KABUL — The start of the U.S. troop drawdown and a raft of crises are fueling fears that Afghanistan will sink into wholesale turmoil and even civil war as the U.S.-led international combat mission winds up at the end of 2014.
Such an upheaval could spread insecurity across Afghanistan’s borders and see it revert to an al-Qaeda sanctuary — the very outcome that President Barack Obama’s war strategy seeks to avert.
“My focus is preparing for the worst,” said Amrullah Saleh, Afghanistan’s former intelligence chief.
The litany of crises includes political gridlock, instability in a corruption-hit private banking sector, high-level assassinations, record-high bloodshed and ethnic minorities’ fears that they will be cut out of a peace deal that the U.S. and President Hamid Karzai are seeking with the Taliban.
“People are sizing up their options,” said a Western official, who requested anonymity. He added that he thinks Afghan political and ethnic leaders will make deals among themselves that allow Afghanistan’s growing security forces to continue fighting the insurgency.
Ryan Crocker, sworn in Monday as the U.S. envoy to Kabul, said the U.S. and its allies “must proceed carefully” as they withdraw most of their 130,000-strong forces. “The way we do this . . . will have consequences far beyond Afghanistan and far in the future,” he said.
