Campaign begins: Dr. Abdullah says Afghan people await a government they can rely on

Afghanistan’s presidential election campaign is at last showing signs of becoming a contest with Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the respected former foreign minister, declaring that he’ll stand as the candidate of the United National Front, the main party opposing Hamid Karzai’s corruption-plagued regime.

“We’ve got to earn back the trust the people gave the government in 2001 and 2002,” Dr. Abdullah tells skyreporter. “The Afghan people will give you time as a new leader, as long as you prove to them that you’re different, and that you will change this environment of mistrust.”

The often-stormy relationship between Abdullah and Karzai promises to add a good deal of spice to the electoral showdown. Karzai fired Dr. Abdullah in March of 2006, largely out of resentment of his foreign minister’s considerable capabilities, reputation and character.

While Karzai was virtually unknown in Afghanistan prior to his elevation by the Bush administration as interim leader in December, 2001, Dr. Abdullah earned his public profile as a close aide to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most accomplished leader of the resistance to Soviet, al Qaeda and Taliban forces.

One key issue that separates Abdullah and Karzai is Pakistan’s support, over the past 15 years or more, for the Taliban’s quest to conquer Afghanistan.

In 2000, this reporter interviewed Dr. Abdullah in his native Panjshir Valley, where he was serving as Massoud’s Foreign Minister. Their Northern Alliance was the only force preventing the Taliban, then in control of Kabul, from sweeping the entire country under a joint Taliban/al Qaeda government.

“We can’t make peace alone,” Abdullah said, “not while the Taliban are fully determined to continue the war, and they are being supported by a foreign country, which is Pakistan, and by thousands of armed people, including Arabs, Punjabis, and people from all over the world, those terrorists who want to use Afghanistan as a training land. They’re fighting against us alongside the Taliban.”

He went on:  “We believe that the policy of appeasement will not work with the Taliban. Only they will bend to real pressure. Also, pressure should be put on Pakistan, real pressure, serious pressure, this is the best way to approach a settlement of the situation in Afghanistan.”

That was in July, 2000. One year later, with the 9/11 terror attacks, the West paid a terrible price for not heeding these warnings - and continues to pay today.

Still now, the world waits for the Pakistan military to back away from the Taliban, mainly due to the blowback-prone policies of the Bush administration and its client regime in Kabul.

Until mid-2007, President Karzai, under pressure from Washington, spoke only in veiled terms of Pakistani interference. Now, having fallen out with his U.S. patrons, the President rails against Pakistan at every opportunity.

Another weak electoral flank for Karzai is his disastrous attempt to weaken the Taliban’s ethnic base of support by stacking his regime with Pashtun ministers, cronies and deal-makers. Dr. Abdullah’s Tajik-Pashtun heritage, together with his popularity in the north of Afghanistan, equips him with the potential to be a bridge builder.

This is in marked contrast to the intense Pashtun nationalism of both the hot-tempered American academic, Ashraf Ghani, and another possible candidate, Zalmay Khalilzad, the Bush administration’s former viceroy in Kabul and the man most responsible for the Karzai regime’s failures.

However, Dr. Abdullah faces stern challenges of his own, not least maintaining a semblance of unity among the fractious membership of the United Front. As well, he and his supporters must find a way to offset President Karzai’s advantage in exploiting his appointees to governorships and other offices throughout the country.

And like all presidential hopefuls, he and his team will have to devote considerable attention to security. The Taliban are already targeting every element of the electoral process that is within their fighters’ reach. Their backers within the shadowy recesses of the Pakistani military seem equally eager to destabilize the vote.

In every sense, this promises to be a long, hot and contentious summer in Afghanistan.