that he can that he believes represents the voting bloc. most problematic league, we saw the return of the general, three days ago. he represents the uzbek voting bloc and the fact that the afghan government, many people working with the international community have managed to exile this bad actor, and that he took it upon himself to bring him back, passing a decree allowing him to come back, shows what he is willing to go through to try to severe -- secure this election through popular support, and the people who he thinks carry a block of voting. what is most problematic is that in the next few days, there is the perception of fraud. there are a lot of concerns about the role of fraud in the

selection. there is a huge overhang from the elections in iran, with the perceptions of the people in afghanistan. people think that if karzai wins -- . .

than the last election and because expectations of fraud are higher, people are going to complain that there are problems with the election. they will complain that due to security problems, polls couldn't open, which is likely to be true that voters couldn't get to the polls. that the indelible ink didn't work, which is true. there is massive fraud in the voter registration enterprise that produced extra cards, which is likely true. and all of these things together will make a narrow margin of victory dangerous because there will be a lot of complaints. people will charge that just a few percentage points will have been easier to rig than a significant number of percentage points. and my fear is that the political system that the electoral complaint commission, the electoral commission and frankly the supreme court or whoever my be asked to deal with this, but that system is not strong enough to withstand the

really fierce poll of a contested election which protests and riots and whatever that could potentially follow that. of course, the third outcome is that the election goes into a second round, which in some ways i think could be potentially the healthiest for afghanistan's democracy. the biggest danger, it gives target for disruption, that it costs a lot of money, there is potential for ethnic divisiveness if it goes into a second round and there will be likely charges, i believe, if it does go into a second round, that citizens will say insecurity depressed the vote in the area and was not a legitimate outcome. all of these outcomes do have some risks and so i think that we're looking for some turbulence in the next couple of days and weeks around that. let me briefly go to the

significance i think of this election and then talk something about the agenda i think for the next president. the first significance of the election is obviously the outcome. who will the next leader of afghanistan be? i think that it is fascinating and i've been involved in an informal poll with people on the ground there and outside about whether it will go into a second round and it it is everybody's split as they were in the capitol. so there is some expectation that it could go into a second round, although some people think that it might not. and so whether it's just karzai or potentially karzai versus abdullah i think remains unclear. but i think that the more important point about afhgan leadership is not necessarily who wins, but what they do. and i'll come back to that. the second question, the significance of the afhgan election is the legitimacy of the afhgan leadership.

if the next president and this weighs most heavily on president karzai, comes out with questions of legitimacy then we are all in trouble. karzai's legitimacy, his popularity and his legitimacy has plummeted in the last few years. this is primarily due, not only to the success of the insurgency, but i believe under gurds of success of the insurgency, which is the fact that his government is viewed widely as corrupt. and this is corruption which has to do with injustice, it has to do with people taking money and it it has to do with the fact that he has been unable to i think fulfill some of the major promises that he has elected for and that he has run for. and there is also of course the question of impunity. that actor necessary his government or affiliated with

his government are seen to act with impunity. this goes from people like dosem to fahim, to the vice president, to rumors about his brother and his brother's involvement in the drug trade. this has drug karzai's administration down. there are good ministers and good things the government is doing, but overall this perception is is deeply problematic for president karzai. and so what i wrote yesterday in foreign policy is that fundamentally and this goes back to the first question of leadership. if karzai does win, he's going to really have to do an about-face and demonstrate that his government is about something different. but my fear is that in the run-up to the election that because he's reached out to the fahims and the dollstems, he's sent that opposite message. my gravest fear about this election is that we come out

with president karzai with tarnished legitimacy and end up going into a five-year psyche welincreased violence, increased american presence and that is by far the most dangerous position that we can be in. so let me then say something about what i think the agenda for the next president is regardless of who it is. first obviously security. as david indicated, we are in so much of a worse situation than we were five years ago that when you look at the fact that we are approaching eight years of engagement in afghanistan, we do really have to wonder about our capacity as the united states and the international community to create the afhgan capacity that is needed to create security. i think that everybody has acknowledged and acknowledged for years, although i think

there is increasing seriousness of purpose in make thanksgiving so that it it is ultimately going to rest on the afhgan security forces to deal with the insurgency. without a credible afhgan security forces to do the fighting, but also to do the policing in communitys that have been cleared, we're nowhere. that 12 to 18 month timeline will be a withdrawal timeline for the united states unless we begin to get the afhgan security forces peace right. that requires real leadership. as you know well, congressman mchale, there have been grave problems with the police. that has set up back with the afhgan public and so we need to really redouble our efforts, particularly in that regard and that requires leadership, it it requires substance of leadership from the top to root out krupgsz and appoint the right people in

those positions. the second, of course, is this question of justice, corruption, this necks us of rule of law, that again i believe is the thing that actually determines whether afhgans will see their government as legitimate or not and therefore whether the insurgency will gain popular support. there is talk about taliban justice and so on. i was in afghanistan from 1993 to 1996, the first time that the taliban took over the country. they didn't lead with the islamic foot. they tried to, but that is not what got them support. they led with a law and order foot, they led with the notion when you have chaos, we will provide you with basic security, law and order and swift justice and it may look gruesome to us and a lot of afhgans, but it looks better than insecurity and injustice. and so don't think that the thing that afhgans are weighing in their own mind is whether what the constitution says that

we help the afhgans to write in 2004, versus the taliban, because that is not the choice they see. the choice they see is war lordism and corruption at the local level, versus what the taliban offer and then the taliban start to look a little bit better. the final thing i think which we don't talk about enough is political coalition building. this is what the afghan president needs to do. first is question of how to deal with the taliban. we will come back to that. what i mean by coalition building, there is not a coalition within the political elite about how to deal with this problem. so far as the afghan president, perha perha perhaps ba perhaps -- the first thing the afghan president needs to do is build a coalition on the side of the people who support the afghan government and then deal with the insurgency. the second question that plays into is that is the broken

relationship between the executive and the parliament. the government system at the national level is not working. there is almost a complete breakdown of relations between the executive and the parliament, which in part has to do with the third thing about political coalition building that we need the development of political parties and political blocks in afghanistan. there is no functioning democracy on earth that can work without this and unless the afghans get serious about developing party politics so they can build blocks, they can build coalition about issues and ensure a voting discipline in the parliament, then the political system will continue to fail. so i think that that is what i have to say and look forward to a discussion about some is of these other issues. >> gentlemen, thank you. by way of introduction let me introduce the same question to each of you. there certainly does not seem to be a consensus with regard to the scope of the united states

interest and responsibility in afghanistan. there are some is who would argue that anything less than fully functioning democracy is unacceptable. there are others 180 degrees out that argue what would be described as minimalist approach and that is the nature of the afhgan government is secondary perhaps immaterial, they would argue. what matters to the united states is ultimately denying to the al qaeda and other terrorists a safe haven from which to launch attacks upon the united states. let me turn to the two of you and frame the questions that will immediately follow, how do you define the strategic interest of the united states and how is that to be understood in the contest of the emerging afhgan government? >> i do think we need to be aware that we have limits and there are limitos resources, limitos american power. when you think carefully to the degree in which we invest those finite resource necessary this troubling part of the world. that is almost a given, but sometimes gets overlooked in

dialogue, we don't have unlimited set of resources. i think all the people arrive nothing afhgan to execute this policy are keenly attune to that. i think and steve biddle recently used these two markers and i agree with him. one is afghanistan never again becomes a haven for terrorism directly at the hands of the united states and i expand that to our allies. the terrorist safe haven issue is a critical one. the one that has more implications perhaps associated with it is that chaos in afghanistan does not become a factor that destabilizes the neighbors in afghanistan, especially the pakistanis. we have to be aware that it it is not simply about containing al qaeda and preventing it from attacking the united states, it is about ensuring there is a degree of stability in that part of the world that doesn't see it it further descend into a chaotic region. this region, as we well known, pakistan and afghanistan and certainly having its own inbred

insurgency security there that is a nation that has, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 nuclear weapons, relatively new and evolving government. it has a lot of internal threats right now to long-term sustainability. we can't, i think allow afghanistan next door to become a state that contributes to that instability because of the potential second and third-order effects there. when i hear people talk about the very limited approach in afghanistan, much of counter terrorist approach or containment approach, i think they don't necessarily recognize the severe down side of failure there, particularly regional failure and i don't think we can attract afghanistan from the broader context when we look at that. >> alex, your view of the united states strategic interest? >> i think we have both local, regional and global interest in afghanistan that all point towards a continued and sustained engagement in the country. the local i think is twofold.

obviously the terrorism problem, the fact that really these afghanistan use by al qaeda as a safe haven led fairly directly to their success in 9/11 and other attacks. i think it is untentable for us security wise and politically to go back to that. i believe frankly after 2001 we made promises to afghanistan and i think the united states has some morale obligation to stand up for what it says it believes in. i think what we said we believeds in afghanistan was that afghanistan should be stable, not only for our interest, but for the interest of the afhgan people. the regional interest, i think that david is absolutely right. you know, after 2004 it is striking to think that afghanistan was actually the most democratic country in its region. i think that the united states has a critical strategic

interest in having friendly countries in that region. we do not have obviously you have got iran. you have turk, uzbekistan, pakistan. when i start to lift them off, afghanistan starts to look like a really friendly place for us to hang out. that is not to say we should build permanent bases and make afghanistan a cornerstone of u.s. military strategy, but i think it certainly means as long as we have a foothold and potential for a friendly government, we need to do a lot to maintain that, as well as dealing with the potential spillover effect within security. i think the geopolitical is not only those interest iss, but i strongly believe when you look at nato and what is happening to nato and the first out of area operation that afghanistan represents that in this world influx at the moment, we have a great risk of going through afghanistan, pulling out in

failure and what that means for our alliances and for global perception of u.s. power, as well as our own perception of u.s. power. >> we would now like to turn to audience questions. if you would simply raise your hand. liz, i think we will be circulating with the microphone. no microphone, if i could ask you to speak up and if you choose, identify yourself. if you are here in a representative capacity, the organization you represent. yes, sir. >> yes, sir. probably to you and mchale, i went to a session last month, two u.s. senators and two congressmen and the question came up how long until resolve? we have political resolve to continue. we have congressional resolve and we've got the american public. the question came up how long is th

that -- wee have about a year. if we can't show efforts we have actually done this. your comments on the congressional election coming up next year, your commentos that. >> my sense would be and i have heard secretary gates and chairman of the joint chief staff speak about this, as well. my sense is that the expectation is and this is legitimate and realistic. since we're seeing afghanistan where almost all the arrows are going downward in the wrong direction. the amgsz nticipation is now th arrow shoulds bottom out and turn upward. the security arrow, and so much of the issues resolve around that. by next summer, some degree of upward turn we'll be able to look at that in terms of amount of violence. there will be a lot of violence between now and then and it will take time to fully develop. i think a year later, at the two-year mark, we ought to see

significant progress in a number of areas. we'll have to look at that in the military dimension and we are creating security for a purpose. we are creating security really in order to buy space and time for the development of rule of law, of justice, of economic development from the ability to grow some internal governance inside a country at the local and national level. that is what the security is creating environment to permit. i think it is in my estimation going to take two years for the effects to be fully felt. by next summer, wee ought to be able to see and measure that we are going in the right direction. >> i am not sure if it is proper for the moderator to give an opinion, but i will. i will extend the timeline beyond what david just referenced and look at three to five-year period of time to accomplish the goals alex referenced in his comments. i think 18 months to two year system too short a period of time. however, that is not a five-year

period of time without transition. i believe that we should clukt a classic battle handover to afhgan national security forces where at the beginning of the five-year period of time, where we are now and up to the two-year period, a great deal of combat operations would remain united states and isap responsibility. during that five-year period of time, we would transition and that transition would be reflected in the task organization of our military forces from combat operations to combat service support and combat support. in short, transitioning to afghan national security forces the amp, the primary war-fighting role as we took on a larger support role in the last two to three years of that commitment. i think we have to be careful. it is unrealistic and i've heard senior officials in the administration, take that point of view that within 18 months to two years we better have success

or we're gone. i think that is a formula for disaster. a three to five year period is more realistic, shifting a carefully planned way the war fighting responsibility and a battle handover from u.s. and isip forces to the ana and the amp with continued support for their operations. >> i will add to that just a bit. i think dave recently said the way he would play it out is two years of fighting, followed by three years of transition and that is similar to what the congressmen just cited. i don't think that is misaligned with my eligible outlook. that is clearly, we will not be done at the end of two years, but two years of fighting ought to show progress and help lead us into the transition toward the later part of the period. >> larry. >> larry corp from the center for american progress. reading david sanger's book and reading the article in the ""washington post,"" on monday, i guess it was about your

successes asking for more resources. had we given general mcneil the troops they asked for, would we be in this dire situation? if we didn't, why didn't we? according to sanger, the bush administration had no idea things were going that bad until mcneil had that video conference in early 2008? >> i think i probably would look at it different. i have a lot of detailed knowledge of what transpired there militarily since 2003 and i think our problems weren't simply the number of troops. i also think you can look at the various measures of success and there is an elbow or a knee to the curb where generally by about the spring of 2006 we see things going very much awry in terms of military enemy and degree of violence. that goes to a 45-degree ascent that something dramatic happened

at that point in time. i don't think there has been analysis to say what that is. i think it is worth delving into further. in 2006 and 2007, given the problems we had with the nature of the command structure, the degree to which the nato effort in my estimation was being run a consensus-based effort as opposed to u.s.-led nato enterprise like in the mid-'90s, i think we would still have the problems we are having. the other half of the equation, the troops allow you to do other things and injustice and development and development, where were the resources there and did you have and this is important this coming year and the following year, did you have a joint integrated military civil effort down to the grass-roots that help deliver the effects on the ground? i think these things valid to be added and generally wasn't recognized. >> basically, you said leadership strategy and

resources. we got the resources. okay. >> today you are saying. >> right. we have more resources. if they are effective today, why wouldn't, i mean all other things being equal, they would have helped us from getting into this very difficult situation. >> i think we had the same leadership structural problems in the past and you could make an argument whether that included individuals or not. we absolutely had strategic and operational problems in terms of our counter insurgency strategy n. my estimation, for a number of years preceding this spring, we had a strategy that said it was counter insurgency and was more focused on protecting the population. we are making a major change there now and that is different from my experience when i was there. in the subsequent years, i think we move back toward an enemy-centered strategy and i think that was the wrong approach to take. we would have had to change resources and troops and leadership and strategy, as

well. >> i just want to say your question raised an important point about troop level, but -- and i don't mean this as a partisan comment. but when you look at the level of political attention that was devoted to afghanistan in the bush white house, the fact that people didn't know how badly things were going is indicative of the fact they weren't paying close attention. the heartening thing that i have seen and i was just in kabul when holbrook was there and we have five ambassadors in our embassy, including a four-star general. we have actually dick holbrook, larger than life figure himself, we have the vice president, the secretary of of state and the president himself, all engaged in this issue, not to mention david petraeus. in those intervenning year when

is iraq was occupying everybody's attention, i think afghanistan suffered, not just because there wasn't enough money there, there weren't enough troops there. ultmeatally people weren't paying enough attention to be able to correct course when things were going wrong. i think the best thing that has ham side not what the white paper says about a change in strategy tis actually there are a lot of people paying attention and that there are going to have their legacies riding on what happens here. >> yes, sir. >> taking you back to the election tomorrow, you mentioned in your comments, trends in afghanistan are heading in the wrong direction, whether on the security front or other areas. can you say to what extent and in what way if the election would contribute to turning the general trends around? >> i think that is to be determined. as alex laid out, we have a series of things that will

happen inment next six weeks, some of of which we'll know tomorrow, some a week after that and some a week or two after that. this could go in one of three scenarios alex laid out. all of those have their own degree of instability and uncertainty associated with them. the degree to which the results of the election are accepted by the people of afghanistan as legitimate is unknown, i think. a, we don't know what the results are and b, we don't know what is the threshold of acceptability and the turnout threshold. is it it 52% result? is a first-time win better than 62% result? and would one emflame and one be viewed as acceptable? we don't know. the aftermath is potentially a significant destabling period of time. we're going to have to watch carefully and keep all of our eyeos what is happening over there among the population to determine the degree to which

this is accepted by the people of afghanistan. i simply can't answer that and i don't think anyone else can at this point. >> what lessons can we learn about holding on to some security gain necessary iraq and also to follow-up, is the current violence that is happening there, is that a sign that we're pulling out too soon and focusing on afghanistan? >> seems like we are in another part of the world. we've moved all of a sudden. i have limit to no expertise on iraq so i should keep my comments minimal on that. i think iraq is going to take a lot of careful monitoring over the next several years until u.s. military presence ends. the general has been a forceful advocate of ensuring we do the right thing in iraq and don't get ahead of ourselves in terms of the repositioning of american forces out of the country. this new issue about the referendum on american force, it

will be interesting to see how that plays out and what the implications of that are if it does in fact unfold. i don't, between the iraqi and afghanistan dimension, perhaps something like a comment more intelligently on, if we accept a known timeline from now until the end of 2011 in iraq, we're going to see a large number of american troops coming out of iraq that are not going to afghanistan. we are going to see, even under the most large, aggressive, expansive number of troops i've heard discussed in afghanistan, the bulk of american troops are not going to afghanistan, coming home out of iraq. that is a different dimension we'll have to take into account. how that is going to play out and if it means more resource available, yeah, i think clearly there will be. the force will be under less pressure, presumably three years from now than today. we have to make sure we don't lose the tremendously cautious

gains we've achieved in iraq and i think the military commanders and our embarraambassador will hard to make sure that doesn't happen. >> alex. >> there is an important lesson we should draw from iraq and one we shouldn't draw. the important lesson from iraq is predominantly the one that david already highlighted, which is transition from focusing on killing insurgents to thinking about protecting the population is key. now that lesson is going to be much more difficult to learn or difficult to apply in afghanistan because the fact is that iraq is a more organized society and they are able to with fewer troops secure areas more effectively n. afghanistan the insurgency is predominantly rural-based insurgency. the number of forces that you need to go through to clear hold and then eventually build process is significant and yet

not only international forces are significantly lower than they are in iraq or were in iraq during the critical period, but afghan security forces are lower than they were in iraq. we're trying to secure more of a country in a more disbersed fashion with fewer forces. afghan and international forces. and so we need to learn that lesson, but it is going to be difficult to implement. >> i think i could add to that, as well. one thing is the commanders are keenly aware of counter insurgency model necessary iraq are not transportable to afghanistan. there are elements there of and principles transportable, but many models, because it was a different tribal and ethnic structure in it iraq, because threats were organized differently, they are not able to migrate directly to afghanistan and be used there.

the u.s. military nato forces will have to reinvent using the same principles, counter insurgency approach for afghanistan, that is not moving the approach to iraq to afghanistan. >> the lesson i hope that we don't draw is that i think that many people, many afghans that i have spoken to, are very wary of what is the sons of iraq approach applied to afghanistan. this is the attempt to make the sunni tribes in iraq come to the side of the government and the american forces there, which i do think contributed to success in iraq, although it is having questionable overhang effect on security going forward. in afghanistan, it is different dynamic than it was in iraq. there is a lot of recent bad historical experience with the formation of unaccountable -- in

afghanistan. the success of that approach in afghanistan. they are trying pilot projects right now to look at that sort of approach, but i think the jury is very much out and that we need to move slowly and carefully because the unintended consequences could be very grave. >> let me turn to the back of the room to make sure there are not questions back there. we don't mean to ignore you. yes, sir. >> henry hadker, researcher at narif. i wonder if approximate there is a way to involve any other nation, say muslim-type nation, as far as occupying an area. recent reports indicate we don't have sufficient troops to occupy the area we are trying to eliminate the taliban from. >> well, we've had troops from muslim nations there for an extended period of time at different points in time from field hospitals, from jordan and egypt to special operations

forces from certain muslim countries to various other capabilities they brought there. there haven't been large numbers of forces from those countrys and there is reluctance on part of the afghans and the part of neighbors and more distance neighbors in the region to participate because of the potential for ethnic connections and getting aligned ethnically. many neighbors around afghanistan have ethnic blocks within afghanistan that see themselves in an association with those neighbors. those perhaps are not useful countrys to have with troops in afghanistan. i think there has been contributions there, but they haven't been substantial and there are potential downside risks of expanded that to a large degree. >> the important point to make and i completely agree with that is the role for other allies, muslim allies and western allieos nonmilitary aspects of what we are doing in afghanistan. one irony i think of the

incoming obama administration being more multi-lateral approach globally, there is actually an americanization of the effort in afghanistan in part because we are willing to put in more than everybody else is. the canadian,germans, british are looking to get out of the places they have taken and meanwhile, pouring in more troops and resources. so what we need to work hard to do in order to keep this truly international partnership in afghanistan is to make sure that other components, building the police, building the judiciary, working on agriculture and economy and so on, that others are not only stepping up to the plate, that we are not saying, step up, we're providing them a partnership opportunity that they want to embrace. in that sense i think there is a role for many other countries, including muslim countries, look at egyptians for instance, the afghan legal system based on the egyptian system, the idea of

getting egyptian judges and lawyer necessary s in to mentor successful idea. >> coming forward. yes, sir. >> jonathan white. the new u.s. strategy, to what extent do you see it doing three different thing? first of all, encouraging greater cooperation and coordination across the u.s. government in terms of civilian coherrence and secondly how to what expect the new strategy is considering the importance of looking back over the past several years, learning the lessons of coordination with our allies internationally and how the new strategy is going to help leverage and encourage and create the opportunities alex mentioned. then lastly how are we going to take advantage thf election and how will this strategy create opportunities for renewed partnership and new contract with the afhgan people? and welcome. >> dave. >> i was hoping you would put

that to alex. >> alex. >> i will touch on that a bit. i think on the u.s. side, that is a -- an immense challenge, a bureaucratic challenge. the bureaus of the u.s. government, the departments, are strong organizations. the majority of them are focused domestically overseas and really are not part of their core mission and core culture and they have been responding. some i think deserve great praise, the department of agriculture is an example. they are generating a sizeable number of people for afghanistan. that is far beyond what the department probably was designed to do and originally stood up. there are more effective mechanisms in place. i think now part of those are stemming from what the pentagon is doing for inter-agency coordination. they have a sale that is having weekly video teleconferences and invite necessary all manners of players, both international and

interagency to participate in btc and video teleconferencing with leadership in afghanistan and general mcchrystal typically sits in on these. the command on the military side and i believe with representation, as well, and all the players back in washington. the nfc has a hold on this and the special envoy has been a powerful new tool that wasn't out there during the last administration and created a lot of energy in a system that wasn't there before. i think good things are dwing on there. i may defer on the international aspect to alex if i could. >> well, i think that the international coordination aspect is frothed as it has been from the beginning. it's not only an afghanistan problem. if you read lessons learned reports from every complex international engagement this is always in the top five of

lessons learned need to improve international coordination. i do think that one of the advantages of the obama administration strategy and then immediately as you recall bringing all of the countries of the world together in the hague to basically put their stamp on it is -- was a powerful political move. to make everybody think about a strategy because the way it's been working in afghanistan frankly is that people think about what they want to do and then they mush it all together in a ball and try to call it a strategy. and really that is upside down. what we need to do is figure out what the strategy is and then figure out what needs to be done and figure out who is going to do it. there has been a little progress, but it needs to get, needs to get better and right now the holbrook team and

mcchrystal team, there are still these review processes going. the strategy that came out is good, but thin. there are strategies being developed for each segment, for agriculture, for rule of law, for developing afghan national security forces. i think it is really not going to be until this fall that we start to see it all come into play because we have yet to direct the resources to all these strategys and once that is in place and the president and the whole team endorse what the new strategy is is going to be, then there is going to have to be a process over the fall of working with the new afhgan leadership and our international partners to figure out how this is all going to get done. it will continue to be difficult. i think that there is a lot of potential leverage that we haven't used successfully with the afghan government, not only in terms of saying do this, do that, hire this guy, fire that

guy, that gets tense n. working closely with them on developing their strategic vision of the country that matches our strategic vision and then together figuring out how it it is going to be resourced. often those processes haven't actually been very well aligned. years ago i had a conversation with the minister of interior, a man with enormous security expertise. he said he thought this conflict would not be resolved through firepower. literacy was far more important in terms of the strategic impact upon the afhgan people. most afhgans can't read or write. if that is in fact true, and i tbl is true, literacy is fundamental requirement practically and idealistically in terms of resolving conflict that, invites and requires greater civilian participation in the ongoing u.s. and isin initiative. whether bringing economic

development, a sense of reformed afhgan public administration, there is a role for trigger pullers. i hope over that three to five-year period of time i talked about, the role of combat operations would diminish the role of civilian-led initiatives would increase n. a planned evolutionary way. questions? yes, ma'am? >> question for each. one, how far do you think the strategy rollout is going to be delay federal we don't have a winner? if there is going to have to be a run-off in october? and secondly, have you looked or thought about the election monitoring groups and what will you be looking for from them as far as intele? >> alex, why don't you give it a shot. >> it is interesting there is more domestic afhgan monitoring approach this year than there has been previously.

one of the big changes in the election is that the votes are counted at the precinct or at the polling station this year, as opposed to the districts and the provinces, which has potential advantages and disadvantages. potential advantage is that insofaras the candidates are able to get their political agents to the polls station, they will be able to monitor the voting process throughout the day, do parallel vote tabulation where they see the number of people approximately coming in and seeing the number of votes coming out, which can be important check on fraud. and they will be able to -- the votes will be counted in the station when the polls closed and they will be able to see the tallies posted at the votes station. they will be able to respond to individual polling stations and the outcome and they will be able to aggregate the numbers faster than the election

commission will be willing to do. they will play an interesting role. the big question is due to security concerns and lo gestic concerns are they able to get to enough polling stations and particularly polling stations in dangerous and suspect areas, to be able to have something credible to say. >> i don't believe the assessment will be tied to the election results there may be an element that influences theifiable assessment, but i don't think the assessment is tied to what happens in the election. i think most is preceding independently. they will simply validate ear adjust at the end of that. i don't think that is delay factor for the assessment. >> in terms of this side of the room, are we missing anybody over here? yes, sir. >> david fitzgerald. the earlier questions about the non-u.s. nato military forces in the region. you see this new strategy leading to de-emphasis because they are not able to play that

kind of role. there is a shift for those nations to something non-military in terms of their response and this becomes more of an americanized war effort? >> no. frankly, i don't see any significant change in the missions assigned to the other partners within the nato alliance there. one ongoing issue has been so-called caveats that prohibit visions against certain activities by certain countries. those are always going to exist. we've tryd and worked closely to minimize those. they will be there. some have gotten better during the last couple years, which is tribute to the people working hard on this. i think the missions will remain the same. american capabilities are growing in afghanistan and a number of other countries are contributing more forces to brits, for example, and australians and others. we will continue with those

nations contributing as much as they can in afghanistan and their mission will look similar to what it did early this year or last year. >> comment, alex? >> not really anything to add from what i said previously. >> all right. yes, sir? >> mitchell polman. i haven't heard much discussion here about the role of heroin trafficking in fuelling the taliban and fuelling insurgency and it is my understanding to what expect is the insurgency really about islam and driving out american and foreign forces and to what extent is it really about control of heroin? >> i mean, the heroin trade plays significant role in everything in afghanistan today.

when you look at the afhgan economy, the domestic production, in other words, up to the borders, everything from farming to processing, is estimated to be worth about $4 billion, which is almost 40% of the entire afhgan economy or equal to more than 50% of the economy, not including drugs. so it it has an effect on everything. it has an effect on people's attitude toward the government. it has an effect on the economy. it has an effect on people's attitude toward foreign forces and the government in terms of programs eirradcasion and so on and effect on the taliban pocketbook there has been interesting controversy recently about the extent the taliban are funded by the drug trade. some say it is very significant, some is say not so significant. and i don't believe that the

taliban insurgency is predicated on the existence of the drug trade. it may benefit from it. and certainly the drug traffickers benefit from the presence of the insurgency and the insecurity that that brings. i think that the bigger question is really about the extent to which the drug trade affects the government and how much government corruption and therefore lack of trust in the government, lack of rule of law is born on the back of the openium trade that ultimately, as i said before, could really drag us down. >> i would second that and agree exactly with alex's point. i think it is a great closing point for him, as well. in some ways, the danger of narcotics fuel the taliban and corrupts the government in afghanistan and reduces the

people's belief in legitimacy of their own government. we are at some risk of major challenges to our effort there because of the impact and tax on the government more so than impact on the taliban. the taliban has substantial amount of resources coming to it it as it does in all situations, and narcotics. i don't think it is 50% of the flow of resources. at the same time, that corruption that it fuels in the rest of the country really prevents rule of law, prevents justice and other economic development, all kinds of negative effects in almost every area we care about. >> is we will begin to wind down. we have time for a few more questions. yes, sir. >> foreign affairs suggested past military success in afghanistan is largely forged through forming alliances and it seems that that a lot of people believe that is due to past political success, as well.

i was curious to hear your thoughts on where people can draw more people into the political process and the government without sacrificing legitimacy with respect to past actions for those included. >> let me take a quick stab at that and ask alex. when you -- are you inferring when you talk about opening the tent of of reconciliation for the taliban, is that what the question is? >> people -- yes, those of of the taliban who are potentially ameanable to that. yes. >> it goes back to congressman mchale's points. there is great risk in that outlook. number one, there is risk it becomes an easy solution and we look for ways to negotiate with adversary who has proven to be a horrifying horrifyingly terrible presence in government in afghanistan. we know the track record of the

taliban in afghanistan. the afhgan people have lived through that and do not want to go back to that. polling shows support for the return of the taliban is in single digits. that is in regard to women and their experience with taliban. i think we have to be careful because that looks like light at the end of the tunnel we don't reach for the idea of giving the taliban a bigger role in afghanistan or having a large stake in the government or having worst yet, territory in afghanistan. i think that is a very dangerous line to drift into because it looks attractive. the other aspect on the psz side, i think there are elements within the taliban who would be willing to lay down their arms and join political process as we've seen in other countries and as we came close to in 2004 and 2005 in afghanistan. during the years after the bond process, 2003, 2004 and 2005, there were a lot of approaches from the taliban leadership to do this because they didn't see

future in their move at that point in time. that has changed dramatically and i think we hear regularly that in their view they are winning, why should they negotiate. i think we have to be careful we don't play into that idea that we are negotiating for a position of weakness and expect that to give us help in afghanistan. >> alex nproviding your answer, i might ask you to follow-up on something you said privately before we came into the room. that was recently by presidential decree, karzai approved the marital law affecting the shiite population. it it displayed a willingness on the part of karzai to accommodate some of the more fundamentalist views of the afhgan society. is it a danger that the negotiated reconciliation of the taliban bringing the taliban back into the government and the

political process renouncing violence would nonetheless have a debilitating impact upon afhgan women and the promises that we've been making to afhgan women for the past six or seven years? if you could comment upon that. >> sure. i think the short answer is yes. let me say first that the u.s. institute of peace just published a terrific new book called "reconciliation in afghanistan." and i meant to bring a copy. michael temple wrote this book and he does a terrific job of spelling out in great detail what david described. first of all, you have this overall debate about the two approaches. are we talking about getting omar and president karzai and president obama to set on the deck of an aircraft carrier? i don't think the land lock, i don't think that is likely to happen because i don't think the

taliban senior leadership outside of the country is is willing to make a deal on any of those types of terms, at least not any time soon. unless they come under tremendous pressure from their host in pakistan, which i think is not likely to happen any time soon. i think what we are talking about is more how do you engage with communities affected by the insurgence and he how do you engage with low-level leaders who may be supporting and/or part of the insurgency who just a couple years ago were not actively fighting the government? i think those are the people you can deal with and i think what you are talking about there is not changing the constitution and bringing the taliban into the senior leadership of the government, but rather talking about a process of political accommodation, which again outlined in this book is something gone on for centuries in afghanistan and is feasible and very afghan process. but to come specifically to the question about women's rights,

president karzai i think has shown consistently that hey is a conciliator and he admits this and he talked about it in the presidential debate the other night. he has done this over and over again and he sees this fundamentally as a political virtue. unfortunately, i think that hey tends to cross the line. that has conciliation doesn't know boundaries. he is essentially a tribal leader and what is important to him, i believe, are not some of the fundamental principles like questions of justice and women's rights, but questions of making sure that everybody does come into the tent, which again has a good track record in some sense, but as a national leader, i think his sacrifice is far too much. so his thoughts to the shia conservative leaders who he wanted to support his re-election campaign was to support this horrific law which

legalizes marital rape and other things i'm sure many people have read about. the worst thing is that karzai managed to wiggle out of it by claiming not to have known what the law says, but then in a midnight massacre move, passed the law by decree, and it was published in the national gazette making it law while the parliament was out. now some things had been removed, the most, egreeguous provisions remain. that is not the type of leadership i think afghanistan needs at the moment. i'm not saying karzai couldn't be the right leader, but he'll need to change some tactics if we're going to succeed. i think the shia law demonstrated fundamental risk. hillary clinton, barack obama, members of the union are not able to justify to the public

the spilling of their own blood and enormous amounts of treasure for a country that goes along that path. i have to say that is conflict that is problematic from the afghan side because insofar as the international community is imposing its morale views on afghanistan, these questions which might be debatable in afghan society will no longer become debatable. when it it is the international community, the international hand, seen as interfering it knocks off moderates and we've seen this across the islamic world. by being supporters of women's liberation and other sorts of things that we deem fundamental many ways strengthens the hand of the fundamentist. i don't think our best approach is necessarily to stand up and be on the lectern, it is to find a way to deal effectively with afghan leaders and put pressure on them.

again, maybe not publicly always, but in a way that makes them understand they will lose resources and support if there are platforms like this one that we simply can't justify to our own people. >> that is probably an excellent summary to bring to conclusion the discussion. before we leave i would like to mention two programs coming up at cmp. the first is future of the u.s. army, opgszs for forced modernization, featuring larry korbwho, is seated here today. and lieutenant general joseph jokovic from the cullen group and the 30th anniversary of the relations act continuity and change in straight relagszs featuring shelly berkely and richard bush from berkings. the first forum thursday, august 27th at noon. the second forum tuesday, september 15th. would you all join me in a round of applause for our two

panelists? thank you for being here.