Feroz R Khan October 21, 2001

Tags: Law , Foreign Policy , Policy , Freedom , Terrorism , Wars , Government , Military , Politics , Kashmir , China , Iran , India , Pakistan , America , Bush

href="/tag/God">God like a soldier…

Rudyard Kipling

One month after the attacks on Washington and New York, the United States attacked Afghanistan in retaliation to the attacks of September 11, 2001. October 7, 2001 marked the day, when the sitzkreig, or the sitting war, ended and the war on terrorism assumed a military character. The intentions of the United States, in attacking Afghanistan, was to destroy the terrorist empire of Osama bin Ladin and his hosts, the Taliban, in an effort to replace the existing political infrastructure with one more pliable to the American interests. With the beginning of the American attacks, the Fifth Afghan War (and the first one of this century, but not necessarily the last) started and though it is still in its early phases, its end is obscured in doubts and apprehensions.

As the United States undertakes it military campaign to destroy the terrorist network of Osama bin Ladin, and the Taliban, the United States needs to clarify its intentions in the war. The United States needs to ask itself what is the primary focus of the American policy in the war, and more importantly, what will be the American policy, which will deal with the vacuum left in the Afghan politics once the Taliban are defeated and removed from power. The problem confronting the United States, in its war aims in Afghanistan, is not the scale or the objectives of the war – those have been articulated clearly by the Bush administration, but what to do once the war is over and what level of political engagement is the United States capable of maintaining as it seeks to influence the realities in a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

The “Afghanistan Question”, which is mystifying the policy makers in Washington, is just how to create a political situation in Afghanistan, in the post-Taliban scenario, which can be sustained and agreed upon by the neighboring countries of Afghanistan. In realistic terms, the final solution to the “Afghanistan Question” will be a politically based answer and a not a military response, because the problem which the United States wants to resolve in Afghanistan is a political one.

In order to resolve this crisis, the United States needs to pay attention to the political aspects of the crisis. The consideration, which the United States must try to understand, is not the application of military power, but a political consensus, which can hopefully prevent a similar situation from arising, that led to the rise of the Taliban as a political phenomenon in the first place. The political consideration, which the United States hopes to realize by its military actions, is to see the emergence of a responsive and a stable political administration, which can help the Americans in eradicating bin Ladin and his network in Afghanistan.

Therein lies the threat to the United States, because in the rationalization of the American objectives, the United States has to, an extent, get involved in an attempt at nation-building, because of its primary purpose of having a friendly government replace the Taliban in Afghanistan. The United States needs a friendly government to facilitate its intentions, because though the Taliban can be militarily defeated and removed, bin Ladin has to be dealt with on a political level simply because the philosophy, which he advocating is politically motivated and can only be politically neutralized.

The basic contentions, which bin Ladin has against the United States and for whose attainment he encourages reprisals against the Americans, is the removal of the American military presence from Saudi Arabia. Even though bin Ladin uses military means against the United States, he is a political phenomena; a creation of the west, the United States and its Pakistani protégés during the Afghan-Soviet War of 1979-89. It was the radicalization of Islam, tailored to suit the interests of the west in the the Cold War against the Soviet Union, which energized Islam as a political movement and introduced the concept of a jihad, or a holy war, to attain objectives in contemporary politics.

The radicalization of Islam, as a political movement, was the brainchild of the Pakistani military ruler General Zia-ul-Haq. Zia, who seemed to be harboring dreams of leading a revival of pan-Islamism, hoped to emerge as a messiah of an Islamic political revival in the world. In this, he was charitably aided by Saudi Arabia and its intelligence services, which provided vast sums of money to Pakistan’s military intelligence services to funnel into Central Asia and resurrect Islam within the Soviet Union itself. The Americans, who were aware of this, turned a blind eye towards the actions of the Pakistanis and the Saudis in hopes of further weakening the internal cohesion of the Soviet Union and seeking the demise of Moscow’s political influence.

Due to this Realpolitik of the cold war, which exploited Islam as a political tool to gain an advantage, Afghanistan became the center of gravity; where there was a revival of the concept of jihad and Muslims from all over the world flocked there. After the end of Afghan war and withdrawal of the Soviets, the interests, which had created a militant Islam got disinterested, and the situation was allowed to fester and no steps were attempted to close the Pandora’s Box, which had been deliberately opened by the Americans, the Pakistanis and the Saudis to attain their political objectives. The United States’ lack of interest in formulating a political regime, in the post-Soviet Afghanistan, encouraged a civil war bitterly contested by the various Afghan commanders, who had previously fought under one banner to rid the country of Russian troops. From 1989 to 1994, when the Taliban ended up in the political control, the country was in turmoil and there was an acute anarchy prevailing within Afghanistan.

The Taliban, themselves, were students of Islam studying in various Islamic seminaries that were teaching a fundamentalist version of Islam in Pakistan. These seminaries, were allowed to be created by Zia to consolidate his own interpretations of Islam within the polity of Pakistan and by the time the war in Afghanistan ended, were scattered across Pakistan teaching thousands of Pakistanis and Afghans a militant version of Islam. The political growth of the Taliban can be directly credited to the ISI, the military inter-service-intelligence of Pakistan, which hoped to exploit the Taliban to impose its own interests in the Afghan politics. The Afghans, who were tired of the rapine and the civil war in their country, welcomed the Taliban, in the early stages. Though they did not agree with the harsh brand of Islam as practiced by the Taliban, the Taliban were tolerated, because they brought a resemblance of a law and order situation to Afghanistan. In this sense, the Taliban were a political phenomenon that happened to have a benefited from the prevailing political vacuum in Afghanistan and accidentally ended up in power for a lack of a better alternative.

The consolidation of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was made possible by the Pakistanis, and Islamabad’s over riding interest to ensure a stable and non-threatening western frontier. For the first time since 1947, Pakistan had a government in Kabul that was friendly to it and this allowed the Pakistani military to realize its concept of a “strategic depth”. The doctrine of strategic depth mandated that Pakistan could use the territory of Afghanistan to deploy its military assets beyond the Indian ability to destroy them.

Also, a friendly government in Kabul, in the calculations of the Pakistani military, would allow it the tactical flexibility of moving two additional army corps, to its eastern border with India, to be used as strategic reserves to its two strike corps based in Multan and Mangla. In order to actualize this concept of strategic depth, Pakistan covertly aided the Taliban in its military campaigns. In some instances, Pakistani army officers were detached from their regular service to serve as military advisors to the Taliban and direct their military campaigns. It was this national imperative, of a secure western border, which led Pakistan to recognize the Taliban diplomatically and militarily support their perpetuation of power.

Pakistan’s Afghan policy, though critiqued by the United States and the west, was insisted by Islamabad in order to maintain a friendly government in Kabul. Even though Islamabad was coming under increasing international pressure and was slowly being marginalized in international affairs, the prospect of a non-secure western border was worth the risk, according to the foreign policy pundits in Pakistan, to risk an international censure. Pakistan was operating under the presumption that its influence on Kabul could be used to moderate the extremism of the Taliban. The reality was that after being supported by Pakistan in their quest for power, the Taliban once they came into the possession of power started to show an independent streak and seemed to be slowly drifting away from Islamabad’s ability to manage them. Though Pakistan was acutely aware that it was losing its political grip on the Taliban, it still persisted in supporting them due to reasons of its own national security interests.

In this sense, the fatal flaw in Pakistan’s Afghan policy was that Islamabad had severely miscalculated that Taliban, which had started as a religious revival and a political phenomena, could mature into a responsible government. There was a sense of anticipation in Pakistan that the Taliban would smooth their rough edges and could be more attentive to the concerns of Islamabad. Even though the Taliban was becoming more of a liability than an asset to Pakistan, Islamabad was unable to change its Afghan policy, because of the influence of ISI, Taliban’s supporters, in conducting and influencing Pakistan’s Afghan policy. The events of September 11, 2001 and the ensuing American ultimatum changed the security realities for Pakistan and Islamabad was confronted with a stark choice: continue aiding the Taliban and be internationally isolated and dealt with at a later time or cooperate with the United States and earn a “get out of jail card” with a promise of economic incentives to help its aid dependent economy from slipping into bankruptcy.

Pakistan’s interest in seeking a peaceful and stable western border stems from the fact that Islamabad knows that every time there is a crisis inside Afghanistan, it has to bear the consequences. Afghans usually trek to Pakistan, when there is a conflict to seek refuge and this influx of refugees creates myriad problems for Pakistan. The areas of Pakistan, adjoining with Afghanistan, are a part of the Federal Administrative Tribal Areas (FATA) and do not consider themselves as a de jure part of Pakistan. When there is a crisis in Afghanistan, the inflow of Afghan refugees usually finds a sympathetic audience in the Pushtun areas of Pakistan. It is in light of Pakistan’s own law and order concerns that it wants the Durrand Line, the official name of the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, to be peaceful and devoid of any political agitation, which could be used as a pretext to create disturbances against Islamabad.

Secondly, given Afghanistan’s own internal realities of tribal fragmentation and ethnic dissimilarities, the balance of power within Afghanistan is a very powerful allure for intervention by outside forces. Afghanistan is ethnically divided according to geography and is composed of many different ethnic groups. The most important Afghan ethnic group is the Pushtuns and the Pushtuns themselves are sub-divided into two groups: Durrani and Ghilzai. The Tajiks are the second largest group comprising about 25 percent of the population as compared to the Pushtuns, who make up about 38 percent of the Afghan populace. The Hazaras are about 19 percent of the population followed by the Uzbeks, who are about 6 percent of the total population of Afghanistan. The remaining 12 percent of the population is composed of various tribal ethnic groups like the Baluch, Turkmen, Aimaks and non-Muslims like Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists.

The Tajiks are located in the northeast around Kabul and up to the Pamir Mountains with a smaller demographic representation sprinkled around Heart in the southwest. The Turkmen are located in the areas near the border with Turkmenistan and the Uzbeks are concentrated near Mazar-e-Sharif in the north. The Hazaras are predominantly located in the Hindu Kush near Bamiyan and are mostly Shias. The Pushtun Durranis occupy the southern areas around Heart, in the west, and the lands near Kandahar through Kabul. The Ghilzais populate the eastern provinces and live in the border areas with Pakistan. Religiously, Afghanistan’s is divided between the Pushtuns, who are Sunni and about 85 percent of the population and the Shia Harzaras, who are about 15 percent of the population. Afghanistan’s political and tribal loyalties are thus; fractured along ethnic and geographic lines and the internal conflicts of Afghanistan are also based on the ethnic and geographic divides.

It is this fissured and anarchic situation inside country, which tempts outside powers to intervene in hopes of resolving the crisis and in the process, establishing their influence inside Afghanistan. The cycle for foreign intervention in Afghanistan is quite familiar and well established. Traditionally, the Afghans have always fought one another, when they have not been fighting an outside power. Most foreign powers intervene, like the Soviets and the Pakistanis, in order to aid one Afghan faction/group in their perennial civil wars on the pleas of the Afghan themselves and once they intervene, the Afghans stop their infighting and join forces to fight the intervening power. After some time, the intervening power leaves Afghanistan in disgust at being embroiled in its civil wars. Where upon, the Afghans start fighting between themselves to win power and at the same asking another power to intervene and when another power intervenes, the process repeats itself.

In this sense, the Americans have to be extremely wary of intervening in Afghanistan’s civil war on the side of the Northern Alliance, renamed as the United Front, against the Taliban. If the United States intervenes, it is likely to get embroiled in a civil war with no end in sight. The United States has to realize that the defeat of the Taliban, will not cure the problems in Afghanistan and they should be under no illusions that the Afghan balance of power can be tilted so easily by simply defeating the Taliban. What the United States has to understand is that the key to a stable government does not reside in the fortunes of war between the United Front and the Taliban, but in the national security interests of Afghanistan’s neighboring states and the political considerations they might have as to what happens in a post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Pakistan is interested in playing a role in the post-Taliban Afghanistan for reasons of securing its western border, making sure that it has a friendly regime in the west and is not encircled by hostile powers on both sides; Afghanistan and India. Therefore, Pakistan has a vested interest not see the United Front march into Kabul, because it knows that it will be hostile to Islamabad. It is for this reason that it wishes to see a broad based government comprising all ethnic groups in Afghanistan, but headed by Pushtuns, who have a political affinity with the Pushtuns of Pakistan. Pakistan is not comfortable with Zahir Shah either, the former king of Afghanistan, and if it had to choose, it would pick the aging king as the lesser of two evils. Even though Pakistan realizes that its Taliban policy has been discredited; it still seeks a role in Afghanistan, which will prevent Afghanistan from being antithetical to the interests of Pakistan regionally and politically.

Russia is interested in the situation in Afghanistan for its own reasons. Russia hopes to keep the Islamic extremists out of the Central Asian Republics (CAR), which it wants to control. Towards this end, it is eager to support the Tajik and Uzbek armies, in the United Front, fighting the Taliban. Russia wants to lessen the role of the Pushtuns, because it wants to deny Pakistan a land route to the CARs through Afghanistan. Russia does not wish to allow the CARs a trade route through Afghanistan, or open up it resources to the outside world, because doing so would lessen Moscow’s authority in the region and might encourage an American presence, indirectly through Pakistan, to channel the CAR exports away from the west to the south. By keeping the CARs economically dependent on Russia, for access to their exports and imports, Moscow wants to maintain its political influence and have a share in the transit fees associated with facilitating the CAR exports/imports.

Russia does not entirely wish a stable government inside Afghanistan. It is interested in exploiting the extremist threat from the south to keep a military presence in the CARs to give legitimacy to its ongoing military operations in Chechnya. Consequently, Russia has mixed feelings about a post-Taliban environment on its southern border and is tacitly influencing the policies of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in this crisis, to safe guard its own political interests.

Iran, like Russia, has an abiding interest in Afghanistan and that is to prevent Pakistan from getting access, and facilitating the American right of entry, to the oil deposits of the Caspian Sea. Iran supports the Shia Hazaras and is not happy at the idea of a Sunni government in Kabul. However, Iran would not be too displeased if there is continuing instability in Afghanistan, because that would lessen the attraction of an oil pipeline, to transport the Caspian Sea crude, through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The other choice would in the west or through Iran and in this sense; Tehran would welcome the petrodollars of the west in transit costs. Iranian interests are purely economical and such; Iran is an interested party and does not wish to be absent from participating in any discussions debating the future of Afghanistan after the Taliban are gone.

The two countries, which are likely to benefit indirectly from the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, are China and India. China is deeply concerned about the Islamic threat to its northwestern provinces and is suspicious of the Uighars, Chinese Muslims, and wants the United States to solve the problem of Islamic extremism and limit their possible influence from spreading any further regionally, especially in China. China wants the United States to get involved in the quagmire of Afghanistan and hopes that Afghanistan will be able to distract Washington, while Beijing consolidates in its influence in Asia. China is hoping that the present Afghan crisis, and the American involvement, will solve its problems of Islamic militants, without China having to risk any political capital with the Arab world had it adopted a direct and confrontational policy towards the Uighars.

Though the Chinese are hoping that the United States would remain bogged down in Afghanistan and allow it the freedom to pursue its intentions in southeast-Asia, it does not want a permanent American presence in Afghanistan, from where the Americans would be in a position to electronically eves drop into China itself.

India stands to benefit from this crisis, because Pakistan would be confronted with hostile neighbors on both sides and would be always unsure strategically in the region. India could leverage this Pakistani hesitancy to pursue to a more proactive policy in Kashmir and be assured that Pakistan will not have the military options to risk a response to Indian actions in Kashmir. India benefits from this crisis in the shape of the deployment of the two Pakistani army corps to the west and in making Pakistan feel vulnerable in the east form undertaking any actions, which might result in an Indian military response. India, if it has the wisdom, can channel this opportunity into seeking a modus vivendi on Kashmir and make Pakistan agree to fait accompli on the issue of Kashmir. The gamble for India in this crisis is that it has to balance its advantage over Pakistan without undermining the domestic situation in Pakistan, due to its bellicosity, and not risk an unstable Pakistan, which would not be in the interests of the United States in the present situation or for that matter in the Indian long term interests.

Hence, given all these external considerations and internal realities of the political situation in Afghanistan, the United States risks winning the war militarily in Afghanistan, but losing it politically. The key to the American success in Afghanistan is to create a government, which will help it in its fight with Taliban and bin Ladin, because though the Taliban will be eventually removed from power, there is no guarantee that they will stop fighting. America has to seek the political cooperation of Afghanistan’s neighbors in formulating a consensus as to what will replace the Taliban and in this sense, the neighbors of Afghanistan do not agree with the United States as to what is the best policy to formulate in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. Due to the lack of clear-cut objectives, the United States is entering this crisis without a well-defined strategy and is already exhibiting signs of a “commitment fatigue”; it wants to militarily remove the Taliban and leave the post-Taliban scenario to the United Nations to deal with and create a replacement for the Taliban.

The United States has to realize that, traditionally, the Afghans have always resisted a government imposed from abroad, because the Afghan system of politics is predicated on their tribal alliances and is a diffused power structure, where decisions are taken by consensus and are not dictated. The traditional Afghan tribal authority resents a centralized structure of power, which is not based on the ethnic tribal loyalties. Therefore, the United States is headed towards a protracted involvement in Afghanistan, which is going to be costly and finally end in the United States having to risk leaving Afghanistan without actualizing its strategic goals. The foreshadowing of the American commitment being doomed arises from the fact that the United States began this war in haste and without articulating what it wanted to achieve. In doing so, it entered this war without a well-defined exit strategy and with no idea as to what to leave in place after the Taliban; a set of conditions, which have mandated a long American presence in Afghanistan, because if the Americans leave prematurely, they have attained nothing politically and if they stay, they risk being embroiled in Afghanistan’s internal political struggles, with its dire historic consequences.

It would seem that after the British, the Russians and the Pakistanis, it is the Americans’ turn to realize that every nation, which had a reason to intervene in Afghanistan had to eventually regret its decision, because its Afghan policy has usually come to haunt it. Whatever the consequences may be for the United States due to its involvement in Afghanistan, the Americans should have paid heed to the warnings contained in the lines of Kipling’s poem, quoted at the beginning of this article. Everyone who enters Afghanistan and tries to solve its problems for their own benefit has two choices: a military or a political suicide. The United States has to chose between these two options in dealing with Afghanistan and how it deals with this choice, will influence the events in that forsaken country and the rest of the world for a long time to come.