turned to development assistance delivered more by Afghans than by U.S. troops. But such assistance is not viable in an insurgency. e issue remains security. Second, Pakistan must end its sup- port for radical Islamists on both sides of the border. e considerable mili- tary, development and humanitarian assistance Islamabad has received from the United States has had little in uence on Pakistan’s actions. But the violence Pakistan has fomented in Afghanistan, long after the Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of the PDPA, now envelops Pakistan itself. ird, chronically divided Afghan moderates and their followers need to submerge long-standing ethnic and political grievances and unite behind national and local administrations com- mitted to good governance. e recent trilingual imbroglio over election results, audit procedures, criteria for vote disquali cations, and the roles of the president and the chief executive o cer could be just a new example of these potentially disruptive grievances. At the moment, there seems some, but perhaps not enough, positive movement on the latter two issues. Analysts may judge if the United States and its allies will nd the right mix of steps to the idealized Afghanistan and Pakistan of 2020. Old Afghan hands, pre-9/11 and those with more recent experience, will relish a good read, and place a well- thumbed copy of Peter Tomsen’s Wars of Afghanistan in an honored place on their bookshelves next to another book of a similar weight, Louis DuPree’s classic, Afghanistan . n omas H. Eighmy served as a geographer and associate chief of party in the Ministry of Planning for USAID’s Afghan Demographic Survey from 1971 to 1975. As a USAID Foreign Service o cer, he was a health, education and regional a airs o cer in Islamabad and Peshawar for the Cross- Border Humanitarian Assistance Program from 1988 to 1992, which overlapped with Tomsen’s tour as special envoy to the Afghan resistance. He assisted in reopening the USAID mission in Kabul in 2002, and was an adviser to the International Foundation for Election Systems there in 2003. Take AFSA With You! Change your address online, visit us at www.afsa.org/ address Or Send changes to: AFSAMembership Department 2101 E Street NW Washington, DC 20037 Moving? Only Pakistan is consistent. It uses a policy of playing both arsonist and fireman inside Afghanistan.