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COMMENTARY
Afghanistan dropping off US
radar screen
By Ehsan Ahrari
On February 26, President George W Bush, in a
major speech at a conservative think tank in Washington,
declared, "Our coalition of more than 90 countries is
pursuing the networks of terror with every tool of law
enforcement and with military power. We have arrested,
or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of
al-Qaeda. Across the world we are hunting down the
killers one by one. We are winning and we're showing
them the definition of American justice."
Contrast the preceding statement with the
following items published in the news section of Radio
Free Europe on February 27 regarding Afghanistan. One
byline read, "Afghanistan: UN suspends aid work due to
uncertain security". A UN spokesman told reporters that
the decision of the world body to suspend aid work in
some areas of Afghanistan was taken "after tensions had
risen in several of the country's northern provinces".
He went on add, "There has been no progress in efforts
to disarm warlords operating in the region." Two other
headlines read, "Fighting in Afghanistan's Faryab
province continues" and "Highway robbery in
Afghanistan".
Victoria Burnett of the Financial
Times of February 27, under the title "Afghanistan: War
is won but peace could yet be lost", writes "... the
Taliban is believed to be regrouping, now with a new
ally, renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Barely a day
goes by without a rocket fired at a coalition base and
ISAF [International Security Assistance Force], the
international peacekeeping force in Kabul, is rattled
after a spate of attacks. In recent weeks coalition
forces have twice engaged in the heaviest fighting for a
year."
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001
attacks on its territory, the US initiated a very
important endeavor in Afghanistan, under the rubric of a
global war on terrorism. The easiest part of the war in
that country - the military campaign - was more or less
complete. But one major reason the US went into
Afghanistan was to ensure the emergence of that troubled
country as a peaceful and stable place, preferably a
democracy. That nebulous and imprecise statement
contains a lot of complexities, frustrations and
heartburn. However, if the terrorist forces were not to
regroup and return with a vengeance in Afghanistan, the
US had not only to stay engaged for years to come, but
it was expected to start a campaign, in earnest, of
nation-building.
Yes, Bush loathed the very
notion of nation-building even while he was a candidate
during the 2000 presidential elections. But that was a
different time, and, indeed, a different era. Even as he
was sending his troops to Afghanistan to dismantle the
Taliban regime, Bush might have not known that he was
also committing his country to that nation for the next
20 years. This observation is not at all popular
anywhere in Washington. That, nevertheless, is the
reality, with warts and all. The US choices in
Afghanistan are indubitably unambiguous: rebuild it or
lose it, perhaps, to worse terrorists than you ousted in
2001.
The foremost objective underlying
nation-building in Afghanistan remains widening the
scope of legitimacy of the government headed by
President Hamid Karzai, a candidate handpicked for the
job by the Bush administration. However, to this day,
from the perspective of legitimacy and authority, Karzai
acts more as a mayor of Kabul than the president of the
Republic of Afghanistan. His capability to expand the
legitimacy and authority of his government is based on,
but is not limited to, a number of very important
variables.
First, the building of institutional
infrastructure all over Afghanistan is itself a
Herculean task. To start with, he has to build an
extensive network of roads, schools, irrigation,
transportation and health systems, and, more important
of all, a stout law enforcement system. And the list
goes on.
Second, he needs mega-bucks to build
this infrastructure. Needless to say, he is entirely
dependent on a group of donor nations for funds to carry
out this awesome task. On this point, the industrial
donors have established a shameful record. According to
one report, "A January 2002 conference in Tokyo produced
pledges totaling $4.5 billion over five years for
Afghanistan's reconstruction and security. But the
finance ministry in Kabul has said that $20 billion to
$25 billion will be needed to rebuild the nation's
crumbled infrastructure." The same report notes,
"Congress has approved the American commitment made at
Tokyo, setting aside $3.3 billion. But contributions
from other countries have been lagging. The result has
been dashed expectations among the Afghan people and the
government."
The third variable is the building
of the Afghan security forces. Building these forces in
a war-ravaged country is awesome, indeed, by any stretch
of the imagination. For Afghanistan, this task is
immensely complicated by the presence not only of
multi-ethnicity, but also of deeply entrenched rivalries
and hatred that accompany that reality. Presently, two
armies coexist in Afghanistan: the fledgling Afghan
National Army and the loosely knit group of fighters who
came together to fight the Taliban. The United States is
training the Afghan National Army, whose current size is
reported to be 3,000 recruits. However, according to a
report issued by CARE (a US-based NGO), few have been
paid. "About half have deserted because of tensions
between different ethnic groups, low pay and poor
housing." Warlords, on the contrary, have a very good
record of maintaining their militia because they can
offer them "steady salaries, good housing and prestige",
notes the report.
Fourth, the continued presence
of warlords itself is a constant challenge to the
already shaky authority of Karzai. For law and order in
and around Kabul, he is dependent on the ISAF. The rest
of the country is under the purview of 8,000 American
forces who are in charge of expanding the government's
power. However, as frustration among the 44 percent of
the Pashtun population escalates, American troops are
likely to be perceived as an occupying force. There also
remains a question whether American forces are primarily
driven by the motivation to expand the legitimacy of the
Karzai government or to capture the remainder the
al-Qaeda terrorists. Arguably, there are some linkages
between the two motives.
Fifth, the presence of
a robust "opium economy" continues to serve as one of
the largest challenges to the authority of the
government to implement crop substitution policies.
According to a UN report issued in the beginning of
February, "Afghan poppies serve as the raw material for
about 80 percent of the heroin and other opium
derivatives sold illegally in Europe." It goes on note
the "corrosive effects" of the Afghan drug trade on its
neighboring states. "Data from the region show," it
states, "there are close to 1 million opiate abusers in
Iran, 700,000 in Pakistan, and more than 300,000 in
Central Asia. Shown as a percentage of the population
over age 15, this amounts to nearly 1 percent of the
population in Pakistan and Central Asia and 2.8 percent
of the population in Iran. That's a far higher
percentage of abusers than in Western Europe."
The labor-intensive nature of the opium
cultivation is also engulfing a large chunk of the
Afghan population, including women and children. A very
obvious solution is to engage this population in
"alternative economic means". For women, such an
alternative includes providing jobs, while for children,
an eminently better option is to send them to schools.
Thus, we come full circle: for all these activities, the
Afghan government not only needs financial assistance,
but technical assistance from donor states.
Hamid Karzai is only too aware of his country's
needs. That is why he showed up in Washington in the
last week of February, at a time when Washington was
fully immersed in pushing through another UN resolution
legitimizing the Bush administration's impending
invasion of Iraq. His message was simple but poignant,
"Don't forget us if Iraq happens," Karzai said. "If you
reduce the attention because of Iraq ... and if you
leave the whole thing to us to fight again, it will be
repeating the mistake the United States made during the
Soviet occupation."
But "not forgetting"
Afghanistan means making a very serious commitment about
nation building. It is about letting Afghanistan grow
into a moderate Muslim democracy, and not goading it
into becoming a Scandinavian democracy. Afghanistan will
never become a Scandinavian democracy. But then who said
that becoming a moderate Muslim democracy is not a
better option than emulating Scandinavians, or even the
Americans every step of the way.
Ehsan
Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based
independent strategic analyst.
(©2003 Asia
Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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