Interview with Afghan President Ghani 'I Have To Hold Our Country Together'

SPIEGEL recently sat down with Ghani for an interview at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, in the same office where Hamid Karzai governed for 12 years. The furniture may still be the same, but the spirit is an altogether different one. Whereas Karzai was considered to be a man of the people, Ghani is viewed as more reserved, almost shy. During his interview, he ran the pearls of his prayer beads through his hands. He also interrupted our discussion in order to conduct his prayers.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, the attacks in Paris show that militant fundamentalists also intend to turn Europe into a battlefield. Your country has been fighting against Taliban terror for more than a decade. What can we learn from Afghanistan?

Ghani: Terrorism attacks peoples' trust in the system of their state. There is protection, but only if there is collective action and collective understanding about how to really deal with this phenomenon.

SPIEGEL: What does that mean in concrete terms?

Ghani: We are organized by territories, whereas terrorists are organized into networks. States are very slow and terrorists are extremely fast. Intelligence sharing needs to expand beyond the regional and become global and not country-focused. We need to acquire speed and agility. The bureaucratic culture that we have inherited is an obstacle. Hierarchies may be extremely efficient for dealing with certain events, but they are not quick in responding to global, flexible networks.

SPIEGEL: Is this the beginning of the end of our civil liberties?

Ghani: The commitment to civil liberty is going to be reasserted strongly. But the concept of liberty is under attack, and our definition of insecurity, security and threats will change fundamentally. The depth of the attack on liberty will be felt painfully. People are easily shocked when their routine is disrupted and their ease of travel is restricted. We are dealing with a complete new face of terrorism -- killing for the sake of killing. When I first raised the issue of the so-called Islamic State at the Munich Security Conference in February, speaking about its economy, its flexibility and pathology, people thought I was trying to scare them. But now we have experienced just that. If al-Qaida was version 2.0 of terror, then the Islamic State is version 5.0.

Ghani: What is common among all of these groups is the intent to destroy. The majority of terrorists who come to Afghanistan are from China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or North Africa. They were expelled from their countries and pushed to ours -- this is their battlefield -- and all of them, be it the Taliban or others, are interlinked with the criminal economy. None these organizations could continue operating without the narcotics networks, human-trafficking and oil smuggling. Addressing it requires a truly creative global response similar to that used to stand up against Germany's aggression in World War II.

SPIEGEL: But the problems your country faces aren't simply the product of global terrorism, they are also the consequence of the failure of your government and army. On Sept. 28, Afghan forces failed to defend Kunduz against a few hundred Taliban fighters. The Taliban burned down the buildings of almost all the institutions that had been built up carefully over many years. How could this have happened?

Ghani: It happened because intelligence, leadership and police failures made it possible.

SPIEGEL: How was it possible for 700 or 800 Taliban to take by surprise a well-equipped security force of about 7,000 troops in the area?

Ghani: How can a few individuals bring the French government to a standstill?

SPIEGEL: This year, you spent six months negotiating with Pakistan, the Taliban's closest ally, even as Pakistan's ISI secret service reportedly was simultaneously planning a series of attacks in Kabul and the military campaign against Kunduz. Do you feel deceived?

SPIEGEL: Your predecessor Hamid Karzai tried to do the same, but without yielding any results. Your critics say it would have been better for you to invest your time in improving your government.

Ghani: You need to understand the reality. It is extraordinarily easy to judge us from the outside. Please do understand what we have inherited. All German forces are very familiar with Kunduz. You should ask them how they judge the capabilities and resources of our armed forces.

SPIEGEL: Hamid Karzai governed Afghanistan from the period after the US invasion until 2014. What kind of country did you inherit from him?

Ghani: I inherited one of the most difficult economic situations on earth and, on top of it, a war that intensified. The war had previously largely been confined to the south and the east, but now it is an all-out war. NATO's ISAF force, with more than 140,000 European and American troops in the country, was not only decisive for security -- it was also the largest economic actor. When they left, the country went into a deep depression. The international community didn't anticipate the severity of the economic impact.

SPIEGEL: What kind of effects has this crisis had?

Ghani: Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs as a result of the troop withdrawals. In the transport sector alone, which constituted roughly 22 percent of GDP, at least 100,000 jobs were lost. Construction of the military facilities was a major driver, with the service sector connected with it comprising an amazing 40 percent of gross domestic product. In addition, the large sum of funds that were provided in annual assistance did little to alleviate poverty, because the government did not focus on the poor. Today, 70 percent of the population still live on less than $1.75 a day. - Read More at the Spiegel

Interview with Afghan President Ghani'I Have To Hold Our Country Together'