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US
explores its Afghanistan exit
options
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With Afghanistan daily slipping
into more anarchy and chaos, United States authorities,
aware that they are unlikely to ever bring stability to
the country by military means, continue to explore
political avenues that ultimately could pave the way for
them to withdraw from the country.
First there were the
talks at the Pakistan Air Force base in Quetta with "moderate"
elements of the Taliban (which immediately
failed due to the US insistence on the sidelining
of Taliban leader Mullah Omar). Then came the formation
of Jaishul Muslim, a formal grouping of lesser Taliban
lights (which failed even to enter into
Afghanistan), and moves to pry some of the more powerful
mujahideen commanders from the anti-US resistance
movement.
And last week, former Taliban foreign
minister Mullah Abdul Wakeel Mutawakil was released from
US custody in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar,
where he had been in detention since handing himself
over to the US in February last year.
Mutawakil
has often been described in the Western media as a more
"respectable" face of the Taliban. Shortly before the US
sent troops to Afghanistan in late 2001, he reportedly
had a major disagreement with Mullah Omar over
sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan. It was reported that Mutawakil led a group
of Taliban who wanted bin Laden to leave Afghanistan to
avoid US reprisals against the regime for sheltering
al-Qaeda. Before becoming the Taliban foreign minister,
Mutawakil is believed to have served as a spokesman and
personal secretary to Mullah Omar.
The US
has been forced to pursue different tactics in
Afghanistan as a result of the failure of their hand-picked
man, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, to
significantly establish his writ (ie, the US writ) over the
country, let alone the capital, Kabul. Similarly, the
carefully chosen (ie, compliant) governors in the
southern provinces have proved incapable of stamping
their authority in their regions, which have now become
hotbeds of resistance.
The real power pillars of
the Kabul regime, including the Northern Alliance and
General Abdul Rasheed Dostum, have now clearly marked
the boundaries of their interests, and they are at
complete odds with those of the US. Pakistan, too, has
shown leanings toward those who are not favored by the
US right now.
The current role of
Pakistan
A few weeks ago, a top US diplomat visited
the Pakistani port city of Karachi, and in an informal
meeting told this correspondent that the US was very
satisfied with Pakistan's role in cracking down on al-Qaeda.
"Pakistan really helped us in arresting them," the
envoy said. However, with regard to the Taliban, Pakistan's
role was altogether another matter, and it could
not be fully trusted, the diplomat said.
Over
the past months, Pakistan has supported select Afghan
commanders with whom it had forged links during the
former USSR's invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
These were covert operations, but now Islamabad is
openly telling the US that it will "tame" these
mujahideen if the US considers them important enough in
Afghanistan's power structure.
Well before the
collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in early
2002, Pakistan did its level best to create an
alternative force to fill the looming power vacuum, but
unfortunately its choices, including the Hizb-i-Islami,
Afghanistan of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, were not acceptable
to the US. As a result, Pakistan had to digest the
bitter pill of a pro-India, Iran and Russia Northern
Alliance being given the dominant slice of power in
Kabul.
But now, with the US's first choice
proving so poor, US authorities are keen on soliciting
Pakistan's assistance in sorting out the mess in
Afghanistan, which includes the "moderate" Taliban
concept, which initially the US found repugnant.
This initiative has increased with the release
of Mutawakil, who is now expected, with help from the
Pakistanis, to be given a senior position in the local
government in Kandahar, the former spiritual
headquarters of the Taliban.
At the same time,
options are being explored to recruit other powerful
former Taliban ministers into the central cabinet in key
positions, including that of defense. On the one hand,
they would then be in a position to cool the anti-US
resistance, and also serve as a counterweight to the
Northern Alliance, which the US is now finding somewhat
recalcitrant.
The main problem would remain,
though: the big names among the field commanders who
have a large and loyal following among the masses. This
is where Pakistan comes in, and it is working on behalf
of the US to "convert", for example, the legendary
mujahideen Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Soon
after September 11, 2001, Pakistan authorities invited
Haqqani to Islamabad, where he was offered inducements
by US authorities to change sides. He refused, and gave
up his high position in the Taliban regime to take up
arms as a guerrilla against the US-led invading army.
He currently commands a large force in the
Paktia, Paktika and Khost regions where the resistance
is at its fiercest. Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence, according to Asia Times Online sources,
has assured the US that sooner or later Haqqani will be
on their side. Close aides of Haqqani, though, dismiss
out of hand such talk.
Which leaves the
US no closer to breaking the deadlock in the country.
Northern Alliance
Some well placed
sources have confirmed to Asia Times Online that contact
between the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, Dostum and two
powerful hardline Islamic parties of the Northern
Alliance - the Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan led by
Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani and the Ittahad-i-Islami
Afghanistan, led by Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf.
Apparently, recent anti-US skirmishes in Sarobi,
Logar and Imam Sahab were the result of this new nexus.
Such an alliance would further undermine US interests.
Hamid Karzai
Many supporters of
former monarch Zahir Shah, who initially backed Karzai
in the hopes of royalists being allowed back into
government, have become disillusioned as they believe
that Karzai wants to become the unequivocal, and
long-term leader of Afghanistan.
Karzai did have
some support in Kandahar, but the latest mass escape of
Taliban prisoners there illustrates that the network in
the local administration has deep roots. Ever so slowly,
events continue to turn against the US.
But even
as the US attempts new approaches to counter these
developments, such as talking to moderate Taliban, there
is a growing awareness that the Taliban are not the real
issue. They became US targets after September 11 for the
simple reason that they were providing bin Laden and
al-Qaeda sanctuary. The Taliban, therefore, were one of
the first real casualties of the "war on terror".
Now, al-Qaeda's network in Afghanistan has
effectively been broken, and it poses no threat to the
US in that country. Thus, a growing argument runs, since
there is no threat, should the US really care who rules
the wasteland that is Afghanistan, be it the Taliban or
the Northern Alliance or a combination thereof? Better
that the US pull out its troops and leave the Afghanis
to themselves.
Taking this reasoning a few steps
further, one can only speculate how long it will be
before the US begins dialogue with Mullah
Omar.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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