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NATO's hot potato
By
Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Formidable
challenges confront the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization as it assumes control of peacekeeping in
Afghanistan. It is the first time NATO is being deployed
outside Europe. With the alliance taking charge of the
International Security Assistance Force, the uncertainty
of finding a "lead nation" every six months to head ISAF
might have been removed. But whether the ISAF under NATO
will be able to tackle the sea of uncertainty in
Afghanistan remains to be seen.
NATO forces are
already deployed on peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and
Bosnia-Herzegovina. They are likely to find their
mission in Afghanistan far more challenging. The
logistics of deploying in the Balkans is easier, as it
is closer to home and infrastructure there is in better
shape. Equipment and supplies to landlocked and remote
Afghanistan will have to be airlifted.
Although
NATO's area of operations in Afghanistan is smaller -
the ISAF is responsible only for security in the capital
Kabul and its surrounding areas - the challenges
involved in peacekeeping in a country with deep ethnic
rivalries and inter-clan conflicts is likely to be more
daunting.
There are demands for extending the
ISAF's mandate beyond Kabul. The security situation
outside the capital is serious, with the government's
writ still not running in large swaths of territory. In
an attempt to extend the government's influence beyond
Kabul, the United States has set up groups, known as
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), comprising
soldiers and humanitarian-aid workers. So far, the PRTs
have had little success in supplanting the influence of
local warlords.
Humanitarian-aid workers as well
as United Nations agencies working in Afghanistan have
been drawing attention to the sharp deterioration in the
security situation in recent months. In fact, last month
saw some of the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan since
the toppling of the Taliban regime in December 2001.
The resurgence of the Taliban in recent months
has been confirmed by none less than the acting
commander of the US-led coalition force in Afghanistan,
General F L "Buster" Hagenback. Hagenback admitted last
month that there has been an increase in Taliban
activity, especially in southern and eastern
Afghanistan, along the country's long border with
Pakistan.
Hagenback also spoke of increased
attacks in northeastern Afghanistan, also close to the
Pakistani border, where fighters belonging to Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami are operating on the Jalalabad
road, and that second- or third-level al-Qaeda leaders
are trying to establish cells on the road between Khost
and Gardez. Jalalabad is on the main road between
Peshawar in Pakistan and Kabul, while Khost and Gardez
are traditional Taliban bastions in Afghanistan and
adjacent to the Pakistani tribal agencies.
The
resurgence of the Taliban is evident not only from the
sharp rise in the number of attacks they have carried
out in recent months, but also from the increase in the
size of the groups that stage the attack. More than 200
Taliban fighters are said to have participated in a
major attack on a government checkpoint near the border
town of Spin Boldak in mid-July. While there are
conflicting claims regarding the number of casualties on
both sides, what is significant is the number of Taliban
fighters that were involved in the attack. Ahmed Rashid,
an expert on Afghanistan, observes that until a few
months ago, attacks by the Taliban never involved more
than a dozen or so fighters. "The increase in their
numbers reflects the impunity with which they believe
they can now operate," Rashid said.
The sharp
rise in Taliban activity comes even as Afghanistan
prepares for a nationwide debate on a new constitution.
The loya jirga (grand council) is scheduled to
meet in October. Serious doubts persist over the depth
of US commitment to Afghanistan. The United States is
the largest contributor of funds to Afghanistan, but C
Raja Mohan, a noted Indian strategic-affairs analyst,
points out in The Hindu that the US spends several times
more in Kosovo and Bosnia than it does in Afghanistan.
At a press briefing in Washington on July 28, US
State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher confirmed
a billion-dollar aid package to Afghanistan to be used
for reconstruction projects. However, analysts believe
that stepping up economic assistance or deploying more
troops will not make a difference so long as US policy
in Southwest Asia remains flawed.
Raja Mohan
points out that the United States will not succeed in
normalizing the situation in Afghanistan so long as it
"remains unwilling to squeeze Islamabad into
full-fledged cooperation in isolating and defeating the
forces threatening Afghanistan's stability".
Indeed, sections in the administration of US
President George W Bush recognize that Pakistan is not
doing enough to crack down on the al-Qaeda and the
Taliban operating from its territory. At a press
conference on July 15, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special
envoy to Afghanistan, said: "Every effort has to be made
by Pakistan not to allow its territory to be used by
Taliban elements. We need 100 percent assurances on this
from Pakistan, not 50 percent assurances.
"We
know the Taliban are planning in Quetta," Khalilzad
added, referring to the Pakistani city.
"The
American recognition, however, that full cooperation
from Pakistan [to Washington's 'war on terror'] is not
forthcoming has not been matched by policy decisions in
Washington to press Islamabad to stop undermining the
new government in Afghanistan," observed Raja Mohan.
"Worse still, as tensions have mounted in recent weeks
between Kabul and Islamabad, the US pressure appears to
be directed more towards the Afghan [interim] president,
Hamid Karzai, than the Pakistani leader, [President
General] Pervez Musharraf."
A significant reason
for Pakistan's increased support to Taliban activities
in Afghanistan lies in rival India's visible and growing
presence in Afghanistan. India has good ties with both
the Northern Alliance and Karzai. More important, its
role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan has won it the
Afghan people's goodwill.
In an article in the
Pakistani newspaper The Daily Times, Ahmed Rashid wrote,
"The Indians have built schools for Afghan children
[and] hospitals for Afghan women, Indian buses by the
hundreds ply Kabul's streets, and the national airline
Ariana is being resurrected by the free gift of three
Airbuses. India is building roads in western Afghanistan
and repairing dams in eastern Afghanistan. India has
developed a highly constructive, imaginative
reconstruction strategy for Afghanistan that is designed
to please every sector of Afghan society, give India a
high profile with the Afghan people, gain the maximum
political advantage with the Afghan government, increase
its influence with its Northern Alliance friends and
turn its image from that of a country that supported the
Soviet invasion and the communist regime in the 1980s to
an indispensable ally and friend of the Afghan people in
the new century."
Not surprisingly, India's
rising profile in Afghanistan has prompted unease in
Pakistan. Unfortunately, instead of correcting past
mistakes and rethinking its strategy, Pakistan is back
to seeking to increase its influence in Afghanistan
through stepping up support for Taliban activity in that
country.
Pointing to Pakistan's flawed strategy
in Afghanistan, Rashid wrote, "We [Pakistan] have not
built a single hospital, school or road in Afghanistan.
We have given little to the Afghan people of the
promised US$100 million that we had offered at the Tokyo
conference except for a US$10 million grant for the
Afghan budget last year. Our promise to build the
Torkhum-Jalalabad-Kabul road has not been fulfilled.
There is no attempt to carry out high-profile projects.
We have no reconstruction strategy and prefer living off
our 'past sacrifices for the Afghan people', such as
providing succor to the refugees and backing the
Taliban. To top it all, after adopting this totally
negative strategy, President Musharraf, his generals,
his agencies and most lately his ministers [incredibly]
claim that it is Indian interference that is wounding
Afghanistan, damaging our relations with Kabul and
supporting terrorism."
Clearly, Pakistan has not
learned any lessons from its experience in Afghanistan.
After the professed about-turn in its policy of
supporting the Taliban - whether it actually stopped its
support to the Taliban is doubtful - Pakistan is back to
meddling in Afghan affairs with a vengeance and in the
way it knows best - supporting and exporting terrorism.
As for the United States, neither has it learned
any lessons from the past. Its flawed strategy of
allowing Pakistan to determine its decisions, policy and
operations in Afghanistan is sure to boomerang.
Hekmetyar, the Inter-Services Intelligence's
(ISI) favorite warlord, has now joined hands with the
Taliban. Reports in the media indicate that the United
States is trying to strike a deal with him and the
Taliban. The plan, it seems, is to provide for some
Taliban representation in the government in return for
an end to the hit-and-run attacks on coalition forces.
The ISI is said to be acting as the go-between.
Proponents of doing a deal with the Taliban and
the Hekmetyar are articulating an argument one heard
often from 1995 onward - that the Taliban was "good" for
Afghanistan as it brought "order" and "peace" to the
chaotic, war-ravaged country.
Is it yesterday
once more?
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co,
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
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