Afghanistan resolves it's election - leading the way for a new government

[karynnj]

Back in July, Kerry took an unscheduled trip to Afghanistan which was on the brink of chaos over neither side accepting that the other had won the recent election. Inuca's thread has many articles written then - http://www.democraticunderground.com/11094114 - which show that Kerry's success was completely unexpected.

Since then, there have been any number of somber Washington Post and other sources articles that have been headlined as "Kerry's deal" having problems. Today, I was surprised to read in my local paper that - in fact - the new government has been agreed to. Surprisingly, in the midst of everything related to Congressional and UN hearings on ISIS, both Obama and Kerry were extremely involved in making this happen.

In light of the sub thread discussion on the CSPAN ISIS UN hearing thread of how the media might handle any Obama FP success, it is interesting to see how the media handled this US accomplishment.

I was initially startled when the Burlington Free Press's USA Today article did not even mention Kerry's name. However the problem was their editing because when I read both the full online USA Today article, here is what the author wrote:

The United States had urged the candidates to reach a power-sharing agreement in order to bring political stability to the country, which is battling a powerful insurgency and will need international assistance for years to come.

The deal is a victory for Secretary of State John Kerry, who first got the candidates to agree in principle to share power during a July visit to Afghanistan. Kerry returned to Kabul in August and has spent hours with the candidates, including in repeated phone calls, in an effort to seal the deal.

"This was a moment of extraordinary statesmanship. These two men have put the people of Afghanistan first, and they've ensured that the first peaceful democratic transition in the history of their country begins with national unity," Kerry said in a statement Sunday.

<snip>

"This agreement marks an important opportunity for unity and increased stability in Afghanistan. We continue to call on all Afghans — including political, religious, and civil society leaders — to support this agreement and to come together in calling for cooperation and calm," the White House statement said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/09/20/ghani-abdullah-afghanistan-nato-kabul-vote-power-sharing/15961675/


Looking at the more influential Washington Post - in spite of its new Republican ties - wrote:

Abdullah is a former foreign minister, and both he and Ghani have pledged to work to improve relations with the United States, boost public services and crack down on public corruption. Their deal appears to cement an arrangement that Secretary of State John F. Kerry brokered this summer when it appeared Afghanistan risked slipping back into the kind of ethnic violence that dogged it for much of its history.

<snip - here they speak of maybe never knowing the truth on the vote (after a full audit unlike 2000 or 2004), that the government could fail, and that one person says it is unconstitutional. >

Then they return to speaking of what Obama and Kerry did this week on this issue.

To finalize the deal, President Obama had to make three phone calls to each candidate, and Kerry made 13 calls to Ghani and 14 to Abdullah, according to a senior administration official. In one particularly blunt call to Abdullah on Wednesday, Kerry warned that the international coalition’s patience was running out.

“If you don’t come to agreement now, today, the possibilities for Afghanistan will become very difficult, if not dangerous,” Kerry said, according to the American official. “I really need to emphasize to you that if you do not have an agreement, if you do not move to a unity government, the United States will not be able to support Afghanistan.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ghani-abdullah-agree-to-share-power-in-afghanistan-as-election-stalemate-ends/2014/09/21/df58749a-416e-11e4-9a15-137aa0153527_story.html

The NYT article dealt almost entirely with the unhappiness of the loser and still spoke of fraud. At the very end it did speak of the US role, but the key take away to me is that they strongly preferred the other guy to win as the story was almost entirely from his side. (It does bother me that I feel there was partisan interest affecting what was a news article.) http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/world/asia/afghan-presidential-election.html?_r=0

Internationally, here is how the Guardian spoke of the US role:

The audit was part of a deal brokered in July by US secretary of state John Kerry to try to avert a descent into violence.

Both Abdullah and Ghani pledged to accept the audit results and to form a unity government, with the winner - presumably Ghani - as president and the runner-up holding the position of or nominating a chief executive with expanded powers. Wrangling over how much power that chief executive will wield has been a key sticking point in the power-sharing deal.

A draft of the agreement seen by Reuters would give the chief executive the power to decide on a near-equal number of key government positions. It also calls for the unity government to call a loya jirga - a traditional Afghan council of elders - to help reform election laws and prevent future crises.

How well the rivals could share power and work together after the bitter election feud is uncertain. Both Ghani and Abdullah are pro-Western technocrats who ran on largely similar platforms of promoting education and poverty reduction, as well as ending the war with the Taliban.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/21/afghanistan-presidential-candidates-strike-power-sharing-deal

So, it does appear that the WP and USA today are giving the Obama administration the credit they deserve. It seems fair to include any misgivings as the WP did - and should have done in 2002 - 2004 on some other well know FP issue. Here, as a diplomat, Kerry accomplished what his President needed done and what seems to give Afghanistan a chance to create an inclusive government - something it never has had. Obviously, anything in Afghanistan could fall apart in quick order, but given where the country was in early July, about ready to go over a cliff, this is a real accomplishment.

If the first draft of history is written in the newspapers, Obama will get credit if this is really a baby step to Afghanistan moving out of chaos. However, you might note that on DU, there is no interest. I suspect that the interest - and it will be negative - will come when the new President signs the SOFA that Kerry negotiated with Kharzi, which the Loya Jirga approved, that both candidates said they would sign is signed. Oddly, DU wanting troops OUT NOW would have actually preferred failure to get the SOFA.

[karynnj]

1. NYT still unhappy over process, does give credit in its oped to Kerry and his team

At the end of the day, the millions of Afghan voters who defied Taliban threats to cast ballots are now left wondering if their votes counted. Mr. Ghani’s presidency was not, by any reasonable measure, the result of a fair and credible election. Even so, Secretary of State John Kerry and his team in Kabul deserve recognition for formulating a power-sharing plan that gave the Afghans a way out of a crisis that could easily have plunged the country into a disastrous cycle of violence. If it works, this will mark the first peaceful transfer of power in the country’s history.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/opinion/a-shaky-step-forward-in-afghanistan.html