IASPS
Division for Research in
Strategy
IASPS Research Papers in
Strategy April 2000 No. 9
The Afghan Vortex
By Elie Krakowski*
* Dr. Krakowski is a former Dept of Defense
official, who worked on the Afghan issue in the 1980's. For
further information contact Dr. Krakowski at EDK consulting
Afghanistan.The very name conjures up notions of some far
away land, of war with the Soviets, and now of a haven for
international terrorists and drugs. The country is small, poor,
inhospitable, and one of the least developed in the world. There
are no railroads to speak of, a primitive road network, some of
the most difficult terrain in the world, with high, sometimes
inaccessible mountains. Its people are fierce. In the words of
Jason Goodwin: "This is a region that has swallowed
civilizations, and sent the sands to seal them up. It has been
dug, charted, swindled and coerced, but what can change the fact
that its deserts are as dry as ever, its mountains vast, and it
is still a long, long way from the sea?"[1]
Why then have so many great nations fought in and over
Afghanistan, and why should we be concerned with it now? In
short, because Afghanistan is the crossroads between what
Halford MacKinder called the world's Heartland and the Indian
sub continent. It owes its importance to its location at the
confluence of major routes. A boundary between land power and
sea power, it is the meeting point between opposing forces
larger than itself. Alexander the Great used it as a path to
conquest. So did the Moghuls. An object of competition between
the British and Russian empires in the 19th century, Afghanistan
became a source of controversy between the American and Soviet
superpowers in the 20th. With the collapse of the Soviet Union,
it has become an important potential opening to the sea for the
landlocked new states of Central Asia. The presence of large oil
and gas deposits in that area has attracted countries and
multinational corporations. Russia and China, not to mention
Pakistan and India, are deeply involved in trying to shape the
future of what may be the world's most unchangeable people.
Because Afghanistan is a major strategic pivot what happens
there affects the rest of the world.
Throughout the world we see the rapid proliferation of new
states (or entities seeking to become states). As quick, has
been a sort of spreading collapse of state power. This has been
true in most of Africa, in large segments of the former Soviet
Union, and in Central and South Asia. Afghanistan may be the
prototype case. It certainly remains a prime illustration of how
a seemingly unimportant entities can exert disproportionate
influence on the course of great events.
Today, most of the states active in the Afghanistan drama are
weak, have major internal problems, and are confronting
international tensions. Pakistan, currently the dominant player,
is in grave economic straits, faces mounting internal
instability and sectarian violence, all in addition to
heightened tensions with India over Kashmir. Russia has gone
from one economic crisis to another, and faces major ethnic
unrest, including a protracted guerrilla war in Chechnya. Its
political system is unstable. Some have questioned the
capability of Moscow to control its own far-flung provinces, let
alone attempt to exert influence abroad.[2] The new Central
Asian republics face actual or potential ethnic and sectarian
strife. All are highly vulnerable to external intervention,
especially from Russia. Iran's own internal institutions are
torn between the factions of a massively unpopular ruling
theocratic elite. China, without doubt the most powerful of the
neighboring states, also confronts an unsettled situation in its
Muslim province of Xinjiang, abutting northeastern Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Kazakhstan. Furthermore, as Beijing's crackdown
on the Falun Dong sect and dissidents indicates, Chinese
authorities are increasingly concerned (with reason) over their
control of the population. Rapid modernization and economic
progress have released decentralizing pressures and tendencies
that ill accord with the requirements of Communist control.[3]
Why then are they all involved in Afghanistan, and what are
their chances of getting what they want?
In short, these countries' essentially zero-sum-game policies
aimed at control, have virtually no chance of succeeding.
Pakistan, in the driver's seat in Afghanistan for the time
being, continues trying to establish a malleable puppet
government led by the Taliban, a radical Islamic movement mostly
of the majority Pushtun ethnic group. On the other side are most
of the remaining interested parties: a loose anti-Pakistan,
anti-Taliban coalition of Russia, Iran, most of the Central
Asian republics, and India. Pakistani strategy rests on its
association with the Pushtuns, the dominant ethnic group in
Afghanistan, who live in the southeast, while that of its
opponents perforce leans on northern ethnic minorities, the
Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and the Shiite Hazaras of the country's central
massif. This coalition, even were it to be successful
militarily, would not be able to effectively govern Afghanistan
any more than would the Pushtuns.
All of Afghanistan's neighbors are fearful of the Islamic
fundamentalist threat posed by the Taliban spreading into their
own territories. Russia has from the beginning sought to keep
the former Soviet Central Asian republics within the Russian
orbit, which in part has meant ensuring their continued
dependence on Russia. The opening of a new trade route for the
Central Asian republics through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the
Indian Ocean would clearly defeat such an objective. Iran has
similarly sought to prevent the possible flow of Central Asian
oil and gas through Afghanistan. Iran has jealously guarded its
position in the energy field and sought to discourage the
construction of any pipeline that would not go through Iran
itself. Blocking a consolidation of Pakistani control over
Afghanistan is clearly easier to do than for Pakistan to firm up
and maintain such control. But, as we will see, even Islamabad
may not be looking for stability in a way familiar in the West.
And attempting to perpetuate a state of what we might call
"controlled chaos" is, as the Soviets were fond of
saying, "playing with fire. "
The possibility of a non-zero-sum game solution, beneficial to
all, exists. So far none of the parties have shown the least
inclination to seek such a solution. Obviously, the West in
general and the U.S. in particular, cannot hope to teach the
various parties what policies would be in their ultimate
interest. Yet the following pages point out some opportunities
available to the West to stabilize Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's twentieth century history encompasses two major
geostrategic thrusts. The first from 1978 to 1989, a
Moscow-generated southward movement, was a catastrophic failure
that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The end of
the first thrust was followed by a short ambiguous interregnum
of some three years, 1989 to 1992, which saw both the collapse
of the southward thrust and the creation of a significant
political vacuum. This political vacuum presented Pakistan with
unforeseen opportunities. The second thrust, from 1992 to
present, is northward and underwritten by Islamabad. While still
being played out, it seems well on its way to following the sad
pattern established earlier by the Soviet Union. Initial
successes, which by 1997 were leading some observers to proclaim
a Taliban victory and counsel accommodation with the status quo,
by 1998-1999 were giving way to stalemate. The Taliban's
inability to achieve a definitive victory, discussed below, was
then just as quickly interpreted as signifying its approaching
end. Could it be that Islamabad will soon face a choice similar
to the one that confronted Moscow in late 1978 and 1979? Or are
there constraints upon Pakistan which did not exist for the
Soviet Union? In any event, is there any reason to believe that
Islamabad might succeed where Moscow failed? Or again, is there
perhaps a way to break out of the established pattern? The
material that follows explores the pattern of the thrusts
outlined above and attempts to address these questions.
· Southward Thrust, 1953 -1989
Emir Abdur Rahman, Afghanistan's leader in the late 19th
century, described his country - then the target of the
Russian-British Great Game, as a goat between two lions. That
apt phrase described well the position of Afghanistan between
the countervailing pressures of the two empires. The British
withdrawal, after WWII, removed the only counterweight to
Russian expansion. Moreover, British colonial policies had
ensured that relations between Afghanistan and the new state of
Pakistan would be inimical from the start. Afghanistan was the
only country which voted against the admission of the new state
of Pakistan to the United Nations. The boundary between the two
states - the so-called Durand Line - was the product of
concessions forced upon a reluctant but helpless Afghanistan by
the British in the 19th century. It arbitrarily divided major
Pushtun tribes on the two sides of a new border, and immediately
became a source of controversy. That antagonism helped the
Soviet Union's gradual penetration of Afghanistan.
Soviet interest and influence in the country begins in the early
post-Revolutionary period. The Soviet push for dominance of
Afghanistan, however, began in 1953 when Mohammed Daoud, a
cousin and brother-in-law of the king, became prime minister and
availed himself of Soviet offers of assistance against Pakistan.
Soviet military assistance, including the training of Afghan
officers in the USSR, began at Daoud's initiative. Nevertheless,
Afghanistan tried to balance its growing links with Moscow with
repeated requests for American economic and military assistance.
Washington rebuffed these requests.[4] As Leon Poullada wrote,
by the mid 1950s "a more powerful obstacle had
emerged." Pakistan, a new American ally, objected strongly
to any U.S. military assistance to Afghanistan.[5]
>From that time onward, Moscow's influence in Afghanistan was
never challenged by other powers. The U.S. was content to leave
that country within the Soviet sphere of influence. In drawing
its ring of alliances through Pakistan, Washington had conceded
Afghanistan. By 1960 Moscow was already asking to have Soviet
advisers placed in each Afghan ministry. As in other countries,
Moscow operated through the formal state structures as well as
by encouraging the development and growth of local Communist
movements. The Afghan Communist Party, the PDPA (People's
Democratic Party of Afghanistan) was created in 1965, a
byproduct of the previous year's democratization moves by the
king. In 1973, when former Prime Minister Daoud overthrew the
king and proclaimed a republic, it was with the support of
pro-Soviet army and air force officers, and with that of the
Parcham "Banner" wing of the Communist party.
The coup fit in neatly with Moscow's desire for ever greater
control over Afghan affairs. The leader of the coup, a cousin to
the king, had impeccable pro-Soviet credentials. But because
Daoud was a relative of the king, the change would be seen as
simply part of an internal family struggle and would therefore
be acceptable to the Afghan people. The transformation from
monarchy to republic through a nationalist leader would be seen
in the outside world as a progressive move in keeping with
modernizing trends. There was every reason to believe that
Soviet interests would be strengthened without raising
significant opposition.
The Soviets were soon disappointed. What happened next was
inherent in the nature of Afghanistan: Daoud, like many of the
Afghan leaders before and since, felt that he could manipulate
the Soviets while minimizing their manipulation of him and his
country. Once in power, Daoud started to eliminate his Communist
backers from positions of influence. Abroad, he soon embarked on
a series of moves to improve relations with neighboring states
and with religious Muslim states. In order to ensure a more
independent stance and to diversify his base of external
support, he began to send Afghan military officers to Egypt and
India for training. Just prior to his overthrow in 1973, he had
initiated similar steps with Pakistan.
In both the overthrow of the king and the bloody assassination
of Daoud a mere five years later, an Afghan leader's attempts to
improve relations with its neighbors - in particular with
Pakistan - was followed by his removal from power. Moscow, twice
disappointed with its path of indirect control, decided to rely
on Communists. The April 1978 coup brought the Khalq
"Masses" wing of the PDPA to power. The Communists
immediately proceeded to implement their Marxist program, which
entailed control of all aspects of Afghan life.
The Afghans, accustomed to the traditional autonomy of tribes
and tribal groups, had remained largely unconcerned by how their
central government was being run. However, the new rulers'
interference with that autonomy and assault on their religious
faith provoked massive and almost instantaneous armed
resistance. Once popular resistance began in 1978, the
Soviet-backed regime found itself in an increasingly difficult
situation.
Yet the Soviets did not have to invade. Aside from adjusting the
existing policy of military assistance, Moscow could have
replaced the existing Communist regime with a pliable
non-Communist "leader," and taken a much more gradual
path to a Leninist agenda. Thus, the resistance would have been
deprived of its reason for being. The decision to intervene with
massive force was a matter of serious dispute within the Soviet
leadership.[6] The Afghan Communist regime, while facing
problems, was not on the brink of being overthrown. The
resistance, while large scale and having an impact, was poorly
armed and organized. Soviet military intervention was initially
seen in Moscow as a massive show of force that would intimidate
the Afghan Mujahiddin, as the resistance came to be called. [7]
It was, in all likelihood, seen essentially as a shortcut to
solving a messy problem with brute force.
Early Soviet operations were patterned after the earlier
invasion of Czechoslovakia and, therefore poorly adapted to the
Afghan terrain and conditions.[8] Had Soviet political
assumptions proven correct, it may not have mattered much. As it
was, the intrusion of foreign troops into Afghanistan provided
the Afghans with what turned out to be the sole real unifier to
the disparate groups of fighters. Moscow realizing its mistake
during its first year in Afghanistan, began to adjust its
operations accordingly and settled in for a prolonged stay.
The Soviets focused on control of the cities and military
installations. There was never any attempt made at controlling
the countryside south of the Hindu Kush mountain range. Faced
with an unremittingly hostile population, Moscow never tried to
"win over" the Afghans. Massive aerial bombing was
meant to instill terror.[9] The Soviet solution was what became
known as "migratory genocide"-to empty the water -
that is to say chase the population out of the country, thereby
removing the base of support for the Resistance. And this they
did on a grand scale. Out of a pre-war population of 16 million,
by 1985 three and half million were refugees in Pakistan and
Iran. By 1989 there was approximately that many refugees in
Pakistan alone, with another one million or so in Iran. In 1981
Moscow was already conducting massive aerial bombardments in
various areas of the country. By 1982-1983 attention was also
being given to smaller operations, including the growing use of
Soviet Special Forces (Spetsnaz), the penetration of Afghan
Resistance groups, and the assassination of Resistance leaders.
Interestingly, the "migratory genocide" strategy was
implemented only in the southern, mostly Pushtun part of
Afghanistan. In the north, down to the Hindu Kush mountain
range, the Soviets followed a different, almost opposite
approach.[10] Just as for the south there was systematic
destruction and desolation, for the north the approach was to
build up. Instead of chasing the population, the attempt was to
co-opt it. The distinction between the two parts of the country
was not new. It had already been made wistfully by Tsarist
officials who were describing the Hindu Kush as the
"natural" boundaries between the Russian and British
Empires.
Instead of promoting desolation as in the south, in the north
the Soviets encouraged economic development including the
building of dams for irrigation, and the construction of
factories. Most of Afghanistan's natural resources also happen
to be in the north. The region is contiguous to the Soviet
Union, is readily accessible, has flatter terrain, and is thus
easier to pacify. Furthermore, a large portion of the people of
northern Afghanistan are of the same ethnic background as the
peoples of (then Soviet) Central Asia - Tadjiks, Uzbeks, and
Turkmen. Soviet officials and publications played on the ethnic
pride of the inhabitants and encouraged the use of their native
tongues - a practice discouraged until then within the Soviet
Union. The Soviets constantly harped on common traditions and
practices as a way to ethnic unity on both sides of the northern
border. Delegations were exchanged especially in cultural
matters between the two sides of the border.
All of this was part of Moscow's policy toward the Indian
sub-continent. The Soviets, directly and through their Afghan
Communist puppets, promoted and encouraged Afghan irredentist
claims over the parts of Pakistan inhabited by Pushtuns. In a
September 1985 speech to a Jirga (assembly) of the Pushtun
border tribes, Babrak Karmal, then the Afghan Communist leader,
openly called for the reunification of the Pushtuns (from both
sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border) under Afghan sovereignty.
Aside from reviving an old divisive issue between the two
countries, it was a call for the subversion of Pakistan.
Increasing Soviet military pressures upon Pakistan - large
numbers of cross-border artillery strikes and aircraft
penetrations - helped to drive the point home. The absorption of
northern Afghanistan within the Soviet Union, together with the
creation of a Pushtun state under Afghan Communist leadership
(and incorporating Baluch areas of southwestern Pakistan), would
have meant the end of Afghanistan as well as of Pakistan. More
importantly, it would also have yielded, for the first time, a
direct Soviet land route to the Arabian Sea. [11]
The key to Soviet strategy from the very beginning was to
prevent outside assistance to the Resistance. Moscow was
confident, and correctly so, that the Mujahiddin would not be
able to continue for long without external aid. Again, things
did not go quite as planned. The reaction to the Soviet invasion
boiled down only to a very modest, and covert, program of U.S.
aid to the Resistance, enabling the Soviets to make some
significant gains through 1982 and 1983. By then, both the
Afghan Mujahiddin and European humanitarian groups that were
seeking to help them, had recognized that without more
meaningful external assistance, the Afghans would indeed not be
able to continue for much longer. Both the Afghans and the
European humanitarian organizations, recognizing that the key to
such assistance lay in Washington, began to approach officials
there on aid to the Resistance. Because existing assistance to
the Afghans was under the guise of a "covert" program,
there was little open discussion of the issue. U.S. Government
discussions on the matter involved a small number of officials
in the executive branch and those members of Congress and their
staffs who had to act on requests for aid to the Resistance. The
author was part of that small number, and the remarks that
follow about the U.S. reaction refer to essentially such
internal arguments.
Until 1984 aid to the Resistance was sufficient only to keep the
Afghans fighting. There was no thought of gearing aid toward a
victory of the Resistance. As was often the case with U.S.
policy, the summary phrase could well have been, and for some
was, "raising the costs to the Soviets." A major shift
in policy however culminated in a 1985 Presidential Directive
that at least declared that the aim was to help the Afghans win.
When translated into substantive action, it came to mean more
forceful U.S. assistance that ultimately included Stinger
anti-aircraft missiles. The significance of the shipment of
Stingers to Afghanistan was not solely that they allowed the
Resistance to thwart the Soviet effort to depopulate the
countryside, but above all it signified to both sides a major
shift in the level of American commitment.
The main impetus for this shift in policy stemmed from growing
bipartisan Congressional pressure. The other part of that
impetus came from a very small number of officials within the
executive branch, chiefly in the Pentagon. It should be noted
that throughout the war the State Department and CIA continued
to resist meaningful aid to the Resistance. The eventual U.S.
policy was the byproduct of this friction.
By late 1984, military assistance to the Afghan Resistance was
becoming more serious, which meant that Soviet progress was at
the very least slowing, increasing their frustrations. To have
their intervention in Afghanistan seen as a victory, Moscow
needed to win conclusively. To lose, it only needed to be
confronted by the promise of a never-ending fight. As such, 1985
proved in this respect to be a turning point. It was then that
the Soviet leadership, under Gorbachev, came to the conclusion
that it might not be able to win on the battlefield. What it
could not obtain there, it would need to make a greater effort
to obtain at the negotiating table.
At the 27th Party Congress in February 1985 Gorbachev launched a
major peace initiative designed to convince the outside world of
the Soviet Union's genuine desire for a settlement in
Afghanistan. It is then that he made his since famous reference
to Afghanistan as "a bleeding wound" intimating a
certain war weariness. In that same speech Gorbachev announced
that the Soviet Union and Afghanistan had come to a bilateral
agreement on a "phased withdrawal" of Soviet troops.
Such a withdrawal, Gorbachev indicated, was contingent upon a
"political solution" that would guarantee "the
non-resumption of foreign armed interference."
That phrase summed up for Moscow the root cause of the
continuing conflict. The purpose of negotiations had always been
to resolve what the Soviets called "the situation
surrounding Afghanistan," which meant ending "armed
intervention" from the outside. Until the very end, the
Soviets successfully insisted that their actions in Afghanistan
were purely a bilateral issue with the Afghan Communist
government, while what others were doing was a matter for
international negotiation.
The core of Soviet strategy was to build up the Communist regime
sufficiently for it to stand without Soviet ground troops,
albeit with continued Soviet air, logistical, and other
assistance. Continued aid to the Afghan Resistance would prevent
this goal from ever being attained. Hence it became crucial for
Moscow to determine the level and extent of the U.S. commitment
to Afghanistan. Was the U.S. serious when it spoke of genuine
"self-determination" for the Afghans? Or did America
merely intend to rid Afghanistan of Soviet troops? If the latter
was true, the combination of Soviet aid to Afghanistan's
Communist regime and America's cessation of aid to the
Resistance would ensure a Soviet victory. By the end of 1985,
Moscow had obtained from State Department negotiators an
agreement that the United States would be willing to stop aid to
the Afghan Resistance at the beginning of a Soviet troop
withdrawal. At the end of 1985 the Soviets were talking about a
four year phased withdrawal. When it became known in Washington
that U.S. officials had concluded the agreement with the Soviets
behind the back of the President,[12] these officials argued
that they had not accepted the four year time frame. This
prevented the cutoff of American assistance, and dragged out
negotiations another two years. Nevertheless, Moscow now knew it
could concentrate on building up the Communist Afghan
infrastructure in preparation for an ultimate withdrawal.
Weeks prior to the signing of the 1988 Geneva accords,
Congressional backers of the Afghan Resistance found out that
the State Department had finally agreed to cutting off the
anti-Soviet side in the war without a similar pledge by Moscow.
An uproar led Washington to issue a "side letter"
stating that it would engage in "positive symmetry,"
meaning that that if the Soviets continued supplying their side,
so would the U.S. It is revealing that while the Soviets were
unhappy about this last minute addition, it did nothing to
unravel the agreement or the Soviet decision to withdraw. By
February 1989 all Soviet forces were out of Afghanistan.
· Interregnum: Vacuum Creation, 1989-1992
Because U.S., and for that matter Pakistani policy was about
"raising the costs" of Soviet occupation, not really
ending it, few were ready when it did come. In addition, policy
was based on mistaken assumptions growing out of ignorance. At
the end of 1987 "Western officials" were quoted as
saying that Soviet troop withdrawal would "almost
inevitably mean the collapse" of the Kabul regime.[13]
"Without Soviet troops," one of these diplomats was
quoted as saying, the Afghan government "could not last six
months."[14] Once Soviet troops had actually begun
withdrawing, the forthcoming collapse of the Afghan regime
became a matter of near certainty. Jon Glassman, the charge
d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Kabul, had described the Kabul
regime in the last months of the Soviet withdrawal as "a
house without girders," and predicted that "it would
fall within a matter of weeks, months at the most."[15]
How strongly such mistaken beliefs influenced actual policy can
be seen by the fact that the Afghan Resistance was pressed hard
then to capitalize on what was seen as an easy situation. Barely
ten days after the signing of the Geneva accords a New York
Times headline proclaimed "Pakistan officials tell of
ordering Afghan rebel push." And in slightly smaller print:
"U.S. Aide in on Decision."
No amount of evidence including the buildup of the Communist
infrastructure, with particular emphasis on the KHAD, or Afghan
equivalent of the KGB could convince these officials to the
contrary. There was, furthermore, no evidence on the ground of
any panic, mass defections, or any other signs of possible
apprehension in Kabul about the forthcoming situation. Moscow
had clearly and explicitly committed itself to continued support
of the Afghan regime even after a Soviet troop withdrawal. It
stayed true to its word and continued to provide Soviet air and
other military and economic support. Whenever there was even a
hint of a possible Mujahiddin success in taking a town, Soviet
air support was forthcoming.
The Soviets were confident that the Resistance could either
agree to Communist demands for a cease-fire and thereby admit
failure; or launch attacks and fail. That confidence was amply
justified. The Afghan Resistance, never united to begin with,
was becoming more fragmented now that the sole unifier of a
foreign troop presence was gone. Attacks on Afghan towns by
other Afghans, especially when they failed, could only generate
the antagonism of the Afghan population. The Afghan Resistance
had never been trained or prepared to undertake coordinated
operations that could lead to victory. It was not ready
politically, and there was therefore no existing alternative to
the Communist regime. The Soviet strategy proved to be sounder
than the Soviet Union itself because the communist regime in
Kabul survived the one in Moscow - though not for long.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed creating a major vacuum
in the region, Pakistan got the opportunity to do what the
Soviet Union attempted through the 1970s and 1980s. Islamabad
understood that something along the lines of traditional
colonialism would not be acceptable internationally, and simply
not feasible in the Afghan context. Hence, like Moscow, it
pursued an indirect approach. The Pakistani leadership decided
that it needed to produce an Afghan "leader" and/or
regime that would remain constantly dependent upon Islamabad to
maintain power. That in turn meant that such a leader could not
have or develop a significant popularity or genuine political
base.
Afghanistan, as already indicated, is not a nation but a
multiethnic-state. Its existing ethnic groupings had coexisted,
but the Pushtun majority never allowed any of the minorities to
dominate. The sole aberration, in 1929 when a Tadjik briefly
seized power, did not even last a year. Soviet policy during the
war exacerbated tribal and ethnic antagonisms and divisions.
Just as Moscow favored the northern Central Asian ethnic
groupings because of their affinities to Soviet Central Asians,
Pakistan has relied from the beginning on Pushtuns. But to
divide and rule has also entailed making sure that even the
Pushtuns could never be strong enough to act together.
Even before the Soviet invasion, Islamabad had selected as one
of its main agents Hekmatyar Gulbuddin, an extremist Pushtun
leader with little popular base. During and after the
Soviet-Afghan war, Gulbuddin was more frequently engaged in
fighting other Afghan Resistance groups than the Soviets or,
after 1989, the Communist Afghans. During the war, the Pakistani
ISI (Inter Services Intelligence, which has in effect been in
more or less independent charge of Afghan policy) made sure to
channel most of the foreign assistance through Gulbuddin. It
thereby strengthened him, while minimizing the development of
any genuine Afghan leadership. The same reasoning was also
responsible for Pakistan's reluctance to countenance any
meaningful organization of the Resistance. When, in part because
of growing American interest, certain steps were finally taken,
the Pakistanis made sure to keep things as divided, weak, and
disorganized as possible. Thus, several political parties and
leadership groups were allowed to come into being. Islamabad
actively fostered suspicions and competition for its attention
and favors among these groups. Pakistani antagonism for the most
effective Resistance leader, Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, was
not due solely to his being a Tadjik. Any effective commander
with a popular following was a threat to Islamabad.
The ISI also relied on its old favorite to penetrate the Kabul
regime in order to collapse it from within. In March 1990,
General Shah Nawaz Tanai, also a Pushtun and defense minister in
the Kabul regime, joined with Gulbuddin in a coup against the
Communist regime. The coup failed, but revealed the growing
tensions within the Communist ruling group.[16] Aware of the
growing internal weakness of his own regime, the Communist
leader, Najibullah, became more serious in UN sponsored
negotiations toward the establishment of a broad-based
government. As these negotiations proceeded, officers from the
ruling party begin to transfer weapons to Resistance commanders
and to make their own deals. With the failed Moscow coup of
August 1991, followed by the cessation of Soviet assistance to
the Kabul regime, and the actual collapse of the Soviet Union in
December of that year, the fate of the regime was sealed.
When the Kabul regime collapsed in April 1992, it was not the
Pushtun forces from the south that took control of the capital,
but an unlikely assortment of minority ethnic groupings from the
north. This Northern Alliance as it came to be called was made
up of three significant minorities in Afganistan: the Tadjiks,
Uzbeks, and Hazaras (the latter being not Sunni as the majority
of Afghans, but Shiite). The defection of the Uzbek General
Abdul Rashid Dostum from the regime's northern forces played an
important role in its collapse. It was his joining with the
Tadjik Commander Massoud that enabled their joint forces to
enter and take control of Kabul even as Najibullah had announced
his intention of resigning in favor of a neutral interim
government.[17] If, as has been argued, their intention was to
prevent "the predominantly Sunni and Pushtun-dominated
Peshawar (Pakistan)-based parties from taking over power,"
their hope was to be disappointed. [18]
· Building a Northward Thrust, 1992-1999
Clearly the Northern Alliance was now in a stronger position
vis-à-vis the Pakistani government. For Pakistan the situation
just as clearly represented a setback. Islamabad's reaction was
to follow a double track of negotiate and fight. Officially
Pakistan stuck to the proverbial "high road,"
participating in negotiations encouraging the formation of a
broad-based interim government for Afghanistan. Islamabad had to
acknowledge the Northern Alliance's control of Kabul by
conceding the position of president to Burhannudin Rabbani, head
of the Tadjik-dominated, Pakistani-based Jamiaat Party. Since
this, or any other arrangement not giving Pakistan the control
it sought was unsatisfactory, the "fight" component
was meant both to improve the negotiating outcome and to produce
the desired result more definitively.
The Rabbani government never represented more than a fragment of
the Afghan political spectrum, and never actually controlled
much of Afghanistan. After 1996 it did not even control Kabul or
much of the north. The April 1992 Peshawar Agreements setting it
up had tried to placate Islamabad by reserving the prime
ministership for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. It did not work because
Gulbuddin was asking for the removal of Massoud as defense
minister and the subordination of Rabbani to himself.[19] When
that failed to work, he launched attacks against Kabul. The
other parties of the Northern Alliance, including General Dostum
who had played a major role in the fall of the Communist regime
and in the capture of Kabul, were also left out of major
positions in the interim agreement. The end result was that by
the beginning of 1994 Dostum had allied himself to Gulbuddin,
and together they launched another major attack on the capital,
which ultimately failed. From Islamabad's standpoint, the
negotiate-while-fight-via-proxy approach was not working. Thus
in 1993 Pakistan began to seek an alternative to Gulbuddin.
The fundamentalist Taliban came to public attention as major
players in October, 1994. From its inception as a motley
grouping, the Talibans, or "students," seemed to come
principally from fundamentalist Muslim schools of one the major
Pakistani fundamentalist parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islami (JUI).
Its beginning can be traced to 1980, when a series of such
schools (madrassas) were set up "in the Kunar Valley in
order to create a belt of deeply religious groups close to the
Afghan-Pakistani border."[20] These were meant to help
resist further Communist advances and help the Mujahiddin
against the Soviets.[21] Until 1994, however, they had remained
inconsequential.
The Taliban appeared as a military and political force first in
the western province of Kandahar, then in the south, southwest
and east. Much of their rapid initial progress occurred with
little or no fighting; with local commanders either joining or
yielding to advancing Taliban bands. It would seem that the
Pakistani ISI had had a good deal to do with that relatively
effortless advance by persuading the various commanders to shift
sides.[22]
Islamabad's technique, noted earlier, had been to rely on Afghan
fundamentalists. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was also connected to the
Pakistani JUI fundamentalist party closely associated with
Pakistani governments since the rule of President Zia. The
post-1994 policy relied on a fundamentalist Afghan party, itself
closely connected to a rival Pakistani JUI fundamentalist party.
The latter aligned itself in 1993 with the Pakistan People's
Party (PPP) of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The PPP had
recently emerged the winner in elections and had returned
Benazir Bhutto to the prime ministership. The JUI, marginalized
until then, finally gained access to the ISI and the military
and government generally. The transition from the earlier
support for Gulbuddin to an even stronger commitment to the
Taliban was not instantaneous. It appears that the Taliban's
cause was first taken on by General Nasirulah Babar, the
interior minister, and only later in 1995 by the ISI.[23]
The capture of an important arms depot outside the town of Spin
Boldak early in the Taliban's advance provides an excellent, if
ironic, illustration of Islamabad's policy shift. The depot had
belonged to Gulbuddin and was guarded by troops from Pakistan's
Frontier Corps, under the control of the Interior Ministry, and
therefore of the Taliban's earliest apparent advocate within the
government. The guards were simply instructed to walk away,
leaving the Taliban in control.[24]
The Taliban were just as, if not more fundamentalist than
Gulbuddin. They also had the promise of a certain popularity
that did not seem threatening. Led by "barely literate
mullahs,"[25] they had a simplistic view of Islam focused
almost exclusively on the Koran and on "a very narrow
concept"[26] of Sharia (Islamic Law). They never developed
a program of any sort beyond the vague objective of implementing
Islamic law and creating a religious (in their conception)
Islamic society. The Taliban's appeal to things spiritual, its
claim not to monopolistic tribal power but to Afghan unity,
resonated powerfully in the Afghanistan of 1994. Yet because
those strengths were not accompanied by solid military or
political capabilities, the Pakistani leadership was confident
that the Taliban would remain dependent on Pakistan. The
existence of many different groupings, many with traditions of
enmity, no doubt translated into yet another lever for
Islamabad. The Taliban included not only different Pushtun
tribal groupings, but a significant number of former Communists.
One 1997 report stated that "most of the Taliban commanders
leading offensives for the past two years have false
names,"[27] that gave former Communists identities more in
keeping with their new persona as fundamentalist leaders. Some,
like General Mohammed Gilani, a Khalqi who had just been named
the Taliban's head of anti-aircraft defense, had been in the
Afghan Communist army until 1992.[28] As one well-informed
observer wrote: "By the time the Taliban captured Kabul,
their entire air force and a large section of their armour and
heavy artillery were being manned by former Khalqis."[29]
In addition, Pakistan helped the Taliban with fighting men:
"Between 1994 and 1999 an estimated 80,000 to 100,000
Pakistanis trained and fought in Afghanistan."[30]
Nevertheless, it was not until September 1996 that the Taliban
were able to seize the capital. Once they went beyond Pushtun
territory, their progress slowed down. A split within General
Dostum's camp, combined with Pakistani subversion, facilitated
the initial capture of the northern key city of Mazar-e-Sharif
in 1997. However, Northern Alliance forces quickly retook the
city. Still, the Taliban's progress toward militarily subduing
all of Afghanistan continued through 1998 and into 1999. By the
end of the latter year, however, the Talibans had lost ground.
What had looked like an irresistible march in 1997 was beginning
to look like the return of stalemate.
End of the Northward Thrust and the Return of Stalemate
"The Taliban is on the decline..[it] is kind of falling
from its own weight," said Richard Murphy, a former
assistant secretary of state in charge of the region.[31] Or, as
another observer put it, "the Taliban. has passed its high
water mark. It is now disintegrating, echoing the rapid rise and
fall of similar religious movements in Afghan history."[32]
A more accurate assessment would be that a stalemate within
Afghanistan is coinciding with a wider, regional stalemate.
Rather than abandon the Taliban in favor of another alternative,
Pakistan is likely to react to its unmitigated failure by
following the failed Soviet example and increasing its direct
involvement. This would similarly provoke an explosion of open
Afghan resistance. And since Talibani - and Pakistani - actions
have already generated destabilizing trends in the region, such
an implosion could have major consequences on the wider
international system.
In order to see why this may be so, it is necessary to examine
the reasons for the Taliban's (i.e. for Pakistan's) inability to
follow its initial successes to victory, thereby also exploring
the nature of the internal and regional stalemates.
The Nascent Internal Afghan Stalemate. The Taliban's main
claim to allegiance was its emphasis on Afghanistan as a whole,
as well as on Islamic spiritualism. Its promise was, above all,
to bring peace and better economic conditions. Under the abysmal
conditions of 1994, few looked carefully beyond the shallowness
of that promise. What mattered was the fact of an alternative.
In giving the Taliban the positive reception they did, the
Afghan Pushtuns were not "voting for" the Taliban.
They were "casting their ballots" against the existing
order. An apt analogy here would be to the earlier voting in
Algeria, stopped by the government when it realized that the
fundamentalists were winning. Whatever else was involved in that
situation, it is certain that the vote was essentially
meaningless as anything but a protest against the corruption of
the existing government. Deprived of any other means of
expressing their frustrations, people expressed themselves
through the only means available.
There was another fundamental weakness: the Taliban's exclusive
reliance on the Pushtuns. Thus, Islamabad was repeating Soviet
mistakes in reverse geographical direction. A policy of such
necessity spelled either protracted conflict or a division of
the country into two distinct new entities. Neither would allow
Pakistan to achieve its cherished objective of opening a new
major trade route into Central Asia. It is possible that
Islamabad might think of dividing the country and thus gain some
strategic depth. Such an option would be another mirroring,
again in reverse geographic direction, of another earlier and
more systematic Soviet design.[33]
Were that to be the objective, it too would be unreachable.
First, the Afghans themselves - both north and south - would be
unlikely to accept such a solution. Despite years of war and
divisive techniques used by all comers, one of the surprising
factors in Afghanistan is that all groups continue to think of
themselves as Afghans. Many object strenuously even to mention
of the possibility of a divided Afghanistan.[34] Second, it is
doubtful that the neighboring states would accede to such an
extension of Pakistani influence. Third, because the Taliban
continue to control a large portion of the north, there is a far
greater incentive for continued military pressure to gain the
rest than there is for compromise and withdrawal.
Fourth, The Taliban has proven incapable of managing the
territory under its control. Instead of genuine spiritual
concerns, Afghans have been confronted by a brutal, highly
simplistic notion of Islam. Some Pakistani observers, preferring
to cite Western sources on this sensitive subject, have
tellingly quoted descriptions of Taliban controlled areas as a
"terrifying picture of puritanism at a brutalizing extreme.
A place governed by illiterate teenage boys." And again,
giving the opinion of an "elderly scholar" in the
western city of Herat, "we are ruled by men who offer us
nothing but the Quran, even though many of them cannot
read."[35] The Taliban, to the extent they are known in the
Western world, have become associated with the repression of
women for their ban on most women working outside the home or
girls attending school. They have issued fatwahs (religious
edicts) covering the most minute aspects of collective and
individual life. These have apparently gone to the extremes of
forbidding women from wearing white socks or bans on kite
flying,[36] not to speak of the bans on television or the taking
of pictures. These edicts have been enforced with beatings, and
in the case of capital crimes with instant public executions.
These and other excesses have taken their toll. Not only has
finding soldiers become more difficult for the Taliban, but its
fighters have actually been leaving its ranks and returning to
their tribal areas.[37] However, there is no real alternative.
Pakistan, past master in the art of "divide and rule,"
has contributed to that. Hence, as far as the internal situation
is concerned, the likelihood is of a continued stalemate. One
observer has actually written that "Islamabad works toward
maintaining the state of war to weaken its Afghan
ally."[38]
.And its Regional Consequences
In some ways, one could say that Afghanistan has functioned
for Pakistan as Lebanon has for Syria (and to some extent for
Iran). Lebanon, which, for all intents and purposes is a Syrian
dependency, has served to deflect direct blame and military
retaliation against Syria for what are Syrian, and/or Iranian
sponsored or tolerated terrorist actions. The rationale there
has been that the groups operating from Lebanese territory are
independent groups that neither Syria nor Iran control, and that
therefore there is not much these states can do to stop them.
While Syria admits to sympathy for the goals of these groups, it
denies actively supporting or directing them. And, as everyone
knows, the Lebanese government is powerless to control these
terrorist groups. The presence of terrorist training camps in
Afghanistan, the basing of terrorist groups active in many parts
of the world, are by now well-known facts, as is the active
support of the Taliban for them.[39]
Examples of this type abound. Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of the
radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who is wanted in
Uzbekistan for complicity in the attempted assassination of that
country's president, was given refuge in Afghanistan. The
Taliban has refused demands of extradition for him by Uzbekistan
as they have for Osama Bin Ladin from the United States. But the
Taliban has also allowed him to run a "military training
camp" near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and
several miles from the Uzbek border.[40] In this camp are
trained "militants" from Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan,
Kirghiztan, and separatist Uigurs from the Chinese province of
Xinjiang. The Chinese have claimed that weapons seized from
Uigurs have come from Afghanistan. There are also close links
between the Taliban and Abd el Rahman Khattab and Chamil
Bassaiev, leaders of the insurrection against Russia in
Daghestan in 1999. Uigurs have been involved in Yuldashev's and
Bin Ladin' operations.[41] Among the major users of this Afghan
sanctuary have been the groups participating in the fight
against India in what Pakistan sees as occupied Kashmir.
As is Syria in the Lebanese case, both the Taliban and Pakistan
have denied any connection with these groups' activities. They
have repeatedly proclaimed their opposition to terrorism. A
recent headline in a Pakistani paper summed this up well:
"Kabul, Islamabad reaffirm opposition to terrorism: Taliban
stick to stand on Bin Laden."[42] Mullah Mohammad Rabbani,
"Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Afghanistan,"
in a press conference following a meeting in Islamabad with
General Parvez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, acknowledged
that the Bin Ladin issue had come up. "Yes, the matter was
raised," he said. "But Afghanistan is a free Islamic
State and Osama is our guest." He also added "that
Afghanistan had declared terrorism illegal and against human
rights," and that it "would not be permitted in his
country." Answering a question on the growing international
pressure being applied to Pakistan on the issue of terrorism and
Bin Ladin, the Taliban official replied that Pakistan had asked
that Afghanistan resolve the issue. "But," he said,
"Afghanistan is an independent state, and we take our
decisions ourselves."[43]
What seems clear is that this situation has allowed Pakistan -
so far at least - to actively support these groups and their
activities while using the "plausible deniability"
technique whenever one of the consequences of these terrorist
acts becomes uncomfortable. Even if it were true that Pakistan
lacks minute control on either the Taliban or the groups engaged
in terrorist activities, that is largely irrelevant. Pakistan
has created the overall conditions for the existence and
perpetuation of this form of terrorism. Day to day control is
not a necessity, and the ability to put some distance between
oneself and the actual perpetrators provides useful cutouts and
a certain degree of plausibility to denials of complicity.
Pakistan has nowhere near any of the capabilities of the Soviet
Union when it launched its doomed southward thrust through
Afghanistan. Not only is its power much smaller, but Pakistan,
unlike the Soviet Union does not have a core state with long and
solid traditions extending for centuries. Created just over
fifty years ago out of disparate ethnic and tribal groupings, it
has continued to face active sectarian tension and violence.
That violence, including killings between Sunnis and Shiites,
has increased in recent years. The military coup that overthrew
its government in 1999, was in response to popular disaffection
with the inefficiency of the government, its corruption, and the
lamentable state of the economy. Yet it too undertook its own
thrust into Afghanistan. Could the stalemate in Afghanistan be
but a prelude to the collapse of Pakistan?
In some ways Pakistan finds itself with a more serious situation
than the Soviet Union did at a similar point. In undertaking its
northward thrust, and in choosing the "Taliban Option"
when the earlier approach was failing, Islamabad embarked upon a
no less dangerous path. The switch from the relatively small
operation of the Islamic fundamentalist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to
the much bigger operation of the even more radical Taliban was
more than just one of scale. By launching a very active
intervention in Afghan affairs by Pakistani fundamentalist
parties, that policy choice provided a major opening for a
spread of fundamentalism back into Pakistan.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto even referred to the trends
set in motion as the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan.[44]
In making that characterization, Bhutto was also accusing then
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of abetting the process and
encouraging the lawlessness of Pakistani fundamentalist groups,
that were already being heavily influenced by Taliban ideas and
practices. There is little doubt that the charge against Sharif
had merit. Sharif had introduced measures to make Islamic law
the law of the land and in a November 1998, speech he openly
called for the "introduction of instant Taliban-style
justice in the country." Sharif had said that "today
in Afghanistan crimes have virtually come to nought.. I want
this kind of justice system in Pakistan."[45] From all
available evidence, Sharif did not need to provide much
encouragement. There was a growing number of instances of such
summary justice by local mullahs taking the law into their own
hands. These have involved mobs destroying video stores,
storming police stations on the local mullahs' urging,
threatening to "break the legs" of Afghan and
Pakistani women if they marched in Peshawar to protest the
treatment of women in Afghanistan. They have also included
summary capital punishment by "Islamic courts" made up
of tribesmen who refused to go through the established legal
system.[46]
By the end of 1998 Pakistani fundamentalist
"neo-Taliban" groups had spread throughout the
Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan. By July 1999 they
were already extending their presence in the provinces of Punjab
and Sind, as was evidenced by the participation of some six to
eight thousand Pakistanis from these two provinces in the
Taliban summer offensive.[47] Pakistani fundamentalists have
also borrowed techniques used by Muslim radicals in other Muslim
countries. Taking advantage of the sometimes abysmal failure of
the state to provide adequate basic services, these
fundamentalist groups have stepped into the breach and offered
such things as free education and health care. In Pakistan as
elsewhere, these techniques have often proved successful in
generating significant popular backing for these radical
movements. The JUI and other fundamentalist parties have become
the chief recruiters for the thousands of Pakistanis sent to
fight alongside the Taliban.
The talk of Afghanistan as a base for terrorists to some extent
hides the fact that while the base is Afghan, key players are
often from Pakistani extremist parties. Yet, even in Pakistan,
"Muslim militancy" is "increasingly
internationalized."[48] One account cites one of these
Pakistani extremist groups' (the Lashkar-e-Taiba's) claim that
"300 of its 'martyrs' have been killed fighting alongside
local Islamic forces in Afghanistan, Tadjikistan, Bosnia,
Chechnya, Lebanon, and half a dozen places it wasn't willing to
name."[49] The list of course also included Kashmir.
Just as interesting in light of Pakistan's protestations of
innocence concerning terrorism, is the December 1999 hijacking
of an Indian airliner by terrorists fighting the Indian presence
in Kashmir. Islamabad indignantly denied initial accusations by
India that Pakistan was behind the hijacking. Yet evidence has
mounted that, as an official U.S. statement declared, "a
terrorist group supported by the Pakistani military was
responsible for the hijacking."[50]
The group in question, Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, had changed its
name from Harakat ul-Ansar after having been placed on the U.S.
State Department's list of terrorist organizations. The Taliban,
who portrayed themselves as innocent bystanders in the
hijacking, in fact have close ties to the hijackers. In July
1999 that group, during a press conference in Lahore, Pakistan
was openly claiming that their fighters were deployed on several
fronts in Afghanistan "under the direct orders of Mullah
Omar," the head of the Taliban.[51] The openness of these
groups, their ability to act freely and widely, attests to their
influence and to the at least tacit support of the Pakistani
power structure.
The spread of Islamic fundamentalism has increasingly come to
include the Pakistani army. Many of the junior officers in the
army are now said to come from madrassas rather than from elite
colleges. Some 30 percent of the army's officer corps are said
to be "militantly Islamic and sympathetic to calls by
religious parties for an Islamic revolution in the
country."[52] Musharraf himself, soon after having been
named army chief of staff in October 1998, "promoted to key
positions several officers with close links to fundamentalist
parties."[53] Given the above, it is perhaps not too
surprising that General Musharraf rebuffed U.S. officials who
had asked him during a January 2000 meeting to ban the Harakat
ul-Mujahedeen.[54] And neither is the conclusion of an
"Asian ambassador from a Muslim country" with regard
to Pakistan: "there is an explosion here waiting to
happen.. In Indonesia or Turkey you have the army and the middle
class who still uphold secular values, but here the army will
not resist an Islamic movement and no party is willing to stand
up against fundamentalism."[55]
The "Taliban Option," coming as it did partly as a
result of shifts in Pakistani politics, themselves intertwined
within an ascending spiral of corruption and governmental
inefficiency, meant falling into an endless series of
concessions to extremist parties. After a certain point it
probably becomes difficult even for the policymakers to know
whether a particular decision is a conscious policy act or
merely another mollification. The consequences of Islamabad's
policy for Pakistan already are serious, and fraught with major
risks just ahead.
Internationally the situation is not better. Afghanistan is
completely isolated. Recognized by only three countries
(Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), it has
managed to alienate an assortment of countries not necessarily
found on the same side of issues. The United Nations in 1999
imposed sanctions on the country because of its stand on
terrorism, thus further isolating it. Its position as the
largest producer of heroin in the world, with Taliban controlled
territory contributing 90 percent of that, has not enhanced its
status.[56] The Taliban's recognition of the Chechens in 1999
has not enhanced its reputation with the Russians or the
Indians. Neither did the foray into Kyrghiztan from Afghan
territory by an Uzbek Islamic leader in August 1999. With Iran
tensions remain also - notwithstanding periodic mentions of
negotiations and improving relations. The killing of Iranian
diplomats by the Taliban when it seized the northern Afghan city
of Mazar-e- Sharif in August 1998 had brought the two countries
to the brink of war. While Tehran is well aware that it cannot
afford to become involved in an Afghan conflict, its minimal
objective of blocking Pakistan remains one it can pursue at
relatively little cost. The greatest source of pressure and
danger for Pakistan remains India. Islamabad's ill conceived
Kashmir adventure last summer, by provoking an armed
confrontation with India, once again raised tensions that had
only recently abated. The hijacking of the Indian airliner have
brought these tensions to a new high. The refusal of the
Pakistani government to outlaw the Pakistani extremist group
linked to it only adds to the recklessness of recent Pakistani
actions.
· Conclusion 2000 and Beyond: Chaos.or Breaking Out of the
Mold?
Pakistan's strategy has depended on walking an impossible
tightrope. On the one hand it needs a peaceful Afghanistan for
the construction of pipelines into Pakistan for its desired
trade, and for commercial routes to Central Asia. On the other
hand, its neurotic fear of any Afghan independence has led to it
actually encouraging something akin to "controlled
chaos." Along with other surrounding states, it is
unfortunate that the only major point these states have seemed
to agree on has been the perpetuation of conflict.
The continuation of the Afghan conflict is not desirable for any
of these entities. Pakistan and the Central Asian states suffer
the most. The latter because they can ill afford further sources
of destabilization while fending off continuing Russian attempts
at re-absorption. Pakistan, because it cannot win militarily in
Afghanistan, and because if it escalated Soviet-style it would
not only lose, but quite possibly disintegrate in the process.
It is likely that even without such a massive escalation, the
very inconclusive prolongation of the war would continue to tear
at the already frayed fabric of Pakistani society and
precipitate a similar fate. Yet as was pointed out earlier,
Pakistan has not shown any signs that it recognizes its
quandary. On the contrary, whatever evidence there is points the
other way, to a further increase in its Afghan commitment.
Yet all of the above notwithstanding, and perhaps because of the
negative overall state of affairs, the moment presents a unique
opportunity to escape pre-set patterns and move toward a long
term stabilization of the situation in and around Afghanistan.
Clearly Pakistan is the key to a resolution. But no solution can
be arrived at without the active participation of the other
interested states.
The double stalemate of the Afghan conundrum - within and around
Afghanistan - makes it impossible for any state or combination
of states to impose its will on the others. The stalemate, far
from being a hindrance to a settlement, is an important element
making one possible. The central stumbling block to a solution
is the unwillingness of the states involved to recognize the
situation confronting them. It is for this reason that external
intervention is crucial.
Only the United States has this capability. It, too, cannot
unilaterally bring about a conclusion. It can, however, act as a
lever. For that, however, Washington must first recognize the
nature of the situation and come to grips with the fact that any
undertaking will require a certain constancy of attention.
American power and influence in this region remains enormous.
The very fact that terrorist groups change their names when put
on a State Department list, and that India should bother to
request that Pakistan be put on such a list, testifies to the
impact of even relatively small measures.
It will be important to keep in mind that, unlike in past
negotiations, the Afghans should not be ignored, but should be
central players in determining their fate. A solution must
include the long delayed genuine self-determination for the
Afghans, by the Afghans. An Afghan government that has the
support of the people, that has genuine legitimacy, need not be
a threat to Pakistan or to anyone else.
An ultimate resolution of the conflict will need to take into
account the rightful interests of surrounding states. It will be
based on the recognition that while none of the states can have
all that it wants, all of the states, through compromise, can
define a common basis for understanding, and common rules of the
game. These rules of the game in turn will allow a realization
that each state involved stands to gain if it is willing to
accept less than everything; if it is willing to share instead
of to exclude. In the final analysis, something is better than
nothing.
[1] Jason Goodwin, "The Playing Fields of Asia,"
book review of Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the
Race for Empire in Central Asia, by Karl Meyer and Shareen Blair
Brysac (Washington: Cornelia and Michael Bessie/Counterpoint,
1999) in The New York Times Book Review, January 9, 2000.
[2] Stephen J. Blank, Why Russian Policy is Failing in Asia
(Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College,
1997). The author writes about the Yeltsin administration's
chaotic policies and speaks of the "de-insitutionalization"
of the state. He discusses various "structural
weaknesses" of the state and writes that "these
weaknesses not only undermine the center's ability to govern,
formulate, and implement policy, they also erode the foundations
of control over regional governments (pp.1-2).
[3] Of the various interested entities, China continues to
remain more on the sidelines, giving its preferential
relationship with Pakistan continued priority over the
Afghanistan issue.
[4] For an excellent discussion of this American failure to pay
attention, see Leon Poullada, "The Road to Crisis,
1919-1980," in Rosanne Klass, ed., Afghanistan: The Great
Game Revisited (New York: Freedom House, 1987), pp. 37-70.
[5] Ibid., p. 42.
[6] Army General Ivan Pavlovsky (as reported in Literaturnaya
Gazeta, September 20, 1989) who had gone on an assessment tour
of Afghanistan in August 1979, is cited as having said there was
"no need to send troops to Afghanistan." As cited in
Elie D. Krakowski, "Red Star Over Afghanistan," Global
Affairs, vol.5 no.2 (Spring 1990), p.113. General Pavlovsky's
assessment is also cited in Cynthia Roberts, "Glasnost in
Soviet Foreign Policy: Setting the Record Straight?" Radio
Liberty, Report on the USSR, vol. I, no. 50, December 15, 1989.
Much of the discussion on the Soviet-Afghan war here is drawn
from the author's "Red Star Over Afghanistan."
[7] The initial troop strength of 85,000 was ultimately raised
to some 120,000.
[8] See on this Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The
Lessons of Modern War, Volume III: The Afghan and Falklands
Conflicts (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), p. 26. See also
General (Ret.) Mohammad Yahya Nawroz, Army of Afghanistan, and
LTC (Ret.) Lester W. Grau, U.S. Army, "The Soviet War in
Afghanistan: History and Harbinger of Future War?" (Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office,
1996).
[9] As Bernard Malhuret (of the French Medecins Sans Frontieres)
observed in a Foreign Affairs article "Report from
Afghanistan," (Winter 1983/84) the Soviets were no doubt
aware that a guerrilla is to the population as a fish is to
water (Mao Tse Tung's expression).
[10] Not that there were no brutal acts of war, but the
techniques used systematically in the south were employed here
mostly only in retaliation for Resistance attacks.
[11] For a more detailed discussion of these arguments, see Elie
D. Krakowski, "Afghanistan: The Strategy of
Dismemberment," The National Interest, Number 7 (Spring
1987), and the fuller treatment of that subject in the author's
"Afghanistan and Soviet Global Interests," in Klass
ed., The Great Game Revisited, pp.161-186.
[12] Elie D. Krakowski, "US Policy on Afghanistan," in
Richard H. Shultz, Jr., Uri Ra'anan, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr.,
William Olson, Igor Lukes, eds., Guerrilla Warfare &
Counterinsurgency: US-Soviet Policy in the Third World,
(Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1989).
[13] The New York Times, November 29, 1987.
[14] Ibid.
[15] John F. Burns, "Afghans: Now They Blame America,"
The New York Times Magazine, February 4, 1990.
[16] Samina Ahmad, "The Crisis of State Legitimacy,"
in Lt.Gen. (Ret.) Nishat Ahmad, ed., Afghanistan: Past, Present,
& Future (Islamabad, Pakistan: Institute of Regional
Studies, 1997) pp. 11-75.
[17] Ibid., p.54.
[18] Ibid., p.55.
[19] Amin Saikal, "The Rabbani Government, 1992-1996,"
in William Maley, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and
the Taliban (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p.33.
On the rift between Massoud and Gulbuddin, see Peter Marsden,
The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan
(Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.40.
[20] Former Pakistani Army Chief of Staff General Mirza Aslam
Beg, as cited by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Kamal Matinudddin , "The
Taliban Phenomenon in Afghanistan: Genesis, Prospects, and
Impact on the Region," in K.M. Asaf and Abul Barakat, eds.
Central Asia: Internal and External Dynamics (Islamabad,
Pakistan: Institute of Regional Studies, 1997), p.82.
[21] On the early appearances of small groups of fighters
already under the name of Taliban, and on already existing
Pakistani awareness and training of these and other Mujahedeen,
see Anthony Davis, "How the Taliban became a Military
Force," in Maley, Fundamentalism Reborn, p.45.
[22] Stephanie Allix, "Instabilite persistente en Asie
Centrale: De la resistance a la prise de Kaboul, l'histoire
secrete des talibans," Le Monde Diplomatique, January 1997,
pp.4-5.
[23] Ahmed Rashid, "Pakistan and the Taliban," in
Maley, Fundamentalism Reborn, p.85.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Ahmed Rashid, "The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,"
Foreign Affairs, (November /December 1999) p.22.
[26] Olivier Roy, "Un fundamentalisme sunnite en panne de
projet politique," Le Monde Diplomatique, October 1998, pp.
8-9.
[27] Allix, "Instabilite persistente en Asie Centrale,"
p.5.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Rashid, "Pakistan and the Taliban," p. 87.
[30] Rashid, "The Taliban: Exporting Extremism," p.27.
[31] Barbara Crossette, "As Hijacking Drama Plays Out,
Views on Taliban Shift," The New York Times, December 30,
1999.
[32] Peter Tomsen, "A Chance for Peace in
Afghanistan," Foreign Affairs, (January/February 2000),
p.179.
[33] See discussion above on period of 1979-1989.
[34] The author encountered this sort of reaction from a number
of Afghans from various tribal groupings and political
persuasions during an extensive fact-finding mission in the
summer of 1998.
[35] John F. Burns of The New York Times, as cited in Matinuddin,
"The Taliban Phenomenon," p.88.
[36] Roshan Zamir, "Deoband Opposes some of Taliban
Beliefs," The Nation, Pakistan, March 11, 1998.
[37] Tomsen, "A Chance for Peace," p.180.
[38] Allix, "Instabilite persistente," p.5.
[39] The U.S. State Department latest annual report Patterns of
Global Terrorism 1998 (April 1999), p.9, describes the situation
as follows: "Islamic extremists from around the world -
including large numbers of Egyptians, Algerians, Palestinians,
and Saudis - in 1998 continued to use Afghanistan as a training
ground and a base of operations for their worldwide terrorist
activities. The Taliban.facilitated the operation of training
and indoctrination facilities for non-Afghans and provided
logistical support and sometimes passports to members of various
terrorist organizations. Throughout 1998 the Taliban continued
to host Osama Bin Ladin, who was indicted in November for the
bombings in August of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa."
[40] Ahmed Rashid, "Les talibans au coeur de la
destabilisation regionale," [http://monde-diplomatique.fr/1999/11/RASHID/12663.html],
November 1999.
[41] Ibid.
[42] Dawn, Pakistan, February 2, 2000.
[43] "Kabul, Islamabad Reaffirm Opposition to Terrorism:
Taliban Stick to Stand on Bin Laden," [http://www.dawn.com/fixed/arch/arch.html].
[44] Ahmed Rashid, "The Talibanisation of Pakistan,"
Daily Telegraph, December 28, 1998.
[45] Ahmed Rashid, "Raise the Crescent," in Far
Eastern Economic Review, December 3, 1998.
[46] Rashid, "The Talibanisation of Pakistan."
[47] Ahmed Rashid, "Les talibans au coeur de la
destabilisation regionale," [http://monde-diplomatique.fr/1999/11/RASHID/12663.html],
November 1999.
[48] Rashid, "Raise the Crescent."
[49] Ibid.
[50] Jane Perlez, "U.S. Says Pakistan Backed Hijackers of
Indian Jetliner," The New York Times, January 25, 2000.
[51] Francoise Chipaux, "Une offensive generale des
talibans contre l'opposition afghane se dessinerait: Le soutien
pakistanais aux maitres de Kaboul s'est renforce," Le
Monde, July 28, 1999.
[52] Rashid, "The Talibanisation of Pakistan."
[53] Rashid, "Raise the Crescent."
[54] Perlez, "U.S. Says Pakistan Backed Hijackers."
[55] Rashid, "Raise the Crescent."
[56] Barbara Crossette, "Afghan Heroin Feeds Addiction in
Region, U.N. Report Declares," The New York Times, March 1,
2000. The report notes that Afghanistan "is also becoming a
major manufacturer of heroin, which is contributing to a rise in
addiction throughout the region." Another report specifies
the opium production for 1999 as 5,070 tons, or about 75 percent
of the global yield (Barry Bearak, "Distress in the Opium
Bazaar: 'Can't Make a Profit'," The New York Times, March
3, 2000).