I think the fact that are 2 strategy which means thathe determination of the presence and the number otroops will pend on the in afghanistan here why we welcome this and is aggressively pursuing reforms, antirruption measures, peace and conciliation efforts. We believe in the fact that military is not the only solution for the afghan problem. Good governance, reforms, correction and education, regional corporations are vital steps toward achieving a lasting stility. The government of afghanistan is committed to reformsnd basin internal challens could we just signed our cmitment to implementing a contract with the United States which is a part prioritization. And a set of bchmarks and a number of thpresence of the two countries will meet regularly to ascertain whether the benchmarks are met according tohe established tilines. The compact will cover four critical aas. Including economy, secity, Good Governance and peace and reconciliation. Significant reforms in areas of business climate,financial sector, and primary sector are underway. We are also committed to providing hard is infrastructure. Including power, transport. Afghanistan is pursuing with absolute determinationnd is committed to improving Government Services and control of corption. In regards to peace and reconciliati, afghanistan is trying to promote bilateral, procs is an important in this direction. Ounation calls for support of peace and reconciliation. We believe that the proper support with community will have significant progress in these areas. I would like to end another afghanistan is moving forward and e people of afghanistan are committed to owning their future. To make it short because i was told that i have only four minutes. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you veryuch. W we argoing to introduce the distinguished panel. It is a pleasure to beere. Im a senior fellow at csis. I am joined by ambassador wayne, the former deputy investment in coordinating directive for department and Economic Affairs for thes embassy and in afghanistan. And then we have amssador richard olson, formeus ambassador to pakistan and special representative for afghanistaand pakistan and mr. Jeffrey greco, president and ceo of the africanamerican chamber of commee. Im going to begin asking two questions about the past. And so, one of the main issues is, what is different in afghanistan since septembe11 . The second question, i am an economist, i like data. The second question would be, so what are some key achievements, some key data points that you could talk about since seember 11 . That have been a success and th we can ow progress in afghanistan. Those are two questis about the past. Then i will ask two questions about the ture strategy and about the future of afghanisn. Thank you. I think as a former assistant administration of usaid i think the Investments De early on from 2002 onward were focused on buildg the social infrastructure of afghanistan which was completely decimated. We focused on building schools, getting curriculum design, getting girls in school, building clinics, local communitybased clinics, establishing midwife systems and alof that early Infrastructure Investment that afghanistan, Maternal Death rates went from 189 211 up to where it is now where is i think abou110 anthat his dramatic progress rate country to make inuch a short ti period. Think a lot of girls now the five or six or seven years, there are more schools bills. Perhaps too many schools in so cases becseonflict zones overtook the school that we had constructed with the afghan community. So i think education d social progress and healthcare has taken dramatic steps forward. Other steps, economic sts are really important to know. They are working very rd to comply with all of the requirements that a typical ate has too. And with very little capacity in their own ministries to do that, it has been rd but theyre working through it very dilintly with great support from the donor community. The revenue collected in the last few years now i started to pick up. So domestic reur mobilization inow improving. Think that is a very big credit to the president because he is the one who is really focused on trying to improve thdomestic resource mobilization. Their physical ste is okay by qualifthat because they are in a workout with afghanistan face of the physical state better be ay if we are in a workout situation. Subregional growth, bo within afghanistan there are big pockets of very strong private sector led, market led going on. Areas that i think is a real model. Kabul, i do not like to go in there is an automatic because it is itself the center of government. So there is naturally Re Investment i think end trait going in with institutions there. The president is moving now aggressive to integrate the country as the regional economy. There is a hope of announcements that theyve made. Theyow have a direct rail Service Coming into northern afghanistan. There is no direct flights, cargo flies happening out every three weeks between kabul to india. Im the new agreement that the president had sied. That is positive and im hearing from a Government Official that its actually going to be speeding uand you will see me of it. Last is road integration there are a lot roads being built. And our deal in the south will give them access into a free port area for experts. And we have taken too long for the government to move forward on liberalizing e ipt industry sector. That means they will be having a spectrum allocation for 4g finally. It should have happened probably two years ago. There has been a lot of resistan. He did announce a open access licy. He was seen on Big Investments coming in in the telecom sector. That was the driver of a lot ofrowth early on and now is shifting to private sector led effort without a involvement. Great, thank you. And jeff, i will not repeat the accompshments that you have cited. Let me say that yes, the Us Government was the main donor during that time but it was also if you will, a consortium of builders from all of the world contributing to the foundational investments if you will in afghanistan at an early stage was people used to 2002 until the time that i served with ambassador wayne m afghanistan. I was there during the search from 20 to 2011. Ive also said that since that point, congress has been more incremental, if you will. Slower. And so, even though therare a lot of good things as jeff has ne to site with regards to education d health and the economy, i think the point that way, the major crisis that we were looking at in 2010 in 2011 was the actual transition an the effect of the transition would have on afghanistans governance as will well is the economy. Imagine more than 100,0 troops propping up the economy and then, in a short period of time, rapid scaling down of the troops. And i would say that it appears afghanistan has weathered the worst of it. That it has hit bottom. Perhaps a year and and a half ago the economy is beginning to rebound. That igood, it reflects some of the important things of the government is doing with regard to the economy, tting into place a National Procurement law, the presence of is very much engaged in running the economy, he is a former world bank person. He is also involved with wae and me in shaping the Assistance Programs. Let me contrast the Assistance Program from back then until now. I would say at that point it s little government capacity. We were overwhelming the government and country with aid dollars. So there are a lot of rallel structures. I think with the government has done now is trying to bring in both governments. The Us Government as well as the afghan government. Bringing more assistance on the books of the government so it is a coordinated process in the government is in the lead. I can say fr my experience now, i served as a Senior Vice President for creative associates. We havbe involved in basic education and afghanistan for more than 10 years. We hav seen phenomenal progress along the way. But one thing that does not make it into the headlines is really the capacity of the government. And the minister of education and the government actually taking the lead. We are often told by the government, slow down. We are in charge, we are not readto move to this district or that district and of course, with all of the gornment. It is an Assistance Program that is much more aligned with the government. I did say that it does pear that the botming out has taken a place in the economy is on the incline. The biggest concern is security. Im sure well talk about that through this session. But when we sethe number or the percentage of districts under government control, declining, that is not a good signal to investors. So there other parts of the world where, in annsecure environment, we will see that come in but it is not coming in and afghanistan for some reons. On that, because investment is not coming in, the economy is growing at a slow pace. The bgest concern that i have as a look at afghanistan demographics. It has the Third Largest in the world. 65 percent of the populati is under the age of 25. That can be either the curse for the dividend. Unfortunately, right now is probly more toward the former rather than the latter. The problem is that the economy is not progressing, it is not growing quickly ough to absorb all of those door seeking jobs. 400,000 new jobseekers a year. Come out of the University System for the High School System looking for jobs anthe jobs are not there. And we do know tt the sense of a lack of a fure to include e lack of a job is one of the reasons that the inserity is being fueled. Oy. Unlike you, am not an economist. Im a political officer by trad so im not going to go heavy on data. I am afraid but i and going to say in terms of what is different between now and 9 11 and following on earls comments. The main difference for us as ericans is that there have been no attacks against their homeland since 9 11. I think in particular, what is striking is just as the economy has been to rebound, after the big transion in 2014. It is also that the security siation has held steady or that many might have expected. The fact is that after combat operions in the end of 2014, the taliban and others threw everything they had at the afghan gernment and coalition forces. And have not been able to tually have any capital and the latest numbers from dod suggest that the governme retains control oferritory that accounts for 21 million afghans. Whereas the taban isn control of territory that probably holds 2 t3 million afghans. So you know i think that there is a bit of a perception in the United States that the taliban is on the ascendant. And it might be true purely on a geographic sense. But wh e taliban is doing is getting great eas of control over deserts and mountains. In the cities, the urban centers coinue to be under government control. Especially the five great cities of afghanistan. And i think thats important because another element that was eluded to hear which was e growth of the population. And that population grth has be almost entirely in the city. Couple was a city of 200,000 and 2001 and it is now a city in the millions. On thing anyone knows exactly how many pple they have, for 5 million. That is the usual estimate. Most of ose people are young. And they are connected to the outside world by telecoms in way that has not happened ever in afghan history. I mean afghanistan is a very differenplace. It is much more urbanized. And is much more connected to the tside world than it ever has been in the past. So i think that we need to be thinking about this in terms of conflict, in terms of a rural traditionalist eleme versus a urban modernizing element. Th is an old conflicthat goes back when tony and i were talking about whether goes back 40 years or 100 years or longer. You could go back to the 11th centy if you want d you can cite this phenomenon. But it does seem to me th t weight of demographics is very much on the side of what i think all of us in this room would see as progress. So my colleagues have laid out many of the achievements and difficulties that we still face along the way. I think it is fair to remember that the reason we went so quickly and afghanistan that the reas we are still in afghanistan and are going to stay has to do with that potential terrorist threat. And if you look at the broader region, and afghanisn and his neighbors, therere still a lot of radicals and terrorism, terrorists in e area. There is a real possibility if the United States arto leave more casts were returned to the space. So that within that context, it is also impoant to remember that we really did not understand the scope and complexity of the challenges we were taking on when we went to afghanistan. And the United States and its allies have been learninalong the way. Theyve been working with afghan partnerand allies who also have been learning along the way thatre a mix of modernizers and traditionalists. And they are different places on that spectrum. And en in many ways, we ha been telescoping the process of buildi a more modern state and society into a period of time that it would be hard to find another nation where this has taken place. So it is not surprinthat there are a lot of challge and in addition to the civil war aspe of this, there is the regional rivalries which continue to complicate the situation in this part of the world. So it is really complex set of challenges. As the Us Government i think we have lrned a lot along the way. As aoalition of partners and allies weve learned a lot along the way. But one of the things we have learned is that if were going to succeed, there are a number of very important paths of action. In those need to be coordinated. They need to be coordinated well. The security actions are really important. The one of the points that we are here to talk about today is that it is also essential that we have a good assistance part of that which is governance, Economic Development related programs and that we have very effective diplomacy both inside afanistan, with pakistan, inside pakistan, in the region for thisll to come together and to move in a positive direion. And that remains a very tough set of challenges. So whatever you think abt the policy that e United States just announc, the real focus now is on how well is it going to be implemented to workg with our afghan partners, workg with the other countries in t region. Trying to find aay to get pakistan to play a more constructive role, to get othe and as far away as china to plamore constructive role in moving everody toward a political settlement. One ofhe key parts of the new strategy is making more explicit, itas already there, already a line of acon in us policy before. But making more explicit, that we are aiming now to move toward a political settlement where thtaliban would paicipate in a peaceful settlement. That will take a lot of effort and a lot of these lines of action and we can talk about that more but it certainly is my belief that the governance and Development Assistance pt of that is not just the United States, it is all of o, we have many partne and allies investing very helpful in the area. It is going to be those members of the ministries and in kabul who are embring their effectiveness and services to those in afghastan. It will be the soldiers. Ghan soldiers and others but it is also going to be reacng out directly andndirectly to the taliban and others and creating a space where there can be those political discussions. Let me stop there. Thank you very much. Is is great segue for my next set of questions on e future. Looking towards the ture of afghanistan and President Trump cent remarks, for you, wha are the key compents oa nonmilitary strategy in afghanistan . That is my first broad question. And the second question, which ambassador wayne touched upon is, what is the biggest challenge in implementing these kecomponents . So, i invite you to answer any of these two queions. Would you like to start . The commitment, then it commitment to security is relatively modest and i guess the theory is by bringing in trainers, and really focusing on building up capacity, the Afghan Special forces that security in areas where the taliban are present or were, areas that are contested between the government and die aand the taliban that they will be able to take over those four take control of those areas to provide governance and also provide delopment and in those areas. I would say that the us Assistance Program and other donors Assistance Programs are primarily working in areas where the government has a control. And so, if the government is able to expand its corol, moving into those areas fairly rapidly to provide opportunity to provide services, it will be a priority. Im not saying that we go back to a counterinsurgency approach whe stabilization was a primary tool. However ghanistan with world bank and others really do have an effective mechanism. And that is through the nsb and various iterations with National Solidary and now has beco the citizens partner. It is a ry robust model. It is operating in more than 25,000 communities throughout afghanistan and it is building at very organic level of local governance biblil governance wh development. And so my view is that that is a necessy element. Almost immediately after security has been obtained in new areas. And then other development will come in through education and hopefully at least some marketbased economic growth. But that is a longerterm. Okay so i am going to be a little bit provocate because i think there are some things fr arivate sector, ecomic standpoint that need to be really said blicly on afghanistan that have not been sent for at least the last eight years. First, we nt to thank s we want to complement the president. He should be focusing on gemsnes, agriculture, that is 22 percent of the economy. Tech carpets and textiles as well. That is given. We also want to ntinue more aggressively pushing independent Power Production throughout afghanistan and lincoln the production to longterm concessionary agreements that are transparently done under the extractive industry standards act. And focus on coa g and other hydrocarbons. The world bank madthe only exception in the world to do Coal Development for afghanistan this yea and that is a big issue. Afghanistan havery good quality cleanburning coal and can pply an enormous amount of the energy requirents around t country. Also, we need to continue fighting corruption wavery highprofile cases. Given phone afghanistan,ad a fourstory threestar general who has been on trial and i believe has been convicted forth highlevel corruptn. We need to increase the Public Financial Management of the ministries. Pecially since the word bank, says only 25 percent of the dollars for the projects are getting spent. That is trageous. That is one of the reans that the parliament itself fired six ministers, i am sorry seven ministers this pasyear as a result of that. Now im going to talk about some things quickly that we wa to stop doing and some things we want to start doing. Very quickly. You want to stop funding and list ministry Capacity Development project and start trying to work on building a real market led economy, private sector economy that can sustain like earl said400,000 new workers each year. Not all ofhom are in afghanistan, a lot of them are refugee returnees. When you look at the numbers they actually have college edations. Have been rking successfully outside the country and are now forced to co back in her getting resettled and have skills that they can be applied to. It is the private sector that is going to build that. Not more Government Ministry paty that will be a sustainable, a plan for them longterm. The legislative private Sector Development plan for 2018 to 2023 that is designed, written and implemented by the afghan private sector. There needs to be a bigger voice for the afghan private sector and the priorities of e government and in the policies and programs out there implementing. I wi give you one example. I uld like to stop according to the recent bank report, because of the worut situation that afghanistan is going through, the bank is advocating that they spend no more money right now on missioncritical infrastructure and economic investments because they are bad for growth. According to the bank. The muiplier, this is a term that the bank uses. The multiplier is a negative. Where they would like us to spend more money Going Forward is all social investments in specifically ca transfers, health and education. They think that will be re positive. This is a critical pivot point for them. They have agriculture, other areas that will not condone that the dor community being in sync on this. Xt i think the Us Government leads to dump the current short Bilateral Agreement on how we will n the economic relationship together. It has not been amended since 2004. It is outdated, it is inappropriate to continue to try and build it bilateral ecomic rationships between the two countries with archaic and very agreement bween us. Whatould like to do and i think some of it is based on my obseations at the brussels conference where i was ablto sit in on some comedians are shocked at how even morepset frankly than the Us Government is, or other donors in europe are upset about afghanistan. We would like to see a bilateral relaonship Going Forward with the prite sector has a part in a economic relationship. There is a counsel that would form inmate bilaterally governs our meeting so we can better inteate the private sector led Growth Strategy longerterm. With the results, framework tied io the benchmarks that the administration is now holding the government accountable for e private sector aspects of it. A couple olast points. I think government, i do not wanted to take the place of building strg economic relationships with United States. Right now, there is no bilateral tax. Bilateral trade, bilateral Investment Agreement between the us a afghanistan. After 15 years of our blood and treare with no of the basic foundational instruments for economic relations. But we ha them with pakistan, india and all of the others we basically have those agreements in place and they have been in ace for years. That needs to get fixed. This needs to be a prioritfor thermoses that these foundations. Because knowing is multinational that might have regional offic in delhi or karachi will come in and inves or allow any personnel in if they do not havenvestment protections and basic trade protections. Nonef that exis right now. Lastly is capital. I think capitais frothe afghan american chambers perspective, capital is a key issue right now in afghanistan. There is only two percent of afghan businesses that are using private banks to fun their investments. And to invest. L of it is coming out of their pockets or other investors from the uae and dubai and other places. We want to see the Afghan Central Bank losing its overly conservave lending rules on capital and finance for th business sector. A lot of the rules were ple after thcobble bacscannable happens, they went to an extreme now. D now theyre offering a hier percentage of earnings, banks to put their money into the central bank and earn it and not lend that money or capital that is there and available for investment onto sinesses that could invest in hotels and marketplaces and manufactur facilities or mineral extraction and other things. We wld like to see the bank and usaid and the Credit Authority program work more carefully, using grantees, blended finance instruments and other tools that can help us to get capital flowing again inside the economy. Right now it is not happening. I will leave it there. I think we have to talk a little about the future of afghanistaand in the context of current us policy. I would just make a couple of observations quickly on current poli. First of all it has been widely remarked as a nontimene based approach in terms of the military forces and there is a mode increase in the military forces and of course as everyone h noted, a harder line with pakistan. At least publicly. Wod say that none of these things are actually dramatic and new. Even the nontimeline based deployment, the last decision president obama made on troops that is to rain troops was no timeline based. It was condition space. It was not widely noted at the time but it true. And on the increase of troops i think theres nothing particular from my perspecte about the troop levels that were there. All of these things i think represents a gradual shifting in emphasis in us policy rather than a radical departure. Although it is importanthat the formal statement of coitions based is policy ing forward. What is a little bit less clear to me is what the Us Government se as the overall objective Comedy Central objective to pursue with ouengagement in afghistan. It seems to me that whatt boils down to is for the Us Government, there are two brd options for policy Going Forward. One is a long war that is where we ctie to harden the afghan state as it has develod over the last 16 years and a lot of accomplishments ve already been highlighted. Against insurgents and the other alternative it seems to me is to attempt to foster and pursue a political settlement. Again, i look at thiin the perspective of political settlement. I look at is in the context of afanistan having been in the state of a civil war, for at least the last0 years. I also look at this in the context having been in pistan as us amssador the fact that the town been has a safeaven in pistanierritory ithe records counter insurgencies against insurgents is a heavy foreign safe haven is pretty grim. So for those reasons, i am a proponenofursuing a politil settlement. With the taliban. It seems to me thath has to be actuay the central objective of us policy. You can read that in the president s remarks of 21st of august. He did talk about possible political settleme at some point in the future. Ve yet to meet a fourstar general who does not at least privaty admit that is one with afghan experience, that this will end in a political settlement and not an outright military victory. It seems me that if that is indeed the case, we should make political settlement a central element of us policy. And we shod pursue it. Political settlement in my mind does not mean that the taliban is goingo wake up one day and sue for peace. I do not thinkhat the taliban is winning but also do not think that they think that they are losing. So there has to be modality to use a t of jargon there for the town been and the Us Government and the internationacommunity as a whole and regional actors to discuss the issues and a way forward. The issues that divide them. If i think i would to identify the thing is is potentially miing anfuy articulated us policy would have help some of us have given thought to, is the need to brg about some kind of diplomatic process that includes the region and includes tho who a fighti. At least the taliban. I do not think that daesh. But those were the insurgents of the fighting against the afghan government. And in some sense, some ways this can be overstretched as a historicalnalogy but some sensrepresent a group of people that has be fighting for the last 40 years. I think that as my colleagues comments are made clear, the challenges about living together lines of actn inside afghanistan and in the region to actually get to a positive outcome, inside afghanistan is exactly right that there are verimportant things that can helpfully be done in the economy, and vernance and this is going to be a combinaon of working with the government but also other political forcesn the country. It is really important for a member that relationships between the government a parliame in afghanistan are not o smooth at the moment. Relatiships within the government still need to be smthed out at times. In that sense, this new contract will be aimportant bilateral mechanism for progress. And they need to do that, they need to go forward. Even though we are asking a t of afghanistan to change and press forward, we need to ask that as part of facilitating a broader settlement. And these things are not easy. But they are alsgoing to need asters outside the government to participate in this. There are elections that are supposed to come up in afghanistan. Parliamentary and otherwise so they will ha forces that need to be dealt with. Not th we should be directing afghan politics but we need to understand what is goi on in afghan politics and we and our other partners, International Partners can be facilitators and need to talk to the various actors in thprocess as it goes forrd. I think that the cpact, e regular meetings bween the top senior level afghan and us officials can be very helpful in that process. But not separatefrom the otr donors. This is not just a bilateral de going on here. It is really important that there are these, several dors rking there that there are abt 30 countries that have troops of one another contributing on e military side. This is an important part of whats going on. And those allies and partners will be key if youre able to move ahead in this regional process also. They couldelp facilitate th. They can be supportive of it. So Coalition Management as you may quote or parer management a really important line of action Going Forward. And then i think as rick correctly sa if you trto break it down into the actual lines of action, and a lot of it is outside of afghastan but working in close coordinationith what you are doing in afghanistan. This is a big t of diplomatic tasks. And you can just look at where rick was ambassad. Politics and diplatic transport was needed in order to get a useful alogue. There are other tools in the procs but the key is going to be, is there a dialogue that can actually bring us oser together and moving toward a Common Objective . And the do think as rick was saying, theres a lot of denition defining still need to go on and where we want to be in several years. And as u notice, they also talked about the india and pakistan rivalry. Saying that it has tbe seen in that context. There again is a longstanding set of very difficult issues. So yes it will be great to work and try to reduce the rivalry by thinking through how you do that, how you integrate at into what we a doing in afghanistan, what are we doing on the border, etc. It is a bi task. There is a lot to doere in is going to demand a very nuanced and well coordinated us effort. Thank you. I just have a followup question on regional actors. How do you see theole of china and russia Going Forward . That is my last question and then we will open up the last 30 minutes for q a for the public. I think also on regional actors, one has to include india as well. And i will talk about india because i think russia and chincertainly rush on the Security Side is a potential negative influencer. And then china more along th lines of investment in pakistan i think thats mo suitable. India is also an importt player and ambassador wells, who is our acting secretary for south asia, we also think that she may be the acting as well during negotiations in the region. It was an in dsfor example. It is not just helping forage security ties and strengthen diplomatic ties between afanistan and india have but it is also the economic aspects. And india has been a major pler in supporting development in afghanistan. They recently inauguratethe freedom if you will. But it is also to try and promote commercial ties. And i know that there is commitment on the part of india to expand and afghanistan to expand trade over the next 3 to 4 years. I believe it is 5 billion. Another us program is helping to do that as well. That is a main focus. So india i think will become important player certainly on the commerci side r the us. Just on the economic side, for commercialrade and import, export standard, pakistan is the larges exporter of afghan goods and india is way behind with catching up at nine percent. Ina only had 6. 1 percent. Where exports from afghanistan commodity trade exports, which includes obviously lge as well. They have handwoven rugs and other items. But oginally, their biggest trade partners are their nextdoor neighbors, the chinese have ce in and attempted to strike for lack of a better word, grand bargains are mineral traction, gas, supplies, rail lines, trying to do a lot economically that will help the chinese commercial engine but not necessarily to have the afghan commercial engine. Especially since some of the deals were cut directly with Regional Governors is not with the central government. And we still have, i think for now it is 70 percentf the real afghan economy is informal. Still at this time. So a lot of the trading partners in Major Players li china are extracting minerals and resources th are n going through any type of government revenue process or concessionarprocess but instead, are focused on enhancing the livelihoods of Regional Governors, power centers, militia leaders etc. On the visual dimension, i would add a coupleof countries to the list that we have been talking about in aition to china and russia. I think it is already been on the india and pakistan are usually important. And iran is not insignicant. I think that if we looon the political side of things wt we have seen is an increase in the hedging strategies by almost all of these regional players except maybe india. Russia and iran have been building their relationships with the taliban spite let us say, a lack ideological and religious affinity. Especially in in. Pakistan has never really abandoned this hedging strategy with regard to afghanistan. I think what has changed ite a bit from the political standpoint in the past 16 years is that china has become much more engag in the region. If there is one ece of positive news in all of this, i think it is that china and the United States largely share a common perception with regard to afghanistan. And even to some extent, with regard to pakistan. That is a concern about governed spaces emerging in afghanisn d pakistan from which attacks on the respective homelands can be made. In the case of china of course the movement which has had safe haven of sorts in the border areas. I think th just to focus for a little bit for a moment on pakistan in particar. I ink this is a important question right now. What has not perhaps receive as much discussn as it needs to ghnow is the question of what leverage the United States actually has over pakistan. There is a considerable emphis on the assistance tt weave provided to afanistan or to pakistan over the past dede and 1 2. Most recently iteration was about seven and half billion assistance and substantially more over the year insecurity assistance. But i think that this pal in comparon to what china is puttininto pakistan right now. I wonder the pakistan for the china pakistanconomic corridor which is sort of a oneword initiative. China is probably committed to putting 46 billion or billion into pakistan. That is in directed investments. And ft lawns. I think that the pakisni perspective this is reducing independence othe United States and us economic assistance in particular. Not so much security assistce. But the other point does not receive a lot of attention, d this is just a matter of looking at a m. Afghanistan is a landlocked country. In central asi if we hope to sustain garrison for some period of me in afghisn, we need to access it by land and air. By land you really only have the option of going through pakistan, le our relationshs with iran were to dramatically improve. Which i do not think is in the cards. Eveny air, the most direct route is even certainly over pakistan. I think either is a temptation imrted to overestimate our degree of leverage on pakistan. And because of how we view our own substantial Assistance Programs. The reality is that i think pakistan was going to pursue its own self defined National Interest in ways tt are probably to ours. I think again, we need to address this at a political level. And i think the us taking the initiative to launch a political initiave that is a pathway towards settlement is a conflict, is really the only way to adjust thultimate question of regionaledging. If you leave a space some not so friendly friends may go off on their own anyway and try to dohings whiccan make it much more confident to get to a peaceful solution. Plus, the point that the is a lot good economic things that cabe done for afghanistan and pakistan if you ca get those acss Pakistan Economic pipelines and transmission lines and other things agreed in woing. Part of the reason of course because of the trade with india below is tt pakistan will let anythi cross its landmass to get to india. The indians would buy a lot more from afghanistan. That is why it is impoant to trto woron t indi indiapakistan privately at the same te. It will juste hard to do that. It is important but hard to do. So, all of this leads to the conclusion that my conclusion that we need a very active Regional Policy with the mind, within mind how do w incentivize a path to a netiated solution using those otheactorshat cabe useful. None of them except pakistan ishe greatesinfluence on the televion but together there can be a mass that can make positive difference if theyre organid in a way that helps brina positive impact about. The biguestion one of the Big Questions is iran. How will wget engaged and what will they do to mess things up th they dont like what is going on. Do need to get through. I still remember back to the fit donor conferences that we had in the fall of 2001 in the beginning of 200in afghanistan afghanistan. Iran was there and they actual wanted to play a constructive role at that time for ideological reasons they were t friendly with the television anthey were ppy to see this change. There are still some geostrategic areas where we might be able to find common ground, if we can talk to them and bring th into a processing and constructive way. Big . On their. Thank you very much. Now we have about 25 minut for q a from the public. We will take about twothree questions at a time and we will answer those and then go to the next round there are microphones at the ye lets take these twothe lady in the gentleman. Please identify yourself and your affiliation. Hello. Im samara daniels. Im very interested in the future of pakistan and afghanistan and india because according to my father we were possibly converts om hinduism toslam so its a very complex ethnic backgrounds. I would like ambassador wayne and perhaps investor olson to explain who you consider the television because i think this question has been so convoluted and responsible for the chaos that has ensued or should i say thdrawbacks to the strategy is a result of the confusion of the tallow man and the refugees that went over into pakistan and the soviet invasion. Thanks [inaudible] my question is also yours. Who are the talib . They have neve renounced a qaeda. They are working together with the Islamic Movement and they are working together with the et im and theyre working with other terrorist organizations. [inaudible] all the assistance has been from some side that our Political Sentiment should be solved but should we seek a political settlement with the tallow man that is not the organization that is continuing on killing the Afghan People andhen it comes to pakistan we are always being open to dialogue with them but the dialogue never happens because we get to policies and actionoes not take place. I think the united stas should draw the line with pakistan, with us or against us is the equationecause if they continue this getting away with public statements that they denounce terrorism a the promise they wl help take action against a network and so on and at the end the day nothing happens, i thinkthe only way is to focus more also on the military side of the issue and embedded with the polical and diplomatic. You mention that some modalities can be pursued. My question to ambassadoolson is id love to hear expiration on those. Thank you. You said some malities. For this political settlement, yeah i will leambassador olson go with this first because he worked on it rectally for the last couple years [laughter] who are the taliban . I think the television is actually a relatively coherent organization. We can identify who s primary leaders are and we can identify the fact that it has we have several governing bodies will. [inaudible] those of crse, one window, city names and pakistan. There are a group at the the responsibility deals with foreigners and ultimately presumably for working with foreigners does have an iormal presence in qatar. So, to jump to my colleagues question about modalities, i would say the first step in a modality that is to say the first step in gettina Peace Process going would be to revive what was attempted was being done in 2013 which is open formally the taliban offices for discussing peace with the afgn in a publicly recognized way. That is the first stepn the second step is to bring in the regional players who are so significant and i think we have identified all of them there are a lot challenges there because there is a great difficulty which conceptuay i do not know how to reconcile between bringing india and pakian into thsame room and afghanistan and that is a huge challenge. I wont underestimate that. In princle it seems to me that that is what one should want to be psuing as a way forward. Now, i fly agree with you that the taliban has not renounceat least, not definitively, has not renounced any ties with al qaeda or, indeed with International Terrorist organizations. There are hints and somearious statements that were put out by. [inaudible] but there has not been a formal break and it is wellestablish wellestablished. The afghan governments position is that as an and condition that taliban will have to rennced terrorism and break with al qaeda and they will have to stop violce and respect the afgn constitution. It is important to note that those are end conditions d that has been at least under the obama and mistre and also e policy of the United States to have tse as an conditions but i think it unrealistic to expect that what areerceived by the taliban concessions are made at the outset of the process. I think they will come at the end of a process and, i think, that pnciple taliban demand at least for the United States is the withdrawal of foren forc and i thinits equally unrealistic to expect the United States to concede that point early in the process. It seems to me between district there is a space for diplomatic negotiatioand for discussion. I think that the only way we ll be able to find out whether a deal is possib is if we get into thanegotiatiospace and begin to talk out these core issues. Just to add, i think thats exactly right. There are different parts of the taliban but they do have unifng political bodies that come together to talk about it. The argue amont themselv and have differences of opinion. Theres differences between the local taliban to go out and fight in one pvince and the ople living in pakistan. That is true but its true and a lot of insurncies around the world and it takes often just a long process to start engaging and defining what they really want and what the government really wants and finding a common ground. You just need to engage and keep trying. There will be lot of faid efforts in doing tt but you try to create the conditions so that gradually the pception of the benefits of a political settleme becomes more positive and you can see how long it took in columbia to get to a posion of a political settlement. Many, many years of difficult fighting from both parties and difficult negotiationsnd a lot of failed starts and even a good process got turned off for a while and they got turned back on again and a referendum that, by the people, cause it to be revisited. If you look at a these places it is a hard process but you have to start. Certainly from the us perspective the groups that attack specifilly us persons, civilians and others are the least acceptable of those and that will beart of the discussion during the negotiations. As rick said that will be part of the initial discussion and hopefully youll get to a solution tts the same from the afghan government. This will be tough but if we dont try this path it is unlikely, as rick also said earlier to find a solution where theres been a sanctuary, an active sanctuary is really hard to find. Just one point on the coherency of the taliban. The fact is weave done a deal with taliban whatever one thanks of it. [inaudible] was held by the ast acceptable element of the taliban and he was released in response of negotiations with polica commission which is to say the representative of. [inaudible it does in fact suggest that there is a degree of cohercy in the organization. I wiltake two qstions from the left and then i will take two questions from the right. [inaudible] [laughter] i already did. Thlady in blue and the gentleman here. Thankvery much. Megan with the us afghan womens council. Thank you for thisideranging discussion that hasnt focused only on military aspects but on the development and other pects. One topic that has been conspicuously absent from conversationsround the augu 201st policy is womens role in the selfreliance conflict resolution and security of afgnistan. As more than half of the population is women how can the new policy effectively incorporate the educational acevements that were talked about, the economic advaements in the learship of women in afghanistan future while still avoiding backsliding and olence against wen and their Economic Opportunities and their participation in the ongoing Peace Process. Thanks so much. I can takthe economic oh oh. Thank you very much. Alexander, quick commentn ambassador wayne mentioned columbia and maybe i will be an optimist here but one thing to thk about very much getting ahead of melf is a company implemention of an eveual peace reement beuse even in columbia today the limitations is n like we fd the deal and we are done or central america. Two questions for inveor olson. One is maybe moving beyond the ci a peaceful process. R if youti i dont think we can prejudge that except toay that, of course, afghans he me ve rdymadinstitio f drsi tseueio. Me, ghan pits se veisllbo reconciaon and wldee. Aouonug. Nas ag