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Summary

The central governments limited writ and widespread official corruption are helping sustain a Taliban insurgency, and have fed pessimism about the Afghanistan stabilization effort. However, ethnic disputes remain confined largely to political debate and competition, enabling President Hamid Karzai to focus on trying to build Afghan institutions, and on his bid for re-election in presidential elections slated for August 20, 2009. Karzai has faced substantial loss of public confidence, in large part due to widespread official corruption, but his opponentsdivided by ethnicity and personal ambitionwere unable to form a strong electoral coalition as the presidential election registration process closed on May 8, 2009. At the same time, U.S. officials have been shifting away from reliance on building the central government and toward promoting local governing bodies and security initiatives. That trend is to accelerate, according to the Obama Administrations review of U.S. strategy, the results of which were announced on March 27, 2009. The core of the new strategy is a so-called civilian surge that will virtually double, to about 900, the number of U.S. civilian personnel to deploy to Afghanistan to help build its governing and security institution, and to increase economic development efforts. The Administration also says it will develop metrics by which to judge the performance and legitimacy of the Afghan government, including its efforts to curb official corruption, although the Administration and many in Congress appear reluctant to tie any U.S. funds or other activities to Afghanistans performance on such metrics. The review did not emphasize building democracy in Afghanistan, although that goal appears implicit within its recommendations. For further information, see CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth Katzman.

Related Reports:
• RS21922

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