Critics of the struggling democratic process in Afghanistan might be pointing the blame in all the wrong places, said Scott Smith, the director of the U.S. Institute for Peace’s Afghanistan and Central Asia program.

“When you see a poor piece of workmanship, you don’t blame the tools, you blame the contractor,” he said Tuesday from Breckinridge Hall at Marine Corps University while giving a speech entitled “We like democracy, but elections ruined it” as part of the Middle East Studies Lecture Series. “I think you do that when you don’t understand the tools. I don’t think we really understood the tools in Afghanistan. In the end, we built a three-legged stool.”

Smith didn’t go as far as declaring the U.S.-led efforts to rid the country of the Taliban and replace their authoritarian rule with true democracy a complete failure just yet. However, the Afghanistan expert and former United Nations official conceded that democratic efforts have shown increasingly fewer positive results since the country passed its first constitution in 2004. The setbacks have come despite the millions of Afghans who have participated in the process and the more than $1 billion spent by the U.S., the U.N. and the European Union.

The worry is that complete anarchy will again take root when U.S. military forces leave the country for good by 2017.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is finding out just how far the country still has to go in its political development. Ghani succeeded Hamid Karzai, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term after leading the country since the 2001 fall of the Taliban. Karzai blamed the U.S. for most of the country’s violence and had a contentious relationship with American President Barack Obama, Smith said.

Karzai’s re-election in 2009 was marred by accusations of fraud, massive ballot-stuffing and intimidation, Smith said. Similar problems arose during last year’s presidential election that was supposed to have marked the first time for  transferring power in a democratic Afghanistan. Instead, both violence and civil war are very real possibilities.

“We like democracy, but elections ruined it,” was what one frustrated Afghan citizen said at the time, Smith said.

An Afghan military officer in attendance at Smith’s speech, agreed, saying, “I think, in Afghanistan, the people do not believe in Ghani.”

Smith said that Afghanistan is less prepared now for democracy than it was in 2004.

“Afghan democracy is not developed enough where the loser returns later and takes aim at the next election without resorting to violence to serve their interests,” he said.

— Writer: jhollis@quanticosentryonline.com