For U.S. Leader in Afghan War, Much Time Making Peace
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Version 0 of 1. KABUL, Afghanistan — After 19 months in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of American and coalition forces here, is leaving a war that has become as much about damage control and crisis diplomacy as fighting the Taliban. Dispatched to begin winding down combat operations, General Allen spent much of his final year here contending with a series of disasters that he now refers to as meteor strikes: a video of Marines urinating on Taliban corpses, the accidental burning of Korans by American soldiers, civilian deaths in coalition airstrikes, and the massacre of 16 civilians by an American soldier. Then there was a surge in violence against coalition service members by Afghan soldiers and police officers, known as insider attacks, that by late summer had jeopardized the effort to train Afghan forces to be able to fight on their own. At the least, it added urgency to a troop withdrawal that was already being accelerated ahead of the 2014 deadline. But of all the challenges faced by General Allen, who on Sunday will hand his command to Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. and leave Afghanistan, one remains as central today as it was when he landed in Kabul: keeping President Hamid Karzai’s distrust of the United States in check, and keeping the Obama administration committed to an ally who has tested the limits of its patience. “It can be really tough,” General Allen acknowledged in an interview this week. Referring to his dual role as commander of American troops and the leader of the military coalition that fights alongside Afghan forces, he said: “I wanted President Karzai to understand that while I had certainly been selected by President Obama to come out here, I very much saw myself serving President Karzai as well. This was the great struggle.” The uneasy — and, at times, overtly hostile — relationship between Mr. Karzai and Washington has defined the final years of the war in Afghanistan. Breakdowns in the relationship have been paralleled by both the deterioration of the war effort and declining political will in the United States to remain engaged in the longest American combat deployment in history. Initiatives seen as critical by American officials and commanders have been among the most contested by their Afghan allies. Coalition plans to establish the Afghan Local Police as a network of defense militias, for instance, were initially opposed and only grudgingly approved by Mr. Karzai. And governance issues like American-backed efforts to sever criminal patronage networks among Afghan officials have repeatedly been shut down by the Afghan leader. General Allen’s predecessor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, had a stormy relationship with Mr. Karzai. By the time General Allen assumed command, the Afghan leader’s talk of coalition forces as occupiers with little regard for the lives of ordinary Afghans had grown sharper. Restoring a modicum of trust fell to General Allen and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, who was appointed around the same time for his second turn as ambassador. Mr. Crocker’s prior relationship with Mr. Karzai provided a foundation, General Allen said. He recalled how when he and Mr. Crocker went to present their credentials to the Afghan president, the ambassador spoke of his first meeting at the presidential palace with Mr. Karzai, in January 2002, when they sat together wrapped in blankets and huddled over a lantern because there was no electricity. But that was in comparatively happier times: the Taliban were on the run, Mr. Karzai was a darling of the West and many Afghans saw American soldiers as liberators. “When you think about how far he had come and the depths and the nature of the relationship we have with President Karzai, I was taking the lead, frankly, in that,” General Allen said. Even as he was working to repair a deteriorating relationship, though, the meteor strikes hit. On more than one occasion, General Allen saw the most urgent need as the one to say sorry — and mean it, even when Republicans at home were condemning what they claimed was the Obama administration’s needless eagerness to apologize. That was the case when American soldiers at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, inadvertently threw a box of Korans into a incineration pit in February 2012, leading to days of riots and stepped up attacks against American troops. “I thought this could be it for the relationship,” General Allen said, adding that he “immediately cut a video apologizing for this as sincerely as I could possibly appear and sound, because this was going to be bad, it could be really bad. I called the president. I went to see him.” Despite the immediate violence, Mr. Karzai and General Allen were able to keep the episode “from being something that could have fractured the relationship,” the general said. On that occasion and others, he added, “it was a personal relationship, I think, that saves the day.” A few months later, General Allen found himself apologizing again, this time to the relatives of 18 people killed in a coalition airstrike. He had flown to the site of the bombing, in Logar Province, south of Kabul, to personally deliver his apology. Afghan officials responded warmly. “There is a tremendous respect for General Allen here,” said Janan Mosazai, the spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, “because of the sympathy and respect that he brought to his job in dealing with the Afghan people and the Afghan government.” The sympathy was also returned after General Allen’s mother died last year. He had not told anyone in the Afghan government before flying home to bury her. Then, while eating with his family in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, “I get a phone call from the palace saying, ‘President Karzai wants to talk to you,’ ” General Allen said. “So I’m in the parking lot, it’s just surreal,” he said. “Talking to the president of Afghanistan, who is gripped with emotion saying words to the effect that our mothers are so precious to us.” Whether the good will engendered by General Allen will outlast his tenure is unlikely to be clear even well after he is firmly ensconced in his new role as the top commander of NATO forces in Europe. The Obama administration has yet to hash out with Afghan officials what, if any, force will remain after the NATO mission ends in 2014. Afghan officials, meanwhile, say Mr. Karzai remains frustrated by what he sees as American intransigence over issues like the detention of insurgents and the frequent criticism of his government as weak and corrupt. One Afghan official, speaking about continued disagreements over detention, pointed out that General Allen, “no matter how much respect he has shown, he cannot unwind all the problems we face.” For his part, General Allen readily acknowledged that the outcome of the war is far from certain. “Let me make sure I’m clear on this: Nothing is sure.” At the least, he said, the Afghan Army and the police were much improved — a critical measure given a continued Taliban threat. For Mr. Karzai, the greater challenge now “is affecting the kinds of reforms, government reforms, anticorruption measures and the establishment of the rule of law,” General Allen said. “Now he’s moving forward in some areas, he’s having resistance in others.” Afghanistan also needs to hold a successful presidential election, which is scheduled for April 2014, to ensure long-term international aid, he said. But if the United States and its allies want to see Afghanistan succeed, they are going to have to be patient and understand that setbacks will happen, General Allen said. “We just have to expect that this is going to take time.” |