‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017key members of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan
(unama) resigned in protest.
While Afghans who were able to vote eagerly embraced the rare chance
to have a say in who governed them, the flaws in the electoral system,
ballot rigging and the tacit acceptance of ‘irregularities’ by the inter national
community undermined people’s faith in Western-style democracy.
Many Afghans concluded that the usa and its allies had no interest in the
democratic process other than as a means to legitimize the pro-Western
Karzai government. The elections therefore effectively disenfranchised the
population and handed the Taliban a major propaganda coup.
The Afghan government, however, was not the only dysfunctional insti-
tution. When Kai Eide, the un Special Representative in Afghanistan, took
up his post in 2008 he noted that ‘more than six years after the fall of the
Taliban, the international community still lacked a clear political direc-
t i o n ’. 23 Eide then catalogued the bitter disagreements and infighting within
the un mission and other key actors of the international coalition, including
American and isaf commanders, as well as between inter national actors
and President Karzai. The heart of the problem was that the international
coalition had conflicting agendas and priorities that were often at odds with
those of Karzai and his ministers. Given the lack of a unified approach to
Afghanistan’s many challenges by the international community, it is hardly
surprising that the Afghan administration lacked purpose, direction or
accountability. Commanders and government officials adeptly exploited this
infighting, playing one side off against the other, and manipu lated the aid
programmes and military operations for their own gain and to undermine,
and even dispose of, political and personal enemies.
Operation Enduring Freedom and the Taliban resurgenceWhen it came to Operation Enduring Freedom, Washington was elated at
how quickly the Taliban were forced from power. On 1 May 2003 Donald
Rumsfeld declared during a news conference in Kabul that military oper-
ations were moving from ‘major combat activity to a period of stability
and stabilization’ and declared Afghanistan to be ‘secure’. 24 In the following
year, when British troops assumed responsibility for security in Helmand
province, military commanders and their political masters in London
believed they were undertaking a peacekeeping mission, only to run into
heavily armed and well-trained Taliban. British troops, caught unprepared,
ended up fighting a bloody battle for survival that led to the death or injury
of dozens of British servicemen.