Under a program called demobilization and reintegration, or DDR, the Afghan government, begun a process to disarm the militia groups. Although progress has been slower than expected, the process is expected to be complete by June 2005.
"This must happen now with the mandate from the people and all indications are that this is a concern, a high concern of the people," Khalilzad said. "The collection of weapons, the demobilization of militias, and the government will have to deliver on that."
That's the good part, and it's to be hoped that Karzai's government, with the right amount of American support, will be able to take advantage of two and a half decade's worth of cumulative public war-weariness to implement disarmament, either through its political or military force. Unfortunately, there's also this:
According to U.S. estimates, poppy cultivation is expected to jump 40 percent this year. Twenty-eight of 34 Afghan provinces grow poppy and the number of acres under poppy cultivation grew from 197,684 acres in 2003 to 247,105 acres in 2004. The country supplies 75 percent of the world's opium. Expert say the drugs trade, which the Taliban had managed to control during its draconian rule of the country, may be contributing as much as 60 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.
Much of the money from the trade goes to finance warlords, corrupt government officials and extremist groups, and the low cost of production will, many fear, lead to a drug-use problem in the country.
"We will soon see a major narcotics problem inside Afghanistan," Husain Haqqani, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said at an event in Washington last month. "And that isn't just a social problem; it will definitely have political implications."
Khalilzad agreed, promising the United States would work with the Afghan and British governments to stem the challenge posed by narcotics.
"This is a large threat to the future of Afghanistan," he said. "The new government would have to deal with this. ... I think this is a huge challenge for the new government."
He said the Afghan government and the international community must provide poppy growers alternative livelihood that's legitimate, make it risky for people to engage in the trade, and then go after the labs where heroin is produced.
I don't know much about counternarcotics strategies, but this is something to follow for the future of Afghanistan and its region -- and unfortunately, I suspect, a far more intractable problem than militia disarmament, since the heroin trade seems to be the principle source of livelihood in Afghanistan's war-ravaged economy.
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