 Good morning and welcome to New America Foundation. My name is Omar Samad. I'm a senior Central Asia fellow here in former Afghan diplomat. Happy to have all of you here this morning. Talking about an issue, of course, that's not only in the news and has been in the news for the past few days, but may continue to be in the news for a few more days, depending on the cycles and other events happening. We are going to discuss, of course, Afghanistan and the US and the relationship between the two and the new announcement made by President Obama as of a few days ago. And then that announcement about the post-2014 US engagement in Afghanistan was somewhat superseded by the other news that came up about the prisoner swap that took place. So we are going to see all of that in the context of bilateral relations and the way forward. And we're very happy to have a formidable panel here of individuals who are not only experts but who have worked as practitioners as well to tell us and share with us their views on this. Knowing that there is news from Afghanistan that keeps popping up as of this morning's news that there was a suicide attack on one of the front runners, Dr. Abdullah. Thankfully it failed, but left several civilians dead and many injured. So I would like to start by introducing our panelists first, then we will have each one of them give their presentation for a few minutes, after which we will have an opportunity to have a little discussion amongst ourselves if anyone feels the need to do so before we turn it over to you and for questions and answers. Please turn off your cell phones if you haven't already and this is webcast live by New America and also by C-SPAN 1 I believe. So everything that you say is on the record. Let me start here on the right with Chris Colenda. Chris is a new fellow, a senior fellow at the Center for New America Security here in Washington until just a few days ago, Joe, you were just telling me he served as a senior advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Department of Defense and the Department of Defense Senior Leadership. And he has had four tours in Afghanistan, if I'm not mistaken. He's the author, editor and co-author of a book called Leadership, The Warrior's Art, which has appeared on the professional reading list of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines in many professional schools. And he also has a book, The Counter Insurgency Challenge, which some of you may have heard about. Then we have, next to Chris, we have Claire Lockhart. Many of you are familiar with Claire, who has dealt with Afghanistan issues and state building issues for many years. She is currently the director and co-founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness, which also works to support the emergence of essential governance functions in ways that are transparent and accountable. She's also the director of the Market Building Initiative at the Aspen Institute, which works to build market opportunities for emerging and frontier economies and create jobs, something very critical for Afghanistan. She co-authored this well-known book, Fixing Fail States, a framework for rebuilding a fractured world with Ashraf Rani, who is, as you all know, one of the two leading Afghan presidential contenders, and has written numerous articles on various issues dealing with development, economics, law and others. Last but not least, Ambassador Ronald Newman, who is currently the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Formerly he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. Ron served as an American Ambassador to Afghanistan from July of 2005 to April of 2007, and before that he served in Baghdad from February 2004 with the Coalition Provisional Authority, and then as the U.S. Embassy's principal liaison with the multinational command. An important job, not very easy I'm assuming. He is also the author of The Other War, Winning and Losing in Afghanistan. He visits Afghanistan regularly, knows all the players, and has been a follower of the issue for many years, as was his father, former Ambassador Robert Newman, who served in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 70s. So, with that I would like to start with Chris. Chris, with your experience dealing with the DOD and on security issues, and with the recent announcement by President Obama that the U.S. post-2014 has a two-year plan that calls for 9,800 forces, a mixture of trainers, educators, and maybe anti-terrorism forces that will be joined by some NATO forces, and whose job is to help the Afghans and also do some counter-terrorism work. Tell us, in your view, this new policy is a solid one, doable, and what do you think will be the end result by the end of 2016 in your view? Thank you very much for your kind introduction and question. I also want to thank the New America Foundation and my colleagues who I have known for several years, Claire and Lockhart and Ron Newman. Today is the 70th anniversary of D-Day, and we remember the D-Day veterans today and what they sacrificed and what they did to make that effort, that fight for freedom a success. And an interesting question is how will we, how will the Afghan government, how will all of the actors in this particular conflict be remembered 70 years later? Did we do everything reasonably possible on all sides of this conflict for a successful and a peaceful outcome? I think it will be a very interesting question for us as we reflect on D-Day today. The 2009 diplomatic political and military surge provided an opportunity for a successful outcome in Afghanistan, and I think there is a reasonable chance of success in Afghanistan. I would say that with respect to your question, the troop decision, I would give it two cheers. I'm not sure yet time will tell whether it deserves three cheers or not. On the positive side of the ledger, it does buy time and space for the Afghan National Security Force maturity model to continue to grow and develop. But the security efforts are necessary, but they're not sufficient for success. And the security efforts alone will eventually run into a glass ceiling of political dysfunction, violent contests for power, and external and regional either neglect or malign activity that will undermine the prospects for success. So really, key is for this effort to be successful, the political and diplomatic efforts have to come online and have to work in concert toward a sustainable solution in Afghanistan. The Taliban are unlikely to overthrow the Afghan government anytime soon, militarily. They're not strong enough, and the ANSF is capable enough to prevent that. And the Afghan government is also unlikely to force the Taliban to surrender anytime within the next couple of years. So quite frankly, the biggest threats to the Afghan government and to stability in Afghanistan in the near term are probably not the Taliban, but more likely a political or fiscal crisis that unravels the government and plunges Afghanistan into chaos. And there is serious concern that without needed emphasis on the political and diplomatic lines of effort that we've sort of postponed the day of reckoning. And you get a new perfect storm developing in 2016 or 2017 as troops withdraw down to zero and potential donor fatigue kicks in where donors are just unwilling to bankroll or what they might see as a perpetual conflict, a conflict without end in Afghanistan. That's the very difficult scenario, I think, coming forward. And certainly in that sort of downside scenario, al-Qaeda is the biggest winner in it. Al-Qaeda is the winner in a perpetual conflict scenario because it allows them time and space to be able to come back into Afghanistan, to come back into sanctuary and quite frankly al-Qaeda's biggest nightmare is a Taliban that distances themselves from al-Qaeda and turns toward the Afghan polity and the international community. So I think really the key counter-terrorism strategy as you asked is certainly pressure on the networks through all of the kinetic, so to speak, efforts as well as the intelligence efforts but the political and diplomatic efforts I think are going to be the decisive ones in the counter-terrorism piece in preventing al-Qaeda from coming back into Afghanistan. So Afghanistan right now, it's sort of the classic prisoner's dilemma where all the actors, both internal to Afghanistan and external, recognize the benefits of cooperation toward peace and stability but none trust the other to cooperate with them. And so you get this sort of status quo that if not broken on the political and diplomatic side could lead to the downsides I mentioned. Now, I said success is entirely possible and I absolutely believe that. I think there are really five keys to a successful outcome that have come to fruition will lead to a peaceful and stable Afghanistan long-term. The first one is the Afghan National Security Force battlefield performance. There is no good solution in Afghanistan, no positive outcome, without the Afghan National Security Force being strong, confident, capable and able to preserve the gains that have been made over the last 13 years. And there also, battlefield performance is critical to convincing the Taliban that a military victory by them is unlikely and in order to avoid perpetual conflict, they're going to have to come into a peace process. So the ANSF provides, Afghan National Security Forces or ANSF provides, can provide the political and diplomatic space for a successful outcome. Second is the political transition, which you mentioned. And the political transition, my mind, has three components. The first one is the election. We're going to have a second round here in just over a week. You know, that'll determine the presidency. The second part of the political transition after the election will be the peaceful transfer of power. The first peaceful democratic transfer of power in Afghan history, which I think is an extraordinary achievement, extraordinary credit, quite frankly, to President Karzai, to the Afghan people. And then third and probably most difficult will be the political and economic reforms that are necessary to put Afghanistan on a better trajectory. And will the next Afghan president have the political will to do that, I think is an important question. The third key to success is regional diplomacy. Regional and international actors to come together to assist in cooperation or managing competition or creating stability, incentives for stability. That is going to have to happen. Regional actors and international actors are going to have to place stability in Afghanistan in a higher priority than some of their interests and priorities that may be trending toward instability. Number four is the peace process. And I believe that there has to be progress toward a peace process in the 2015-2016 timeframe, which will enable, I think, give donors confidence that stability in Afghanistan is a sort of manageable risk rather than an uncertain gamble. After 35-plus years of conflict and all the Afghan people have gone through, you know, peace process is very difficult to imagine. They're very emotional. I mean, we've just gone through in the U.S. this controversy over the Bergdahl, you know, Beau Bergdahl prisoner exchange for five Guantanamo detainees all the emotion and anxiety that that stirred in America. Magnify that many, many, many, many times over. And you can get maybe begin to get a sense of the anxieties and the emotions that go with the peace process or a potential peace process in Afghanistan. You know, after, you know, a Taliban regime, you know, that was cruel, benighted, misogynistic and tyrannical. The gross violations of human rights that happened not only during that era but in the Mujahideen era as well, that will be tremendously difficult but, you know, very, very necessary for Afghans to come together and determine a peaceful political future. And only Afghans can do that. Finally is economic progress towards a greater economic self-reliance. Right now Afghanistan relies on an extraordinary degree of investment from the international community. That's going to have to decline over time so Afghanistan can become more economically sustainable. That'll require infrastructure development, economic development as well as ideally conditions under which defense spending can, you know, can reduce substantially. I would say, finally, Afghanistan has a real opportunity to succeed. I was just in Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago and I was visiting an adult women's literacy center and, you know, 18 to 25 year old women who would have never had the opportunity under the Taliban to finish high school. But there they were and all of them have been affected by this conflict. They've lost loved ones, they've been refugees, they know people who have been wounded and killed. And they're all in class and they all want to complete their education. Their teachers hadn't been paid in 14 months, they're in broken desks, they don't have any electricity, they don't have the right materials but all of them are passionate about what they are doing and their dreams and aspirations. I want to be an engineer, I want to be a doctor, I want to be a lawyer and I want to be a teacher. When you look at all of those, when you put all those together, for them those dreams and aspirations are not about making money but it was about fixing what they think, what they perceive to be the ills of Afghan society. So I certainly hope for their case and the case of the Afghan people that we collectively, Afghan's international community alike will do what is necessary for a successful and stable outcome in Afghanistan and 70 years hence we will be remembered positively for that. Thank you, Chris. Claire, given the new timetable announced by President Obama and also a timetable expected by NATO soon and given the numbers and given the resources per let's say Chicago and per Tokyo the two international conferences that came up with some figures on what it might cost to support Afghanistan beyond 2014. You, not only as an expert in state building but also I might say even as a member of this organization which is co-sponsoring this event as well, the Alliance in support of the Afghan people when you go to policymakers, when you go to legislators today what would you tell them in terms of what Chris said makes, what defines success and what defines failure? What would you tell them today given the new timetable, given the new conditions and given what is happening in Afghanistan and what the US has done and will be doing? Certainly and I think Chris has described the factors that will contribute to success extremely well well as we know many of the headlines in the media focus on the risks and threats in the negative I think that that's obscured a picture of real hope and possibility and opportunity and most of all because there's a new generation who all of you know well coming of age who want nothing more than peace and stability and are putting themselves at the forefront of the change and taking enormous risks themselves to see it come real yes I'm a member of an organization called ASAP Alliance in support of the Afghan people which is devoted exactly to this mission to try and rebalance the narrative and come up with a much more nuanced understanding of what's happening both the risks and the threats on one hand but also the opportunities and the possibilities and try and promote a more balanced understanding of what's happening now I would very much agree actually that the priority for many if not most Afghan citizens is security I remember very early in my time in Afghanistan somebody said look if I can't walk to buy bread at the end of the street if the female members of my family can't go to their jobs and if I can't walk my children to school so none of these things economic opportunity food even food and education matter if the basic security isn't there he said if I'm afraid of being shot in the back of the head none of the rest of it matters so I do think and I think this has now become something of a left right consensus even in this country security is a good not a bad security matters and now that the timetable is faster than some had understood or perhaps hoped this is going to put more imperative on the ANSF and their performance and also the continued support the promises that were made at Lisbon and Chicago for support to the ANSF for the years to come becomes absolutely foundational now having said that as we know from many other countries that if you support a security force alone this can lead to all sorts of other problems security cannot be achieved just through repression and in countries where militaries alone are supported this creates the condition for military coups and we've seen this happen in many countries in Africa so this does put pressure on the other elements the ones that Chris has outlined the diplomatic the economic the state building the political functions and in that area I think this is really actually for Afghans to define and Afghans to determine we hear a lot about Afghan sovereignty and that's right that the Afghans have both the right but also the responsibility to lead their country and I think perhaps as there will be a new president in place in the coming months and to be for that president and their government to determine the right mix of policies that will lead to stability in the political and economic and governance spheres but that said international assistance is going to continue to be important as a bridge to that time in the future when the country can raise its own revenue so I'll spend a little bit of time reflecting on what I think is important here I think there are four factors and perhaps the most important is actually the economic one there's a short-thrift there's a lot of focus on the security rightly there's a lot of focus on the political transition to a new government rightly but the one that doesn't get as much focus is the economic condition and essentially the sooner that Afghanistan can raise its own revenue to meet its own costs of security and governance and social programs the sooner that international taxpayers won't be called upon to meet that fiscal gap as we know there's been an economy that's been heavily based on aid as well as the illicit economy particularly narcotics over the last decade and the question of transition from an aid-based economy to a productive economy a trade and production-based economy is absolutely essential now Afghanistan does have tremendous potential it is landlocked that puts it at something of a disadvantage but the assets that it has very capable young generation young population know the minerals are not a magic bullet they're not going to be providing the revenue in 2 or 3 years but in 10 or 15 years and that matters there's tremendous potential and not just in the minerals but particularly the oil and gas finds and China's interested but also other countries in the region are interested in buying that but also there's a domestic market within Afghanistan one of the most critical constraints to light industry to do agricultural processing and so on and to people's daily lives is the power situation but Afghanistan has the gas that can provide the power so the question of how does Afghanistan increase its revenue tremendously important it has the assets it has the capabilities there's also a lot of revenue in the country that isn't being captured so continuing to work on reform of customs like with its neighbour Pakistan which I think notoriously has one of the lowest tax collection rates in the world Afghanistan actually has a higher percentage but continuing to work in closing that revenue gap essential and of course as we hear I think from Afghan citizens across the country beyond security what do they want is jobs so what are going to be the engines of that job creation it is going to be agriculture but it's an increasingly urbanising society and there are many many opportunities in light industry in services to increase jobs I think the second area then is the viability of the state and beyond the security function the Afghan government has come up with international priority programs when one looks at them they're very well formulated but I do think there needs to be something of a sense of prioritization what are the five or six really key functions and I think as we know if we look from the perspective of a citizen in a rural area it's the very basic services that citizens anywhere in the world this is absolutely not about Switzerland citizens anywhere in the world basic education, basic healthcare some electricity access rural roads water sanitation so really focusing on the things that matter to citizens I think is going to be important next area is keeping open the space for civil society so the work on human rights, on democracy on women's rights, absolutely foundational and I think when we look at what really has worked it's this change the shift in the attitudes and the space for the young generation keeping vigilant not letting that space close but the support really and it's going to be the back breaking work is internally it's the young people who lead organizations in the country that's the most important and sometimes it's just moral support rather than financial support that they ask for and then the final area this question of regional cooperation and some of that regional cooperation is on security and political issues but tremendous opportunities in the economic area there's been a lot of work done this recently and the administration has led with the launch of the New Silk Road really important work but I think it's a question of priorities and where are those areas where countries in the region can collaborate with each other and a lot of work has been on trade and transportation but the question of energy, the access of South Asia to the gas and the hydroelectric power in Central Asia that can help solve South Asia's energy problems is one really promising area for regional cooperation so as France and Germany cooperated after World War II on coal and steel what's the coal and steel of the region so as I think I said I think it's for the next president to formulate their own policies in these areas and the worst that international partners could do would be to try and prejudge that or fill that space so they'll need time and space to formulate them and I do think there'll be differences there'll be in whoever wins the presidency what type of policies and management capabilities that they'll bring to bear but very important in coming back to your question of what to tell when we say to decision makers and legislators in this space just tremendously important that Afghanistan can work but maintaining the right commitment certainly in the security area but in the non-security areas to bridge that fiscal gap and provide the type of support that the Afghans truly want and need and we hear from SIGAR and others of all the things that don't work and there are, I mean he's right there are cases of waste and fraud and inefficiency but I think this has obscured the picture of what has worked and my colleagues and I are undertaking a small study at the moment to try and look at what does work and why and across evaluations and with beneficiary feedback from citizens there are a number of things that have worked and I think it's imperative to learn the lessons from what has worked so that legislators, decision makers know what is important to continue to support and what as budgets rightly and understandably do come down that the support can be prioritized for the right areas and I think in that sense that's the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund maintaining that budget support so salaries get paid and operations and maintenance is provided to all the things that have been built over the last decade probably the most important thing but also some other large scale programs that have fairly low overheads but reach millions of people so the national solidarity program, the national health program that USAID has very importantly supported and there are a few other programs like that that have the track record that have been evaluated as working very well and I think are worth maintaining a commitment to Thank you, thank you Claire Ron we've covered a lot of ground between Claire and Chris but not enough probably on the diplomatic side and on the regional and strategic side so as a ex diplomat, US diplomat who was served in Afghanistan and in troubled regions with this recent announcement what do you think is the message that is being conveyed or how is it perceived by countries in the region and beyond and to what extent do you think that this is going to make a difference in their calculation on Afghanistan the geopolitics of it and so on knowing that Afghanistan is situated in a pretty pivotal part of the world Well Chris gave the policy two cheers, I think I'd give it one cheer and one groan because the policy is in fact contradictory and that sends a contradictory message to Afghans and to the people Afghanistan is a really complex situation it's a place that has so many pieces that if you have a really strong view you can always go to Afghanistan and find the pieces that illustrate your view and come back and write the article that says I've been there and this is the way it is and if you have a view that is completely opposite you can do exactly the same thing but it is occasionally useful to focus on some of the big picture things when you look at the election which first of all was secured by Afghan forces 100,000 less foreign troops than there were in Afghanistan at the last election that is a success it's not the end it doesn't prove it all will be well but it's a success the election was not just better than the last elections think about the region in which this is taking place Pakistan has a reasonably decent election and then Alexa's civilian government that is denied a great deal of power by the military and you have Russia which is becoming less and less democratic you can fairly say in that region that from the northern border of India to the western border of Russia this is the most democratic spot in the region now you can get a little carried away with that I agree but it's still an important realization when you think of where Afghanistan is situated peaceful hand over power to come to our policy it is contradictory the decision on troops for the next year I believe is a good decision the rapid reduction in half means people are going to deploy to new locations with a view to how quickly they have to redeploy to some place else and the fact that you put such hard time limits on sends a contradictory message that questions whether performance matters because you're going to leave anyway that message is contradictory and it leaves the picture cloudy for the Afghans there's another piece to the decision as well as the timeline that is the decision to fold everything under the embassy by the third year I believe that is clearly a mistake that is a model which was used in Iraq excuse me it did not work well in Iraq my colleague Jim Jeffrey whose ambassador there can wax quite eloquent on why it did not work it is not that it can't work in theory it is that it allows all sorts of bureaucratic stove pipes and habits in the US government to snap back into place when you don't have a military presence as a central organizing force and frankly it's also a bit of a shell game because you can have a very large military presence under an embassy direction as we have say in Saudi Arabia where you have a two star general in command of a military training mission and then a very large contractor presence with a Saudi Arabian National Guard so it is a shell game but it is also one which plays to a model which has not worked well in the past if that model is going to work this time then there needs to be some detailed examination of why it did not work well in Iraq and what we are going to do to fix the things that didn't work and I know of no such planning at the moment we have two years somebody could actually get serious and do it but it is not happening at the moment that's it there is time for the Afghans there is time to build on the success they've had and as Claire said keeping up the support is going to be hugely important and harder when you don't have a U.S. military presence because that galvanizes congressional support but it can be done so I think there is another piece of this although we are talking today to a U.S. audience and that is the responsibility that is going to have to be carried by the Afghan government and people in a very difficult time and not withstanding a difficult message we have to manage our own relations the next Afghan government is going to be a coalition it's going to take power with a very diverse body of supporters doesn't mean you are going to get everything cleaned up quickly in fact it is unreasonable to ask that and if you expect that you are setting yourself up for failure but at the same time the next Afghan government has to begin to take on the task of more efficient government and better government one that is seen by its people as being less rapacious and therefore more able to rally support it's going to have to do enough of that to justify support of its people it's going to have to do enough of that that it continues to build a lesson for us for the congress and for other foreign donors that this project is worthy of support because it can continue it's not just milking the foreigners I think that will be particularly important in the army where promotion it's not just promotion for merit and removing corruption it is getting out those who are particularly inefficient but politically connected because changing that becomes a major piece of maintaining the loyalty of the force or risking the coup because of the loss of the loyalty of the force so the next afghan government has to play a major role in its own salvation this would seem to be obvious but it's not because afghans have lived for so many years in a world that is continually overturned by what foreigners do and so there is a tendency instead of looking to what I want to do this American tendency is to say what is your vision of the big foreigners because my vision is not going to matter very much if I don't know that so this means that at a time when afghans need to understand their own responsibility because they can really affect our policy they can affect what the congress and the American people two years from now will be willing to do or what the next administration will do but this is a hard realization afghans themselves because of the context out of which they come and it is a hard realization when the American administration sends a mixed message that is very difficult to decipher but it is still going to be one of the most important pieces one hand that we are willing to continue to support progress and that we are willing to recognize if there is a degree of success and on the other hand an afghan willingness to play for a somewhat longer term to step up to their own responsibilities for effectiveness and improvement without having excessive expectations of how fast that can go good thank you so much I would like to ask all three of you a question that comes up occasionally but doesn't have a very precise answer because it's a complex sort of question but depending on how you conduct polls and depending on how you pose questions depending on how you interpret answers why is it that the US public and even to some extent some people in congress do not fully grasp what has and is happening in afghanistan and what has and what is the US doing in afghanistan can you each one give me a short answer that might help us make it somewhat short I'll start one there are several different reasons first afghanistan is just enormously complex people want a short strategic answer to province sometimes district to district things are enormously difficult and they different and in fact they resist that kind of simplification secondly the US government has done an absolutely rotten job of providing a steady measure of reporting we've done spin as opposed to fact and that makes people subject first it just builds on the cynicism that has been there since vietnam but secondly it also makes people revert to anecdotal news reporting for a basis of understanding and first of all as you know with news if it bleeds it leads so their tendency is to the bad reporting and secondly every country reports primarily on the areas where their own trips are involved so the german press will report almost exclusively on northern afghanistan the spanish and italian press will focus on the west the american press will focus the british focus only on helmet the american press focuses on the area where our trips are so you don't have a press that very often writes a comprehensive account so you have lousy american reporting complex situation fragmentary press and then you've been at it a long time and people are tired and you put those things together and you get a public perception that this nothing's working and there is one more fact i remember what i went to high school in a school that had a problem with gangs by the time i was in high school the gangs had been cleaned up but i noticed that nobody understood that and it occurred to me something that i've seen repeatedly in life that reputation follows fact where there's a lag often of a couple of years or more and i think you have that in afghanistan too so that you had a picture that was very we were almost losing the war in 2009 kandahar was very close to falling whether the taliban could have held it or not the country was in terrible shape and it took a long time to put the troops in big battles and so reputation and fact trail way behind changes and also good news and interesting you know i was in margell last year there were huge numbers of stories when the marines went in no afghans, terrible fighting i was back there last year there's now 25,000 afghan troops in hillman margell is quiet people are talking about business and you find a press story about that so the reputation lingers because nobody reports on change either given the timelines that we have how do you resolve this i agree very much how do you fix it i agree very much with the ambassadors analysis i think for the first few years after 9-11 there was a narrative in the media that everything was wonderful and great success of elections and so on and that was actually a problem and i was one of the people who went to editors and said look we've got to start reporting on some of the problems otherwise we're not going to be able to address them and then the pendulum swung completely the other way so the picture, the fashion then became everything is negative the coin doesn't work and aid doesn't work and the afghans don't work and a very unbalanced picture and i've actually been talking to some of the editors of newspapers and channels about this and saying look you're biased, you're only reporting on the negative and some of them have actually said ok fair cop we agree let's work on this but they admit that it's very hard because the defence editors and the foreign editors will report on the bombs and the corruption and the negative and you have to get it into the business pages the minerals and the the other stories the guys who had run a motorcycle factory in herat that were doing industrial espionage in china that was a story i think but it's hard to find these stories i think i actually was speaking to one of the journalists who've covered the country over the last few years and he said look i can't find a single project that worked although i think he probably could if he looked a bit further but yet the country has transformed because he's been back to those parts of the country in kandahar in helman he said actually it did work the country has transformed and he said we haven't told the story so what do we do i think we do need to sit down with editors and leaders in the journalism world and think about what i think we have a serious structural problem here and i think it does need to be addressed and part of it as you say is the political leadership to tell the story to the level properly with the american people that there is a different story here but i do think that the media does also have a responsibility to find ways to present a more balanced picture chris aside from the media and others in government's role let's take the flip side of the taliban a very unsavvy group of people back in the 1990s and now the video that came out about the prisoner exchange or at least the release of burgdoll is going viral and giving an impression creating an impression you were in the defense department how do you manage this well first of all i'd like to echo what ron newman and claire said about the narrative it is hard to boil afghanistan down to bullet points or talking points that are easily sort of painting a sort of simple narrative or a simple solution it just doesn't lend itself to that and it is an extraordinarily complex environment when you've had 35 plus years of conflict and whether it was the war against the soviets or the civil war then the taliban and now the last 13 years it has created a degree of complexity it's really hard for people to understand i've been dealing with afghanistan for seven consecutive years now every time i go back to afghanistan you realize how much you truly just do not understand and when you look at the taliban it's interesting on the one hand this is part of the complexity i mentioned the abhorrent nature of their rule i've been in firefights with the taliban i have six good soldiers of mine were killed by the taliban and over 50 wounded so there's a lot of scar tissue there by the same token you look at recent taliban eed statements and they're trying to reach out to the international community they're trying to portray themselves as maybe a taliban 2.0 that we're not like the people that ruled in the 1990s and they're starting to socialize messages about peace and about anti-corruption and about women's education and those sort of things all very much designed to appeal to the international community and second of all there's a recognition that they can't turn back the clock and they've got to get more in step with the afghan people if they're ever going to try to gain any sort of support now whether any of these messages are credible or this is just pure cynicism for public consumption we don't know it's hard to tell until it's tested over time but that adds to the complexity of this and the fact that the taliban are also not the same as al-qaeda al-qaeda is an international terrorist group bent on the destruction of America and the west the afghan taliban are an insurgent group who want to regain power in Afghanistan two very different organizations that tend to be conflated together okay well I mean some people may argue with that but we'll leave it here any points that you would like to raise with each other before we go to the public even though you all seem to be somewhat on the positive side and and even even more so than I am as an afghan I think that it's very good I think it's good to hear from people who follow the issue and know what the issues are as an afghan I think that you reflect to a large extent the feelings and thoughts that exist in Afghanistan so it's not just us afghans talking amongst each other in wondering why the U.S. is not getting it or why is it that they don't see that the glasses have pulled for example or that life has changed for the better in Afghanistan so I think that those of us who have a greater affinity to this cause and to this issue we sometimes are confused and I think that Afghanistan and its people are going to a little bit of a confusion state right now and so it's important to bring some clarity to all of this so having said this I'm going to turn to our audience here and ask people to please raise their hands be recognized introduce themselves and ask a question even though everybody may have a lot to say or remarks to make but please ask questions as succinctly as possible let me start with the back over there please and please wait for the microphone so we can capture everything Hi this is Paranya Nazuri advocacy manager for a woman Afghan woman I have a question about the prisoner exchange I think I when I watched President Obama's a speech and then following that the prisoner exchange I was hoping more after the elections in Afghanistan it was a great success it was a great turnout it was actually a message from the people of Afghanistan that we are embracing democracy and it was a message that we don't want the Taliban kind of government and then I was hoping that our president would really encourage that message and say the government was going to stand by these values the progress that the Afghan people have made I work for a woman's organization we have put our lives on the front line 600 Afghans in my organization are working on the ground every day and their life is in danger and they keep going that this would be encouraged and that I would know that the United States and the international community would stand by us when I heard the message that Afghanistan will never be a perfect place and it's not America's responsibility to make it one it was a great disappointment for me for the young Afghan generation for the woman who have been fighting so hard and the president is not here so I will ask you what is our president thinking saying that and then with the president exchange following that we have five top Taliban some of them very well connected with Al Qaeda our exchange they are in Qatar they will be under you know good monitoring for a year what will happen after that the plan to close down Guantanamo Bay eventually what will happen to all the prisoners who are there we killed one Osama bin Laden are we releasing 5, 10, 20 of them now to go back to Afghanistan and do what our lives are in danger thank you let me address the first part to you Chris because you just left government even though you don't speak to the government the closest thing we have to the government person please tell us you know this worry that exists within the Afghan society on women and all is this sending the wrong message to the Afghans or has it been misrepresented or misread on that side and then I will turn to you Ron about the second part in the peace process and what can you tell us about whether this release of five notorious well known Taliban is going to hinder or help the process down the road this entire event has generated so much anxiety and emotion on both sides of the ledger and I think the big picture the narrative that says the message that says we are committed to a successful Afghanistan we are committed to supporting the Afghans in a you know peaceful stable prosperous future is that that's one narrative a very different narrative is we are committed to getting out of Afghanistan one narrative I think inspires a sense of commitment and a sense of confidence on the part of the people the other narrative invokes fears of 1989 and abandonment and so that's quite frankly problematic and I think has increased the anxiety of Afghans who have been through 35 years of conflict and I don't think want to want to see Afghanistan go into chaos again and want to see these gains preserved and want to see these opportunities particularly for Afghan women and children be sustained so I think the narrative on this is challenging I'm not sure that the narrative on this recent prisoner exchange is something that is going to be embraced as a model for the future in terms of how you describe things and set conditions for them I think there will be a lot of lessons learned on the administration's side on that and it's there's no good solution to how do I get my how do I get this individual back there's a variety of solutions least bad alternatives and this was never going to be unless he was just simply escaped or handed over this was just going to be a very difficult issue anyway the prisoner exchange is going to be difficult any way or without Ron, on the peace front I don't think this release is going to have any particular bearing on the peace process there was a point a year or more ago as Chris knows when the prisoner exchange was to have been a precursor to a talk that the point has passed may come back again but it's not geared to the prisoners if there is any message in the prisoner exchange I think it suggests the Americans are cleaning up the battlefield as they leave it is not one that I see sending any particular plus or minus whether any of the individuals have a particular bent we don't know but I don't see anything particular in this that is going to advance I think it is sad that the media focus has been so much on this incident and so little on the success of the election and the fact that Afghanistan still has a second round of elections to go major challenges and there's a huge story for the future of Afghanistan in the second round of the election and the security that will or will not pertain and that story is being largely ignored in the feeding frenzy over Sergeant Begdahl and that that's frankly a story we haven't been talking about that for just a second because I know we're going to get a question so might as well get it out this is not a story that has covered any of the participants with great glory yes there is a principle of bringing back our people you know I can remember helicopters flying into hot LCs to take out bodies on the same principle in a slightly older war that I was part of but that principle is not an end of the discussion it's a beginning of a discussion about how much risk you take in order to bring about the result and how you mitigate the risk part of mitigating the risk is what conditions you have in this case for holding these people and since the White House has not been prepared to speak about that on the record it leaves one slightly uncomfortable with how firm the conditions are second issue is how much danger the people pose and there I would say the media has not covered itself with glory either there's rather good report from the Afghan Analyst Network tells you do not have five leading Taliban war leaders you have at least two that were purely administrative one and neither one of them terribly high one person who was a mid-level intelligence commander and two who were combatants one at the mid-level only one of whom is really senior but he does have a potential for war crimes issues which for the media is paying no attention to at all so the portrayal of the people is generally messed up and that suggests also that the hyperventilation of the critics is probably excessive to the actual issues so I would say you have an administration you have an individual at a price paid for his release that do not merit the self-congratulation which has been in evidence you have a threat which is probably not terribly large but which we don't entirely understand and you have a criticism which seems to get ahead of the facts I don't find much glory in any of that we'll probably come back to that just a couple of comments I think one very much to agree with you I think this idea that Afghanistan some people were trying to make or Afghans were trying to make Afghanistan to a perfect place or Switzerland is a straw man nobody ever suggested that and I don't think anything should prevent the citizens of Afghanistan from striving to create the kind of Afghanistan they want we all know that the kind of transformation that countries do undertake does take 20 to 30 years and I think people are realistic about that but the end goal is really for Afghans to determine on the political process and I think this is from a comparative perspective ISE has been looking at different types of peace deals and peace processes around the world and I think one danger that many of them fall into is thinking that there's going to be 20 guys around the table and then a deal and then a Hollywood the end and then peace is going to break out and I think coming back to the theme that all of us have been addressing that actually there's a lot more complexity really warrants a sort of look again at certainly in the popular understanding of how peace will I think every Afghan that I've ever spoken to understands that complexity but not always the media and I think there's actually a paper, the national dialogue paper that a number of Afghan leaders have been discussing I think it's available on Dr. Ghani's website but it's available elsewhere many different leaders have been talking about it to look at the sort of different parts of a process to look at a peace process rather than necessarily a peace deal with different elements to this and of course one element is how Afghanistan and Pakistan reach a way least of coexistence and some people have been talking about ultimately them having a special relationship and if there's a part of the peace process that's the most important that's probably it then there are the question of many parts many groups within the country feeling excluded from power or badly treated and the question of how does one address those grievances and those are people in many different parts of the country but how are those grievances addressed and then another part of this is rather than looking at good guys and bad guys understanding that over the last 30 plus years of conflict there have been many actions taken that some people would say war crimes and the question of how the country deals with reconciliation in this much broader sense but how does the country come to terms with the past and agree to move forward is I think something that's still to be worked out but understanding that this is about different groups within the country and how do they agree to govern together in the same entity so I think and I think it looks like from each of the president's candidates platforms that each of them probably would look towards a reframing of the root to peace. Mr. Siraj Good morning. My name is Ali Siraj. I'm the president of the National Coalition for dialogue with the tribes of Afghanistan. I'll be dealing directly with the tribes for the last 12 years all over Afghanistan and I've been sitting here and listening to the honorable panel here but I'm disappointed that I do not hear the actual problem that's facing Afghanistan as the west is celebrating D-Day the Afghan people are dreading D-Day which I call the Taliban Day. With all due respect ambassador Mullah Omar was a nothing. He was a one-eyed Mullah who was educated in Teobandi College and the Pakistanis brought him in as the leader of the Taliban and turned them into a religious symbol by putting the cape of Muhammad peace be upon him upon his shoulder and giving him the title of Momenin and therefore giving him the aura of an Islamic leader to unite the Pashtuns around him. The problem in Afghanistan is not in Afghanistan and the sooner the west admits this. I know you know it but you will not admit it. The world has got armies. Pakistan's army has a country that is the opposite. Pakistan's military is running the country. The ISI is the one that is supporting these people that are coming into Afghanistan and killing our people. The biggest symbol of celebrating the release of the five was yesterday where they almost annihilated the frontrunner for the elections. Why don't we address the fact that Pakistan sending rockets into Qunar and into Nuristan and killing our people and I do not hear a word from the 47 nations that are there to protect us against the enemies of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not at war with Pakistan Afghanistan is not at war with Iran the west is at war with the Al Qaeda and Taliban and this battle is being fought on the soil of Afghanistan and we are paying a price for it. My heart believes for the foreign soldiers that have lost their lives in Afghanistan relatively speaking for every foreign soldier that has fallen in Afghanistan tens of thousands of Afghans have fallen in the hands of these very Taliban that are hell bent you cannot make a deal with them and I keep hearing please somebody has got to answer this to me let's make a peace with the Taliban which Taliban are we talking about the Saudi Taliban the Qichnian Taliban the Uzbek Taliban they are Talibs from Farah they belong to the Nurzai tribe we don't need to go to Qatar to talk to the people from Farah why don't we go to Farah and talk to them. If the Afghan Talibs are from Helmand they belong to the Adizai, Hossanzai Ishaqzai tribes we don't need to go to Qatar let's go to Helmand and talk to them and reach an agreement with them gentlemen lady with all your respect my question is how is the United States and the 47 nations that have come to save Afghanistan or themselves or the world from the al-Qaeda and Taliban how are they going to shorten the hands of Isai and interfering inside Afghanistan thank you as you know this is a this is a reflection of the wider sentiments that exist in Afghans society regardless of whether it's Pashtun, Tajik, Azor so thank you for reflecting that and anyone who wants to take that question is welcome can I start? Please! I was waiting for Chris to spring into the but he didn't want Chris is thinking about it first of all there is no question that the sanctuaries in Pakistan allow the Taliban movement to survive and to continue to fight if there were no sanctuaries in Pakistan there would be no important insurgency it would have been crushed a long time ago I think that is very clear there is a degree of official responsibility in Pakistan for that I agree with that as well the United States has complex interests there is an Afghan narrative which says if you would just beat on the Pakistanis they would close this down I think we could have more pressure I think we could have more understanding I think that narrative is exaggerated the Pakistanis have allowed something to grow which now threatens the Pakistani state as well and which I'm not even sure they have the capacity to control that is a big question for the Pakistanis as well America has multiple interests it has an interest in the Taliban not succeeding in Afghanistan it has an interest in not having the collapse of Pakistan which is not only a larger nation but one which has nuclear weapons it has an interest in not having another Indo-Pak war and it has a problem that it will be very difficult to sustain both our forces and the Afghan forces in Afghanistan without transit through Pakistan in fact is we have contradictory interests I'm sorry the world is a contradictory place sometimes I think we would be better off we would speak more honestly about the fact that those interests are in conflict and that we need both pressure on Pakistan but we also need sustainment of Pakistan because we have huge interests and they're not collapsing I do not think we are in a position in our terms of our own interest in which we can have a one-dimensional policy I think we could have a good deal more clarity about the fact that we are dealing with attention between sides of the policy I think we would be much better off if we would recognize that we do not have the basis for a strategic relationship with Pakistan we have some issues on which we have great communality and some issues on which we are practically enemies and we have to maintain a relationship that recognizes and deals with both halves of that rather than speaking as though we were either friends or enemies in alternate months which is where we seem to end up there are various ways in which one could do that that we don't do but I'm not in government so there's not much point in my delineating those Chris? Well I think your excellent question observations sort of build on this notion of how emotional this conflict is or the past 35 years of conflict and how heart-rending it has been for the Afghan people to have to live through we have generations of Afghans who have known nothing but violence and I think it also builds on Claire's point that this idea of some people talk about a peace deal where you get 20 people around a table and you hash out some sort of peace deal I think the Afghans try that and the Islamabad Accords or the Peshawar Accords in 1992 the Islamabad Accords in 1993 and what that kind of effort led to was the Afghan Civil War so a peace process that deals with the internal dimensions of the conflict that deals with the external dimensions of the conflict is going to be absolutely critical if there's going to be progress in that respect. Do you think that the US administration people at the Pentagon, CIA State Department given the two-year window that's open will have some options do you think that the thinking is along those lines or is the thinking is well we're trying our best to disengage gradually and finally fully I mean how I think we're irrelevant to a peace process now we have said we're leaving what is it we have to offer or to negotiate with except perhaps the betrayal of the Afghan government so what we have to do is support the government the government has to prove it can survive the Afghan army has to prove it can't be defeated you may then have the conditions under which people can talk or will be willing to talk to each other whether it's in helmet or whether it's in gutter or somewhere else but I don't think we any longer have anything with which to make a peace deal what is it we're going to offer so there's no more leverage our leverage is pretty much gone it's not 100% I mean Chris you dealt with this do you want to take that or do you all differ with that ultimately peace is for Afghans that are going to have to decide a political future of Afghanistan I think the international community can play a role in helping and getting people to the table and keeping them at the table and I use the term obviously this is going to be as Claire mentioned to be successful this would have to be a process that will go on for a very very very long time just to get to a point where the shooting stops and then the transitional justice efforts of coming to grips with 35 years of conflict is going to take even longer there is something we can do I think we need to be clear about this what we can do is to be clear that we will continue to support the Afghan government and the military and that they will not lose because our support will be there that begins to create the condition under which insurgent leaders can see that they will not win on the battlefield our mixed message of departure and lack of clarity is a negative for conditions for peace negotiations the other thing we could do would be to shut up because our continued talk about how necessary a peace deal is suggests desperation and desperation suggests that you are going to pay a very high price for what you want so if you create this notion of desperate marketing you end up in a situation where you either have to pay a very high price or you have to do a lot more killing to prove that you won't pay it it's a little like running into the walking into the carpet bizarre in saying that's the finest carpet I've ever seen and I absolutely must have it what's your best price and I have 15 minutes to bargain if you bargain that way first of all you're going to pay a lot for carpets and second of all you shouldn't be allowed to go shopping correct right here gentlemen yes I'm a consultant to UN agencies although none having anything to do with Afghanistan I recently returned from a two-week visit to Afghanistan a private visit during the elections and this was the first time I'd been in Afghanistan since 2002 and I have to say that from my eyes and I was only in Kabul partly due to the security conditions but from my eyes what's happened in Afghanistan is nothing short of miraculous and the United States and the international community deserve a lot of credit and they deserve to be proud for the remarkable changes that have been brought in Kabul which was largely rubble when I was there and I saw Omar there before the election went extremely smoothly with very little disruption and I suggest that it's possible that the Taliban may have exercised a degree of restraint during the elections the Afghan security forces did acquit themselves no doubt but the level of disruption was much less than it certainly could have been it's also not clear whether the Pakistanis may have suggested some restraint at that time I think the prospects in Afghanistan are extraordinary half a generation has been educated they need another 10 years to educate the second half and that is going to have a remarkable impact also the other remarkable thing that you see is a proliferation of private education people are going out there and paying to learn skills that could get them jobs there's a remarkable degree of aspiration there's a remarkable degree of hard work people are out there working and building a future and they see that as a future as far as the election is concerned each of the two candidates is supremely qualified exceptionally qualified to be president of Afghanistan and both candidates have developed fairly extensive platforms so they've been thinking about policies so when they come into office they face a completely different environment with a completely different and much stronger preparation than President Karzai in addition to having their security forces so in a month or two we'll be seeing a very new and different environment so this is my question if a newly elected president of Afghanistan again both of them with extensive foreign relations experience and experience with the United States and with the American government if the new president comes to Washington and says would you be willing to reconsider the zero option in two years what do you think would be the reaction of the administration let's start with your question and then go to Claire it's hard to answer a hypothetical but what I the way I will answer this is I think there are a lot of lessons learned potential lessons learned in our relationship with President Karzai over the last several years I think we have to be honest that whoever the new Afghan president is going to be is going to be under a lot of the same domestic pressures in Afghanistan that President Karzai was under and I think I would encourage the administration to look inward about the relationship that we've had with President Karzai over the last several years determine what we could do differently to have a more productive and relationship with the new Afghan president Claire I'd like to ask you what you think but I will let you know in a second I have to think about it I do think and I think it's just generally good practice whether this is in the security area or in the economic and other sets of relationships that when a new government comes into power and has a new set of policies that in general is just going to be a good time to revise the policies from this side so I think it would be a matter of good practice to do so The narrative of the White House is that we are leaving so there is a lot of inertial force which will be contrary to changing that policy I don't know what they would do in this hypothetical I doubt that they would change rapidly if at all I do think that the one thing that is in Afghan hands is now you need performance we should control our expectations of how fast any president of Afghanistan can change things because he's going to be ruling with a coalition it's going to deal with a lot of complex political forces we don't want him to push things so hard that it causes explosions but if that question were to be asked in the way that it is most likely to get an affirmative answer it will have to be based on performance rather than promise so I hope that that question will be addressed in a year plus or minus I think it would be premature to address it now and unlikely to get a different answer by the way on the election violence it's important to note that there was actually a great deal of violence and the Afghan press deliberately did not report much of the violence and the number of incidents and that was in part a reaction to the killing of a journalist and his family in the Serena Hotel a little before the election and it basically produced a reaction to the Afghan press of damn it we're not going to help those people and I don't see a restraint on the part of the Taliban because in fact we were getting calls from Taliban to journalists and editors saying wait a minute we just blew something up how come you're not reporting it this doesn't suggest restraint they were very frustrated by the fact that the journalist said okay we know we have an obligation to report honestly but we're also partisan and you're attacking us we're just not going to help you let me just add also you're right that there was some violence but not to the point where it disrupted elections or dissuaded people from going and voting in large numbers and the hope is that within next week when Afghans go to vote again in the runoff that they once again will be able to do so and turn out in large numbers to answer Craig's question my personal view is that it will take a while as Ron said for the new government to really establish itself and show some level of credibility and credence and knowing that the U.S. already has taken a decision and has announced its decision for the next two and a half years or so there are elections coming up in the United States in 2016 and so I think that at some point in 2016 a new the new Afghan government would have to probably raise this issue and see if depending on what's happening at the time I mean we tend to forget and this is what I think bothers Afghans to some extent is that we tend to forget that we are also somewhat beholden to the situation on the ground we do not know exactly what kind of situation we may be facing down the road at the end of 2015 or 2016 F by 2016 things look somewhat reasonably fairly acceptable and normal then there won't be a need for anything but if there is a real danger, a real threat emanating from Afghanistan or the surrounding region or that Afghanistan is about to face somewhat some kind of calamity then obviously the calculations are going to change at that point and the governments would have to again review this case and reevaluate the situation so depending on what's happening we would have to shape our discussions in accordance to that let me go to a few others the young lady in the back, thank you thank you so much for speaking here today my name is Heather Robinson, I'm a PhD candidate at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland I was really interested in the discussion we just had about how Pakistan's role will affect Afghanistan as we move forward into the post-U.S. withdrawal environment what can we say about the role that's probably going to be quite significant that Iran will play as you know the U.S. has pretty fraught but possibly improving relations with Iran and fraying relations with Pakistan and in the past those two countries competing for influence in Afghanistan particularly in the 90s and the lead to the Taliban has led to growing chaos in that country additionally Iran was instrumental and helping the U.S. during the initial invasion in 2001 so what can we and should America be doing with Iran to ensure that regional players are complimenting the U.S. mission in Afghanistan versus unraveling it let's take one more question you had raised ma'am right in front my name is Anne Rutherford and my question is we are going to be leaving the Afghans at some point to defend themselves and when we leave we're taking all our great toys with us all the helicopters and the heavy equipment so how do we expect them to do the job that we've been doing without all that equipment Ron would you like to take the first one about Iran and anyone else who wants to continue I think we should be having a dialogue with Iran on Afghanistan I had probably the last conversations with Iran with an Iranian representative in Afghanistan about the country when I was there and then I was instructed to suspend that because all pressure was to be concentrated on the nuclear issue I think it's important when looking at Iran to look at the difference between Iran's interest in Afghanistan and Iran's interest in Iraq because the two situations are quite different Iran always been a strategic threat to Iran and Iran has actually an interest in having a degree of instability in Iraq both to mitigate threat and to allow it to position and play power games it does not have that interest in Afghanistan it does have a genuine interest in stability it will play games for influence it will play positions but Afghanistan has never in the last 100 years been a strategic threat to Iran Iranians know that they worry about our presence the American presence that scares them there are various other things they worry about but it's not Afghanistan as a threat so there is what I'm saying is you have the basis on which to have a shared interest in stabilizing Afghanistan in the United States and Iran and it is not clear that we actually have the same shared interest with Pakistan at this point it would make sense in my view to talk to the Iranians about Afghanistan if you can keep that conversation contained within the Afghan framework because when you don't talk to them and I saw this very clearly then they everything you do in the country that might be a threat to them they with suspicion you don't have a channel of communication in which to take away the suspicion there are very particular interests Iran has a big problem with drugs coming in Hashish and Papi Opium, heroin coming in from Afghanistan they have a big drug population problem they have a big smuggling problem they have a Baluchi insurgent problem that is both Iranian, Pakistani, Afghan related so there's a lot of things we can talk about with Iran where we share interests without getting into complexities or nuclear issues or other things I think we would be better if we did it on the issue of toys and I think it's a I think it's a great question and you know to I guess first to build on Iran's answer to Heather you know there are some complimentary interests with Iran that we have Afghanistan lives an extraordinarily difficult neighborhood and which I think reinforces the point Claire first made that there's no real viable peace deal that anybody could envision but there is a peace process that regional actors as well as that are going to have to play a constructive role with respect to your question and the as a matter of fact the Afghan national security forces since June of last summer have been in the lead for security and have been the ones taking on these operations we've been playing an advisory role but the Afghan national security forces have been defending their country on you know in the lead since June of 2014 and you know I've served alongside them I fought alongside them there are a lot of highly capable Afghan units and and very good leaders that you know I think we can have a lot of I think we take pride in what we've done in helping the Afghans build the Afghan national security forces but the Afghan you know army I don't want to oversell them there are a lot of challenges certainly but you do have a lot of very capable individuals and organizations the other thing I'd like to say is you know Ali Saraj I think mentioned you know the you know his appreciation for you know what Americans the international community have done in Afghanistan I personally would like to thank the Afghan people for the sacrifices that they have made to allow us to be in Afghanistan you know to you know whether it's for the counterterrorism piece or to help the Afghan people you know a peaceful stable prosperous future the administration doesn't thank the Afghan people enough I'm just a private citizen now but you know the number of Afghans who put their lives on the line for me and so many others I think deserves you know significant appreciation on our part great right there we have two hands there you go Doug Brooks with the Afghan American Chamber of Commerce and coming back to Claire Lockhart's point about basic security there we used to say that security is 90 percent of the problem but only 10 percent of the solution really on the basic level if there's going to be any economic development at all it's going to require some better security on the ground and the past government the Karzai government basically outlined any sort of private security but the police are incapable of providing the security that would allow international companies to move into the country is there any sort of fix is there any sort of future for some sort of basic security so that we can address this problem Claire I think a lot of what we've been talking about today is about the conditions under which the security infrastructure forces can meet the threat and what can be done to reduce the threat or increase the capability of security I do think however from a sort of economic development perspective we sometimes look in the wrong places we're not reliant on international contractors and NGOs from the outside coming in then they need security companies to defend themselves but a lot of what I think where the discussion has been going and where the country needs to go is to understand actually that it's the Afghans themselves and Afghan institutions and organizations that will be carrying out the development and the programs I mentioned and in fact all the ones that are coming up in the study that most of them that are successful were actually Afghan led, Afghan driven policy framework led by Afghan ministries or private companies and if those are the sort of platforms or programs for development then they have very different and much they have a way of operating with the environment to address the risks now for international companies coming in to make investment and I think either candidate is very much looking towards international partnerships whether with the private sector universities and a number of organizations then the question of their security requirements you know will be you know have to be worked out but I do think and knowing from some of the international investors they actually there risk assessment of Afghanistan they say actually it's a much much easier environment to work in than many of the other environments in across Africa that they do business in so for many of them from what I've heard they're saying this is actually not a problem for us. Thank you. Let's take one last question and thank you. My name is Amir Nojan I'm a student at Johns Hopkins Science my question is someone said that the Taliban had a small rationale to negotiate prior to 2014 because there was a calculated shift in power dynamics to be expected and my question is given the announcement about 2016 how much has that hurt the prospects for reconciliation or negotiations in the two years going forward and to what extent does that undermine the progress the country will see in those two years because of the uncertainty and again the announced drawdown so there's going to be another decrease in true presence which could create the impression that let's wait another two years and we'll have an even better position to secure more concessions potentially from the Afghan government or to increase their own power from the perspective of both the regional neighbors and the militant groups operating the country. I think it's a wonderful question and really really important Ambassador Newman mentioned there were some earlier opportunities perhaps to get a peace process initiated and that of course did not come to fruition and the closer you got to 2014 the less incentive there was both for the Taliban and the Afghan government to engage in any sort of peace process and I want to emphasize process not 20 people around a deal trying to hatch a deal but a real peace process because both sides thought think that they're going to be in a stronger position in 2015 than they are in 2013 or 2014. That calculus may happen in 2016 as well I think it'll be interesting to see how well the NSF perform in the battlefield this year are the gains preserved how well is the Afghan government enacting or beginning to enact a process of reform and does the Afghan government recognize that it's in it right now and for the next couple years will be in a position of considerable strength vis-a-vis the Taliban and will both sides recognize that the best way to prevent a civil war or even greater violence beyond 2016 or 2017 is for responsible people on all sides to get together begin exploring some sort of dignified peace process along the lines that Claire mentioned Well, on that note thank you very much we've run out of time you may have time to talk to our guests outside if you don't mind but I would like to thank all three, Ron Newman Claire Lockhart Chris Kalenda for your participation and sharing your views with us. Thank you