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LISA MULLINS: To Afghanistan now, where president Hamid Karzai is promising to review a new law that's provoked outcry. Critics say the law rolls backs women's rights. And it's put the Obama administration on the defensive at a time when the US is trying to dial back expectations for Afghanistan. The World's Jeb Sharp has more.

JEB SHARP: The new law regulates family life among Shiites in Afghanistan, and critics say one of its provisions, on sexual relations, potentially legalizes marital rape. Former government official Sultana Parvanta called the law a huge setback for Afghan women.

SULTANA PARVANTA: It is a real undermining of the small gains that we have made in the women's rights movements here. Afghan women needed support, and this is just pulling the rug under our feet.

SHARP: President Obama was asked about the law last weekend when he was in Stratsbourg for the NATO summit. He said he thought the law was abhorrent, but he used the moment to underscore US priorities.

OBAMA: We have stated very clearly that we object to this law, but I want everyone to understand that our focus is to defeat Al Qaeda.

SHARP: In other words, yes, we care about women's rights, but no they're not at the top of the list. Former British diplomat Rodric Braithwaite says President Obama is trying to lower expectations for Afghanistan.

BRAITHWAITE: He has moved away from the idea that we have a mission to impose or introduce – or whatever the verb you want it to be – democracy in Afghanistan. That means eating some words about democracy and about the position of women and so, which is a very bitter thing to have to do, but it's realistic.

SHARP: Other observers say it's not just realistic but necessary. Robert Crews is a historian at Stanford University and co-editor of a new book called “The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan.”

CREWS: One needs to recognize there's very little one can do to create a kind of modern progressive, democratic state based on equal gender rights that people were hoping for in late 2001. I think that that boat has sailed and a more kind of humble and realistic view would be that what lies ahead is a messy and unpleasant course of sitting down and speaking with unsavory people in the name of the greater cause of stability and of an end to a civil war that's been raging since 1978.

SHARP: But Cheryl Benard says the international community shouldn't have to choose between women's rights and stability. She's a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation and co-author of a study on women and nation building.

BENARD: The premise underlying that hypothesis is that you have sort of your core security goals, and then you have these more luxurious, you know, social and political and economic goals that you can attend to once you got the security in place.

SHARP: But Benard says there are no data at all to support the notion that advancing women's rights detracts from the goal of creating security. In fact, she says, there are studies that show the opposite – that societies that are more equitable in terms of gender are more stable and peaceful. Benard says it wasn't the nation building aspirations that were the problem in Afghanistan, but their implementation.
BENARD: I think the big mistake we made wasn't women's rights, human rights or democracy or any of that. Our biggest mistake was that we didn't create livelihoods, especially for young people.

SHARP: Even so, Benard says, there's a strong support among many Afghans for the advances in women's rights that have been made since 2001. Women make up a quarter of the Afghan parliament and millions of girls now attend school. And, Benard says, think of the girls who were injured in a widely publicized acid attack at a school in Kandahar. They've returned to school with their parents' blessing.

BENARD: I think it's a bit shameful that a young teenager with a face scarred by acid has the personal guts and the civic courage to go back to school every day, and we're going to say they're not ready for education and democracy. We really can't let that happen.

SHARP: Afghan women may not let it happen, either. The outcry over the Shiite family law has forced President Karzai to promise to review the law and bring it in line with the country's constitution. That document guarantees equal rights for men and women. For The World, I'm Jeb Sharp.

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