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Destabilize and prevail
By Ehsan Ahrari
If one can put the strategy
of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan in a
nutshell, it can be described as destabilize and
prevail. It may sound simple, but it is potent in the
sense that as long as that terrorist group succeeds in
destabilizing the government of interim President Hamid
Karzai, it can not only create sentiments of defeat and
dejection among representatives and supporters of the
current government, but also sustain a sense of high
hope and optimism among its own supporters that their
victory is only around the corner.
The most
critical and imminent objectives for the United States
after the dismantlement of the Taliban regime should
have been to plunge into rebuilding the new Afghan
government. A glaring reality about that troubled
country was that after the expulsion of the Soviet
occupiers in 1989, no systematic endeavors were
undertaken by any major power, group of powers, or the
United Nations to establish a central government, and
assiduously work to establish and then enhance the
legitimacy of that government. No similar attempts were
made to improve the security environment of Afghanistan.
So, the international expectation after ousting
the Taliban from power was that the US would take all
necessary steps not to repeat the mistakes of the past
and would remain focused on establishing and nurturing
the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA), especially since it
was hand-picked by the Bush administration.
But
the awesome mission of rebuilding a legitimate
government in Afghanistan and the related important
tasks were abandoned to bring about a regime change in
Iraq. Consequently, today's Afghanistan has no
legitimate government beyond the outskirts of Kabul.
Warlordism - the fiefdoms established by warlords that
undermine all chances of the emergence of an effective
central government - that prevailed during the
pre-Taliban phase of the mujahideen government have
resurged with a vengeance.
Even though US forces
have been present in Afghanistan since the ouster of the
Taliban, even they opted to cooperate and promote
warlordism simply because the US policy gave primacy to
hunting down the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda at
the expense of enhancing the scope of governance and
legitimacy of the Karzai government. According to a
report issued by the Human Rights Watch in the last week
of July, warlords whom the US propped up so that they
could fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban "are terrorizing
much of the country. Their gunmen are intimidating
journalists and political opponents as well as robbing,
detaining and raping ordinary Afghans with impunity."
The governing formula that was promoted by the
US relied heavily on the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance,
since that entity bore the brunt of the ground war that
brought about the defeat of the Taliban fighting forces.
The Taliban are ethnically Pashtun. Consequently, the
Bush administration never developed a high level of
trust for the Pashtun. By the same token, the US's heavy
reliance on the Northern Alliance buttressed the
perception of the Pashtun population at large that the
AIA is merely a puppet entity of Washington. The fact
that it could not increase its governing ability by
carrying out mundane, but highly vital, bureaucratic
functions - such as law enforcement, providing welfare
services, education, and health care, etc - did very
little to change the negative perception of the Karzai
government. The Afghan government's inability to
persuade the warlords to hand over tax revenues to the
central government was dramatized in May when Karzai
threatened to resign over the issue.
One of the
outcomes of the prolonged weak and hapless nature of the
AIA is that the Taliban and al-Qaeda nexus is
increasingly showing its ugly face through a campaign of
terror and intimidation. This time, the victims are
those Muslim clerics who are arguing against the Taliban
call for jihad. Two such clerics were recently gunned
down, and a third one was injured when a
remote-controlled bomb exploded in a mosque, also
injuring 24 worshippers. Bands of 50 or more pro-Taliban
fighters are appearing in the areas bordering, as well
in the interior sections of Kandahar. In the border town
Chaman, Pakistan, "high ranking Taliban officials are
meeting openly and handing out guns, money and
motorbikes ..." according to one news report. It is
worth noting that the terrorists have used motorbikes in
Pakistan to carry out assassinations and hit and run
terrorist campaigns.
A systematic campaign of
silencing the voices of critics of the Taliban and their
interpretation of Islam is on the rise. Since North-West
Frontier Province and Balochistan are effectively under
the administrative control of Pakistani Islamists, it is
hard to distinguish whether there is, indeed, any
political distance between the Pakistani Islamists and
the Afghan Taliban. The head of one of the largest
Pashtun tribes noted on August 5, "If someone rises up
to say something about democracy or social equality,
then tomorrow he won't exist anymore." He went on to
observe, "We are tough people. The experiences we are
having now make us lose our hope for the future."
So, whose fault is it that Afghanistan remains
no more than a failed state, even when the US is the
occupying power? The answer is: that of the US, to be
sure. However, in the past two weeks or so, there are
helpful signs that the Bush administration might be
paying more attention to nation-building in that
tormented land. The US government has committed about
US$1 billion, and it is likely to urge other donors to
open their pocketbooks.
But the most promising
development is that North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) forces took charge of peacekeeping in Afghanistan
on August 11. An important strategy of NATO's
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will be
to extend the authority of the Karzai government out to
the provinces. Any expansion of the role of the ISAF
requires a new UN mandate, however. But since the US
does not have any objection, it might be a matter of
time before such a mandate is sought and granted. Karzai
and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have been calling
for such a mandate. However, if the US were not to seek
a UN mandate for the role of NATO forces in Afghanistan,
there is fear on the part of India and Iran that NATO's
"backdoor entry" into Afghanistan would lead to further
undermining of the UN.
But the most decisive
variable in undermining the terrorists' strategy of
"destabilize and prevail" is a focused commitment of the
US to rebuild Afghanistan. Until the AIA emerges as a
powerful, capable and legitimate entity for its
constituents, there is always that chance that the
al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus will continue its probing to
enhance its presence and influence in Afghanistan and in
contiguous areas.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD,
is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent
strategic analyst.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
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