Unlikely bedfellows in Afghanistan By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is scheduled to hold a conference
on Afghanistan in Moscow on March 27, a few days ahead of a similar United
Nations meeting in The Hague in the Netherlands. Russia, which holds the
current SCO presidency, has sent out invitations to India, Turkey, Pakistan,
Iran, the Group of Eight nations, the UN, as well as the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) to what is increasingly shaping up as a landmark event.
NATO secretary general Japp de Hoop Scheffer is reportedly planning to attend
the SCO meeting, which will focus on the "situation in Afghanistan and its
influence on neighboring states, boosting joint efforts by the international
community to counteract terrorism, the illegal drug trade and trans-border
organized crime
from Afghan territory", according to an official SCO statement.
The SCO is an inter-governmental regional organization that comprises Russia,
China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Iran, India, Mongolia
and Pakistan have observer status. According to the US envoy to Moscow, John
Beryle, the US will send a high-level delegation led by a senior diplomat. This
is a positive gesture by US President Barack Obama that is bound to smooth the
groundwork for his much-anticipated summit with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry
Medvedev, who announced the Moscow conference in January.
Due to their geographical proximity to Afghanistan and the threats of conflict
spillover, the SCO members are naturally concerned about the security meltdown
in Afghanistan. As a result, it is not far-fetched to anticipate a near-term
breakthrough over SCO-NATO cooperation on Afghanistan. This would be despite
lingering SCO suspicions of NATO's "out of area" operations in their backyard.
NATO's decision to put on hold the accession of Georgia and Ukraine dampens
these suspicions.
The key issue is the nature of any possible SCO-NATO cooperation.
In 2005, the SCO and Afghanistan set up a liaison group based in Beijing to
deal with drug trafficking, cross-border crime and intelligence-sharing. But
not much has happened and then-president Vladimir Putin's 2004 call for a SCO
"security belt" around Afghanistan to stop the drug trade has not materialized.
This is partly because the SCO is still in the process of self-definition, and
unlike NATO, or for that matter the Moscow-dominated Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), it lacks the identity of a military bloc.
In a recent interview, the SCO secretary general, Bolat Nurgaliev, stated that
"any physical involvement by the SCO in Afghanistan has not been contemplated
so far". But with NATO admittedly failing to secure Afghanistan, the NATO
leadership may now be amenable to the idea of a co-security partnership with
SCO. This could begin with the low-security issues of drug trafficking and arms
smuggling. This would parcel out a slice of the Afghan security pie to the SCO,
traditionally viewed with suspicion in the US and European capitals as a
potential rival to NATO.
In a separate development, according to a source at the UN, China is leaning in
favor of a UN peacekeeping force for Afghanistan to which it would contribute,
this in contrast to Russia's cool reception of this option. At the UN's
Department of Peacekeeping Operations, which is a major organizer of The Hague
Afghan conference, the idea of sending blue helmets to guard Afghanistan's
porous borders is under serious consideration.
Whether or not the SCO and NATO can cooperate on low-security issues depends on
each organization's sober "threat analysis" and NATO's firm conclusion that it
cannot handle Afghanistan alone. But, perhaps more important than any decision
by the SCO and NATO leaders is whether India and Pakistan can stop competing
and begin to cooperate on Afghanistan.
Pakistan, one way or another, continues to call many security shots in
Afghanistan and is fundamentally opposed to India's growing economic influence
in Afghanistan, a country that until the US's invasion of Taliban-ruled
Afghanistan in 2001 was firmly within Islamabad's sphere of influence.
But, that was then and today, per the admission of Nurgaliev, Afghanistan has
become "the playground for India, Pakistan and Central Asia ... Only India can
establish strong economic linkages with Afghanistan because of its economic
potential."
This is definitely bad music to Islamabad's ear and, by all indications,
Pakistani leaders are willing to sacrifice Afghanistan's welfare for the sake
of their ever-pressing security calculations. In other words, there are not
high hopes of any meaningful India-Pakistan rapprochement over Afghanistan, no
matter how their diplomats conduct themselves at international forums for the
sake of their respective public constituencies.
NATO faces opposition to opening the doors to the SCO for a sphere of influence
in Afghanistan, with some US experts even advising against NATO's participation
in the Moscow meeting, the argument being that this would primarily serve
Russia's geopolitical interests to the detriment of both US and NATO interests
in the region.
But those who continue to view SCO-NATO relations primarily through the prism
of a new cold war miss the point that there is a convergence of interests
between the two sides on such issues as Afghanistan's security and the threat
of Islamist radicalism and terrorism. These dictate the necessity of
incremental cooperation between them, perhaps within the familiar framework of
simultaneous cooperation and competition.
Such selective cooperation between the SCO and NATO would most likely
strengthen the hands of those voices within the SCO which have been pushing for
a US and European Union-inclusive "SCO + 3", the third potential member being
Japan. This is an unlikely scenario, yet worth repeating for purely
confidence-building purposes.
Moscow and Beijing have divergent perspectives on the purpose of the SCO in the
geopolitical realm, with Beijing favoring a more circumspect security and
military role for the organization than envisioned by Moscow. Nonetheless, the
Moscow meeting has the potential to cement the bond between the SCO's twin
pillars at a critical moment in international affairs.
Simultaneously, in light of the SCO-Afghan contact group's primacy of the
counter-narcotics agenda, the Moscow meeting could improve information-sharing
and security coordination between NATO and SCO on this particular issue. It
could also lead to an enhanced role for Iran, which is a frontline state in the
war against the Afghan drug trade.
NATO-SCO cooperation over the narcotics trade will likely pave the way to a
NATO-Iran dialogue, given Iran's observer role in the SCO and the current
public discussions of the possibility of an Iranian corridor for NATO supplies
to Afghanistan. Possibly, Iran could serve as a transmission belt between the
SCO and NATO. It could do this by providing a cooperation mechanism between
them by participating in the NATO-SCO dialogue on narcotics and arms traffic
and in any (hitherto improbable) NATO-SCO cooperation on Afghan security.
China, which has just bolstered its ties with Iran by signing yet another major
gas deal worth US$3.2 billion, may actually be more amenable than Moscow to
allowing an enhanced Iranian role on Afghanistan via the SCO. This could be as
a twin of China's Central Asia policy that seeks a more independent role for
Central Asian states on regional issues.
The issue of combating the growing problems stemming from Afghanistan is
inherently tied in with a complex web of other issues that are both proximate
and long-range. This makes it difficult for the policymakers of the SCO
themselves, thus giving rise to political and security ambivalence and, quite
possibly, even paralysis.
As a result, the most likely outcome of such initiatives as the Moscow meeting
will be bilateral rather than multilateral, save information-sharing by the
drug enforcement agencies.
A narrow focus on Afghanistan's narcotics traffic does not serve any purpose,
however, as it is symptomatic of a narco-economy that is fully addicted to the
illicit hundreds of millions that is shared by the smugglers, opium farmers,
the Taliban, warlords and even some segments of the Afghan government. A
successful anti-drug campaign in Afghanistan hinges on developmental
assistance, anti-corruption efforts and security stabilization.
There are also concerns that the SCO will not be able to deliver as a result of
an internal lack of unity on the organization's role and mission. There are
unintended side-effects to any initiative. Some SCO members, such as
Uzbekistan, may not be particularly keen on following Moscow's script on
Afghanistan, so they may sing a slightly different tune at the conference. For
sure, some Central Asian leaders are worried about Moscow exploiting Afghan
problems to create a more defense-oriented organization out of the SCO.
The problem, or better said paradox, of the SCO is that in light of the welter
of instabilities in the SCO region, the evolution of the SCO along this line
may, indeed, be inevitable. An emerging "soft" nexus between the SCO and NATO
on Afghanistan will create new linkages that in the short run will militate
against any cold war "bipolarity".
The big question is whether this will sustain itself in the intermediate and
long term or, rather, turn into its opposite by simply acting as a dress
rehearsal for the SCO's emergence as a military and security bloc.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
latest book,
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.
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