In 2001, the United Stated and its allies invaded Afghanistan with a simple mission: Replace the country’s rule of violence with a government capable of rule of law.

However, more than a decade of occupation later, the coalition is heading back home with former warlords in an ideal position to replace President Hamid Karzai in 2014.  The U.S.  and NATO are in many ways responsible for the rise of these now-political figures.

“With a few exceptions, Afghans and foreigners now believe that warlords no longer have power, or have false power because they do not have men and do not control territory,” said Romain Malejacq. A lecturer in International Politics and PhD candidate at Northwestern University, he has made several trips to Afghanistan and witnessed a political climate different from what much of the western media portrays.  “In fact they survive as resilient actors in Afghan politics.”

Two of the more prominent new warlords, Mohammed Qasim Fahim and Atta Mohammed Noor ,have two things in common. Both of them joined the mujahedeen forces of Ahmed Shah Massoud in the 1980s to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan; and both have become major political players since 2001.

Fahim is Afghan’s version of the self-made man. He joined Massoud in his early twenties, and quickly rose through the ranks of the mujahedeen. On September 9, 2001, two days before the World Trade Center attacks, al-Qaeda operatives assassinated Massoud, and Fahim took control of the Northern Alliance troops. That is when the U.S first reached out to Fahim.

“He received millions of dollars from the CIA to help the U.S. fight the Taliban and take Kabul away from them,” said Malejacq.

Four months later, the U.S officially declared victory over the Taliban, Fahim was invited to become Vice President in the transitional government led by Hamid Karzai, and Fahim’s half-brother was busy building a business empire through the newly formed Zahid Walid Group Fuel and Gas Services Company Ltd (ZWG).  After touring the U.S and Western Europe, Fahim secured a series of lucrative contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for his family’s business, who would soon be pouring concrete for a NATO base, rebuilding the  U.S embassy in Kabul, airport and other large infrastructures.

“The story of Qasin Fahim and his half brother illustrates how military power can be transformed into political and economic power,” said Malejacq.

Today, Fahim is one of the richest, most powerful men in Afghanistan; and his position as First Vice President makes him one of the favorites to succeed Karzai.

He is anticipated to face, among other political figures, Governor Atta Muhammad Noor. The two men know each other well, having fought together in the northern province of Balkh to liberate the city of Mazar-i-sharif from the Taliban.  However, they followed very different paths after the war.

Fahim followed Karzai to Kabul, while Atta stayed in his native province, which he has governed since 2004.  Fahim invested in national and international business, while Atta focused on local politics. More importantly, Fahim benefitted directly from his contacts with the U.S., while Atta used the absence of U.S aid in his region as an argument of his personal capabilities.

Dipali Mukhopadhyay, a specialist on Afghanistan for Princeton University’s Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination at Princeton, says Atta’s ability to govern without supervision or help of the coalition has not gone unnoticed.

“He has a record of ‘good performance’, which is exceptional amid a largely unimpressive group of provincial governors,” said Mukhopadhyay.

Atta is a ‘strong governor,’ a mujahedeen (or ‘struggler’) who fought to deliver his region, and was ready to protect it at all cost.

“Atta’s capacity to ensure security throughout the province has attracted a degree of investment and reconstruction in Mazar-i-Sharif that is exceptional in Afghanistan,” said Mukhopadhyay.

He also eradicated the region from its illegal trade dependency.  Under his governance, Balkh saw poppy cultivation reduced from 18,000 acres in 2005 to zero in 2007, and is now one of the only “poppy free” provinces.

According to Mukhopadhyay, Atta is one of the “two or three most important political figures” in Afghanistan, and has a chance to fulfill his national ambitions come the presidential race.

As the U.S and NATO continue to plan their exit strategy, many wonder what type of government will follow. While Afghans will have more than one ballot to choose from – in what the international community is hoping will be a fair, peaceful and democratic transition away from Karzai’s corrupt government – the names on those ballots may suggest for more strongman politics.

However, Mukhopadhyay believes the record shown by some of these men in their individual provinces should give Afghans a reason to be optimistic about their future.

“The form of governance represented by war-lord-governors may be the best compromise at present in Afghanistan,” she said.

Karzai is set to end his second five-year term in 2014 and isn’t eligible to run again under the Afghan constitution.

With the strategic partnership agreement confirmed in Chicago at the May NATO summit, President Hamid Karzai and President Barack Obama committed to a plan for NATO troops in Afghanistan to withdraw by 2014 and for long-term military aid in the country through 2024. Despite the public accolades, however, there is a backdrop of tension and domestic political pressures for both presidents, and many questions about whether Afghanistan can police itself without extensive security help from NATO troops.

“It seems to me that Karzai is a bit like a teenager who balks at instructions and thinks he is ready for greater responsibility but isn’t quite as ready as he would like to think,” said Daniel Serwer, senior fellow in the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University, in an email interview.

The history of corruption within the Afghan government is a key risk area for the partnership, according to Marvin Weinbaum, scholar-in-residence at the Middle East Institute and a former analyst for Pakistan and Afghanistan in the U.S. State Department. Karzai also enjoyed a warmer relationship with the Bush administration than with Obama’s. And the withdrawal plan relies largely on the tenuous ability of the Afghan National Army to secure the country.

The largely American-driven initiative, and the dependence of NATO allies on the United States, also affects the nature of the commitment. Some experts say that a commitment by NATO allies, particularly in Europe, is a consequence of allies’ wanting to fall in line with the United States, not a dedication to Afghanistan.

“It’s not about Afghanistan. It’s about dependence on the United States. But they can’t say that to their own electorate,” said Anatol Lieven, a former war correspondent and co-author of “Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World.”

Obama and Karzai also need cooperation from each other in order to achieve domestic goals. Some experts say Obama needed to plan a strict withdrawal plan in order to wind down an increasingly unpopular war in the face of an upcoming election, and Karzai needed financial and military support from alliances like NATO in order to hold onto power.

“Karzai is willing to cooperate with Washington because he has something Washington needs, which are the bases within Afghanistan,” said Jack D. Segal, a former chief political advisor to NATO’s operational commander who traveled frequently to Afghanistan from 2002 to 2010. Segal, who also attended the NATO summit in Chicago, emphasized that such bases are needed in order to deploy drones in the region and that Obama has never ruled out the possibility of future counterterrorism efforts.

Karzai has said he would step down in 2014 (and is constitutionally barred from taking on a third term as president), but no Afghan leader has stepped down voluntarily so far and no clear leader appears ready to lead citizens through what will be a tumultuous time in the country as the withdrawal comes to a head, according to Thomas Barfield, president of the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies and author of “Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History.” Karzai has discussed holding elections earlier in 2013 in order to avoid such a scenario, which Barfield said presents clear dangers.

“You don’t want political uncertainty or difficulties to break out at a time when the security situation is most vulnerable,” Barfield said.

When French President Françoise Hollande announced a withdrawal of French combat troops from Afghanistan, NATO officials expressed respect for Hollande’s decision. But some experts fear the withdrawal signals the beginning of a waning alliance by opening doors for other countries to leave early—and in turn, a weakening mission.

“[The French withdrawal] questions the integrity of NATO at the global stage,” said Ahmad Majidyar, a senior research associate at American Enterprise Institute who advises U.S. military officers on terrorism and domestic politics of Afghanistan. “It is the most major combat mission for NATO since its creation. If it fails, it damages NATO’s credibility.”

The French, the fourth largest troop contributor, will leave 1,300 troops in Afghanistan in unspecified non-combat roles, Hollande announced in Kabul a few days after the summit. French combat troops are leaving two years before the rest of NATO. Hollande, standing along with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, told press in Kabul that the mission had been completed for the French.

Such decisions go against the “in together, out together” mantra that has dominated the Afghanistan operation, said Georgetown University Professor Mark Vlasic, a former White House Fellow and special assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

“Every NATO ally is important, and thus it is critical for those in the alliance to ensure their decisions are coordinated in a responsible way,” Vlasic said in an email. “[The French decision] sets an unfortunate precedent, and one that I hope French officials are able to mitigate over time.”

Bucking the mantra sends the wrong signal to enemy forces, too, Majidyar said. He sees newspapers in Pakistan discussing French withdrawal as an admittance of defeat. Majidyar, who thinks the 2014 timeline is more realistic, warns that French combat troops are currently in known insurgent safe havens, and an end of year deadline could be disastrous.

“It creates a vacuum at a very important time,” he said. “Afghan security forces are not able to clear out insurgents in eastern Afghanistan only with help of advisers. It endangers transition period on the whole.”

Nevertheless, NATO officials expressed confidence in France’s role in the mission. General John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Forces in Afghanistan, told press at the summit that the French’s training and advising would be enough to complete the mission successfully. And Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said all the allies respected Hollande’s decision.

“The important thing is that all Allies and partners will stay committed to our mission throughout the transition period to the end of 2014,” Rasmussen said, “and the French President has confirmed that’s also his position.”

All things considered, France still has a sense of global responsibility—which is difficult to find in Europe outside of the United Kingdom and France, said Leo Michel, a research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies who previously worked in the office of the secretary of defense as director of NATO policy. Hollande wants to maintain a good relationship—military or otherwise—with the United States and NATO, Michel said. The alliance is far from being broken.

“France is not trying to throw roadblocks,” Michel said. “The alliances are always a work in progress. [But] everybody has an interest, in the end, of helping each other and protecting each other.”

BY KELLY GUSTAFSON

One of the central achievements of the NATO summit in Chicago in May was a timetable for transitioning troops out of Afghanistan, but President Obama and other leaders failed to address—at least publicly—how the transition might work without Pakistan’s cooperation.

Relations with Afghanistan’s neighbor have been sour since a United States-authorized drone strike on the country’s border in November accidentally killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers. Tensions have only escalated in recent months after Pakistan shut down NATO supply lines to Afghanistan following the strike.

Pakistan played what it thought was a trump card by shutting down the supply lines, but the fallout was not the disaster that it could have been, said Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

“This is no longer a source of leverage they hold over the United States,” Curtis said.

Though trekking vehicles and weapons through Pakistan is the easiest way to get supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, the United States has tapped into other, albeit circuitous, routes through central Asian states and Russia.

Now is there a way to “get around” Pakistan if it is unwilling to help a smooth transition  out of Afghanistan?

“The question isn’t really about getting around Pakistan as it is so much about getting Pakistan to support the U.S. goals,” said Curtis.

One of NATO’s top goals has been to eradicate terrorists seeking sanctuary in Pakistan who would undermine the alliance’s hard-won efforts.

The Obama administration came in with a strategy of engagement toward Pakistan, but the trust between the two countries has only deteriorated.

“I think that we could see a better relationship so long as Pakistan decides it’s in their interest to crackdown on these groups that are targeting the U.S.,” Curtis said referring to the terrorist groups seeking safe haven in Pakistan.

“Unless Pakistan uses its influences with the Taliban to bring them to compromise, then I think it’s difficult to see how we can fully repair the relationship.”

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid said Pakistan’s biggest conundrum is its foreign policy. He said Pakistan’s foreign goals have dominated its domestic policy for too long, and Pakistan needs to realize the importance of making friends with its neighbors.

“Maybe things will get much worse before they get better,” Rashid said during a Chicago Council on Global Affairs conference prior to the summit.

Some experts, like Curtis, doubt Pakistan’s willingness to cooperate and help establish lasting peace in Afghanistan. Others say a longterm peaceful Afghanistan isn’t possible, regardless of Pakistan’s regional cooperation.

For the Obama administration to say the guarantees of the Pakistani government—if negotiated— could secure Afghanistan post-2014 would be “foolhardy”, said Gordon Adams, an international relations professor at American University.

“We’re leaving behind an economy in shambles, a country awash in trafficking in poppies and heroin and a thoroughly corrupt Afghan regime,” Adams said. “The corruption of the government alone is enough to make the country unstable, whether the Pakistanis play ball or not.”

But pushing back the proposed pullout date would only worsen things, he said, completely against the notion of “the longer we stay, the better things get.”

“I don’t know if it’s optimistic or pessimistic, but I think it’s realistic. We are not going to make this happen,” Adams said of the successful transition as outlined by NATO leaders.

Part of the problem Western countries face when trying to broker deals with Islamabad is the country’s own instability.

“To assume that they’re going to be able to help establish peace in Afghanistan when they can’t even restore order in the northwest territories and federally administered tribal areas is just a bridge too far,” Adams said.

The fragile situation of women in Afghanistan is likely to aggravate dramatically after NATO’s troop withdrawal by the end of 2014, say experts on the volatile region, in addition to women’s-rights activists.

NATO  forces amount to a shield of protection for Afghan women and the possible chaos and power struggle ensuing NATO’s exit will lead to an erasure of whatever achievement made during the past decade, those experts say.

NATO’s military presence facilitates the environment for women’s-rights development in Afghanistan. It creates stability in the war-torn country and helps to develop the nascent legal system, which is crucial to the advance of women’s rights. There is widespread worry that NATO’s exit will leave Afghanistan’s own national security forces unprepared for the unrelenting onslaught of the ousted Taliban regime, which has systematically suppressed women’s most basic human rights during its rule.

“The Taliban and its messages are gaining ground,” said Candace Rondeaux, Kabul-based senior Afghanistan analyst at the International Crisis Group,  a non-profit aimed at preventing and resolving deadly conflicts.

“It is going to get much worse after the withdrawal of troops,” said Robdeaux,  in a telephone interview.

Female leaders in Afghanistan call for a “responsible” NATO exit.  Farkhunda Naderi, Kabul representative in the lower house of the Afghanistan’s National Assembly, said NATO must continue to provide training and education of the Afghan security forces, especially female security forces,  and help put women in Afghan’s Supreme Court  to ensure that women would not again encounter the inhumane treatment implemented by the Taliban regime.

“If the withdrawal is done in a very responsible manner, then of course at the end of the day we are the one that is responsible for our country,” she said in an interview in Chicago. “When you think about 2014, everything is happening very quickly;  what you could accomplish in 10 years you could not accomplish in two years. We need more attention in different parts to ensure women’s rights.”

However, retraction of the protection of women’s rights is already happening in Afghanistan. In March, President Hamid Karzai endorsed the discriminatory edicts from the Ulema Council, the country’s top religious council (men are considered fundamental; women, secondary) under mounting pressure to get the Taliban back to the negotiation table. The reading of his move is that President Karzai is reaching out  to the Taliban to make his tenuous presidency more secure after NATO’s exit.

“In the last five years, we have seen a progressive move towards more restrictions on their [women’s] access to work and the ability to go to school,” Rondeaux said. “The Afghan government has not demonstrated sufficient political will to protect women’s rights.”

There is still hope for women in Afghanistan, but much of it depends on international help, according to Zalmai Rassoul, minister of foreign affairs of Afghanistan. He characterized the promotion of women’s rights “irreversible” and said the movement has “very deep roots” in Afghan society.

“The only thing that will spark a catastrophe is the coming back of the Taliban,” said Rassoul, one of several experts and officials appearing at a recent event sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs,  “If the NATO alliance stops helping Afghan security forces in the next decade, we will go back in these things.”

Human-rights workers in Afghanistan say though there is some development in Afghan women’s rights, as demonstrated by the beginnings of women’s presence in politics, national security and the peace process today, women are still in desperate need of help because they simply don’t have any way of supporting themselves.

Maria Van Hoorn, development associate at Hagar International, an organization helping women and children recover from human-rights abuses, said about 80 percent of women and girls in the country have been subject to abuse and the cultural rules have only exacerbated the problem.

“This is extremely difficult,” she said, in a telephone interview.

Perhaps the only thing that can truly make things for Afghan women less difficult is education. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, only 12.6 percent of women in Afghanistan above the age of 15 can read and write, meaning that most Afghan women don’t even know they have rights.

Melanne Verveer,  U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, an office under the Department of State seeking to empower women globally, said educating women is a way of incorporating them into the peace talks with Taliban so they can have a say in how their country should be run. She said education should be extended to the entire society so male leaders could be more open to women’s rights and come to the forefront and do the right thing.

“They can make a big difference because they are in a position to influence so many others,” said Verveer at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs event, “Don’t underestimate for a second what it means when people are educated and when they are not.”

With NATO, inaction speaks louder than words. Post-Chicago summit, one message has been made glaringly clear for the Atlantic alliance: Military intervention in Syria will not occur in the near future.

“A NATO ally has to come forward and request that type of planning,” said Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. Yet during the two days world leaders met in the Chicago, there was no mention of a Syria action plan.

“NATO has no intention to intervene in Syria,” said NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. His sole summit reference to the 15-month-long conflict not only underscored the alliance’s we-won’t go-there posture, but also displayed his irritation with the question’s being at the top of reporters’ minds.

Apart from diplomatic remarks expressing concern, Rasmussen gave no other indication that further steps would be taken. “We strongly condemn the behavior of the Syrian security forces and their crackdowns on the Syrian population,” he said.

“It’s clear when it comes to Syria, they’re willing to say the right things, but they’re not willing to back up their words with concrete actions,” said Robert Zarate, policy director of the Washington-D.C.-based Foreign Policy Initiative, of the alliance.

Zarate said he strongly doubts there will be any considerable action from the U.S. before the U.S. presidential election in November because of “political calculations.” European member countries are preoccupied with their own concerns as well, with austerity affecting capacity building for new missions.

“They have the Eurozone crisis to deal with and in recent memory, they haven’t been investing in their military,” he said of NATO’s European allies.

NATO’s involvement with Libya last year, which ultimately led to Qaddafi’s toppling from power, has been viewed as a precedent for taking action in Syria. But foreign-policy experts say there are factors that make a Syrian intervention more difficult.

Caution may stem from a lack of confidence in coming out of an intervention successfully. “We’re not sure we can win. And if you can’t be sure on that, you can make the situation worse,” said Richard Longworth, a senior fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a leading U.S. think tank. “It’s one thing to have a lot of military power, but it’s another thing to control and change society, which we haven’t been able to do.”

Incentives also separate the two countries. “Syria doesn’t have much oil. Libya did,” Longworth said. “Second, Syria is an ally with Russia. NATO’s relations with Russia are tense right now. That’s a matter of reluctance.”

Russia’s and China’s veto on U.N. Security Council’s resolutions over the prolonged violence in Syria have been obstacles for collective action by the international community, thwarting what many view as a mandate for foreign intervention by military force.

But the continuing violence, which in late May claimed the lives of 49 children and 34 women, according to the United Nations, during a massacre in the village of Houla, led the Security Council to unanimously condemn “in the strongest possible terms” the “outrageous use of force against civilian population.”

While Russia backed this statement, the Syrian ally showed signs of reservations in pitting all of the blame on government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Despite diplomatic efforts such as the six-point peace plan brokered by Kofi Annan, the joint United Nations and Arab League special envoy to Syria, the killings have not stopped, with neither side abiding by the U.N.’s call for ceasefire.

There is no doubt the end of Assad’s regime would mark a momentous moment in Arab Spring. Syrian-American activists involved in opposition efforts say they’re “waiting for their day” but are also growing more jaded about the situation abroad.

“I think we were disillusioned by what happened in Tunisia, a revolution in one day,” said Sana Khatib, an activist working with the Syrian American Council and founder of Text for Syria, which donates aid funds to those afflicted by the violence and destruction. The resignation of Egypt’s former president came within a matter of months and then Libya followed with “the intervention of the world and the death of Qadaffi basically publicized to the world on YouTube.”

“I used to wake up every morning and check my text messages to see if he (Assad) had resigned yet,” she said. “It was very naïve of me. I didn’t realize that Syria was a completely different story.”

NATO’s future role in democracy building and peacekeeping could be renewed with more proactive involvement with Syria. A successful mission there could revitalize multilateral cooperation and give more legitimate grounds for negotiations, but the alliance has currently chosen to stand on the sidelines, watching on, as the death toll climbs.

The uprising against Assad, which began in March 2011, has killed more than 9,000 civilians, according to reports by the United Nations.