Afghan President Ashraf Ghani: Not Hamid Karzai

by Eric Jones · February 6, 2015

As former Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai prepared to leave power in his final year, he made a series of decisions to restrain International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) from participating in combat operations in Afghanistan. Further, he repeatedly tightened the constraints on United States Special Operations Forces (SOF). Due to a series of incidents in which an experienced and well-entrenched insurgent information-operations network crafted narratives and successfully pressured political powers into repeatedly taking public positions against U.S. combat power, ISAF capacity to wage effective campaigns to erode and degrade the rising tide of resurgent Taliban and Haqqani Network attacks was effectively mitigated. This has had a significant and deleterious effect upon the efforts of both ISAF and Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to rollback insurgent gains in key areas of Afghanistan.

Almost immediately after taking office in September, Afghanistan’s new president, Ashraf Ghani, has diverged noticeably from his predecessor. Through several policy changes and a tangible shift in foreign policy, Ghani has signaled that he is charting a path that coincides with many of the strategic objectives of both the Western-dominated ISAF alliance and his own government. A few of the more important changes have elicited praise from both the Afghan public and allied force officials.

About Eric Jones

earned a Master of Arts in Political Science (International Relations and Foreign Comparative Politics) in United States Foreign Policy and National Security studies from Northern Illinois University in 2006. He is the co-founder and senior writer of Foreign-Intrigue.com. Eric is a former soldier in the United States Army and served two deployments to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Eric writes on issues related to Eurasia. His research concentrates heavily on Eastern Europe, the Post-Soviet space, Xinjiang, and Afghanistan. Follow Eric on Twitter via @Intrigue_Jones and at his site www.Foreign-Intrigue.com.

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Canuck12
YankeePapa Couldn't help but think about JFK... The last president in my opinion.
dboi73
His approach to combatting insurgents is definitely refreshing. But there is an interesting possibility brewing that could see his stance soften somewhat. Allegedly the IS is now active in 23 Afghan provinces which is startling if you consider the time line it has taken for this to occur. Obviously there will be conflicting information that either supports or denies the increasing presence of Islamic State in Afghanistan, but currently, it appears to be the case. If IS continues to build its numbers and influence we will start to see a war within a war - a turf war. Many Afghans do not want the Taliban back. They will certainly not want the Islamic State determining their futures. So it is likely the Taliban will regain some influence by default, purely because they will be the side Afghans choose -- outside of the ANSF -- to rid the country of IS. (The best of a bad bunch) Will we start seeing some form of cooperation between Kabul, the US - their allies and the Taliban? It is quite possible. We are already seeing forms of cooperation between "enemies" in Iraq and Syria in the fight against the IS. If the data is accurate regarding Islamic State numbers in Afghanistan we will likely see a softening of targeting against the Taliban simply because Kabul will identify a necessity to use them as a proxy against a rising Islamic State. The same can be said with regards to Pakistan. So in fact, the rise of the Islamic State in the "Khorosan" could well be what is needed to unite both Kabul and Islamabad in the fight against terrorism. Even if only for a short time. That said, as each Government is forced to choose one, or a number of already active insurgent groups as proxies, ultimately it will ensure that both countries remain at the mercy of terrorists well into the future. Interesting times ahead...
2EZ
The Taliban are getting their asses handed to them in Shindand right now. Brand new trucks and brand new weapons are rolling into the city and just laying hate on everyone bowing up against them. So far 7 Taliban commanders have been killed in the past two days. So we will see how the Afghan Forces hold up against this.
flagg
Ashraf Ghani is an interesting one. He's an academic, whose brother Hashmat Ghani(VERY connected businessman and head of the Kuchis) initially ran against his brother in the election lead-up.I've got a good friend who spent a lot of one on one time with Hashmat Ghani and really rated him.It would be interesting to know how strong the relationship is between Ashraf and his brother Hashmat, and whether Ashraf's able to leverage his brother's nationwide network as the Kuchi tribe he leads are nomadic, rather than territory based, Pashtuns which might help in providing a bit of national "glue" in such an ethnically disparate "country".Personally, I would have thought Abdullah Abdullah would have won with his 30+% polling in the last election and over 45% in the most recent election(lack of majority led to runoff). Ashraf only polled 3% in the last election, and was 13.5% behind Abdullah Abdullah in the recent election before the runoff.......interesting numbers :)I was in the AO during the election. I was at one event where Abdullah Abdullah supposedly paid everyone to show up, then failed to show up himself. :)I'm just glad the rather lengthly time frame to put together a unity government post election didn't implode into civil war(yet). Read more: http://thenewsrep.com/39695/afghan-president-ashraf-ghani-not-hamid-karzai/#ixzz3R2jt6Dx2
Klynn23
Thanks for article.