.
Why
the US needs the Taliban
By Ramtanu Maitra
07/29/03: (Asia Times) Since Pakistani President General Pervez
Musharraf made his much-acclaimed visit to Camp David and met US
President George W Bush on June 24, new elements have begun to emerge in
the Afghan theater. US troops in Afghanistan are now encountering more
enemy attacks than ever before, and clashes between Pakistani and Afghan
troops along the tribal borders have been reported regularly.
On July 16, speaking to Electronic Telegraph of the United Kingdom, US
troop commander General Frank "Buster" Hagenbeck, based at
Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, reported increased attacks over recent
weeks on US and Afghan forces by the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other anti-US
groups that have joined hands. He also revealed some other very
interesting information: the Taliban and its allies have regrouped in
Pakistan and are recruiting fighters from religious schools in Quetta in
a campaign funded by drug trafficking. Hagenbeck also said that these
enemies of US and Afghan forces have been joined by Al-Qaeda commanders
who are establishing new cells and sponsoring the attempted capture of
American troops. One other piece of news of import from Hagenbeck is
that the Taliban have seized whole swathes of the country.
Reliable intelligence
Hagenbeck's statements were virtually ignored in Washington. Also
ignored were a number of similar statements issued from Kabul by Afghan
President Hamid Karzai and his cabinet colleagues. On July 17,
presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin spoke to the Pakistani newspaper The
News of the Afghan government's concern over the volatile situation on
its border with Pakistan. Ludin urged Pakistan to "take steps"
to prevent the Taliban fighters from crossing over to launch terrorist
attacks against Kabul. "We will take it seriously to confront
it," he warned. "So our expectation is for all those involved
in the war against terror to take serious steps," Ludin added,
clearly addressing the Bush administration.
A week later, on July 24, in an article for The Nation, a Pakistani news
daily, Ahmed Rashid, the well known expert on the Taliban and
Afghanistan, quoted President Hamid Karzai, during an interview at
Kabul, as saying: "As much as we want good relations with Pakistan
and other neighbors, we also oppose extremism, terrorism and
fundamentalism coming into Afghanistan from outside. We have one page
where there is a tremendous desire for friendship and the need for each
other. But there is the other page, of the consequences if intervention
continues, cross-border terrorism continues, violence and extremism
continue. Afghans will have no choice but to stand up and stop it."
Among Americans, only the special envoy of the US president to
Afghanistan and a good friend of President Karzai, Zalmay Khalilzad, has
shown any concern about the recent developments. Khalilzad has little
choice but to keep up a bold front to the Afghans, telling them how his
bosses in Washington are doing their best to rebuild Afghanistan, and
attributes the present crisis to the security situation. Like everyone
else, Khalilzad has little in reality to offer and, given the
opportunity, falls back on what "must be done" and
"should be done". At a July 15 press conference at Kabul,
Khalilzad said every effort has to be made by Pakistan not to allow its
territory to be used by the Taliban elements. This "should not be
allowed", he said. "We need 100 percent assurances [from
Pakistan] on this, not 50 percent assurances, and we know the Taliban
are planning in Quetta."
What is happening? Both Hagenbeck, who boasts to the media about the
high quality of his intelligence, and Khalilzad, who is unquestionably
in a position to know, have stated that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are
being nurtured, not in some inaccessible terrain along the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border but in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's
Balochistan province where the Pakistan Army and the ISI have a major
presence. Yet, President Bush and his neo-conservative henchmen have
remained strangely quiet, allowing Pakistan to strengthen the Taliban in
Quetta, and, as a consequence, re-energize al-Qaeda - the killers of
thousands of Americans in the fall of 2001.
Recall for a moment: Following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the
United States, no other terrorist was portrayed by the United States as
more dangerous than al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and no other Islamic
fundamentalist group was presented to the American people as more
despicable than the Taliban. Within a month the United States invaded
Afghanistan to "take out" the Taliban, al-Qaeda and bin Laden,
while the world lined up behind the new anti-terrorist messiahs from
Washington, providing it the necessary moral and vocal support. Why,
then, is Washington now weakening President Karzai and allowing the
strengthening and re-emergence of the Taliban?
Karzai shared with Ahmed Rashid his belief, like that of the average
Afghan today, that the answer to that question lies in an understanding
reached between the United States and Pakistan during Musharraf's visit
to Camp David, that Afghanistan could be, in effect,
"sub-contracted" to Pakistan. Karzai also told Rashid that
Musharraf's critical remarks about the Karzai regime during his visit to
the United States reminded him of the pre-September 11 days when
Pakistan was fully backing the Taliban and exercising ever-more-strident
control over Afghanistan. Musharraf had said, among other things, that
the Afghan president does not have much control over Afghanistan beyond
Kabul. But, Karzai added in the interview with Rashid, no matter what
the outsiders are planning or plotting, as of now, "I want nobody
to be under any illusion that Afghanistan will allow any other country
to control it." Is Karzai overreacting? Most likely, he is not. He
has seen the writing on the wall. It is arguable whether the Taliban's
return to power is inevitable, but there is little doubt that under the
circumstances it is very convenient for the US.
Bowing to realities
To begin with, it was clear from the outset that the United States never
really wanted to be in Afghanistan. It was basically a jumping-off point
for the "big enchilada", the re-shaping of the Middle East's
politics and regimes. The Afghan reconstruction talk was mostly wishful
thinking. For anyone familiar with present-day Afghanistan - its
security situation, the drug production and trafficking, its destroyed
infrastructure, its rampant illiteracy and poverty - its reconstruction
by foreigners is either a dream or a string of motivated lies.
Now, after a half-hearted effort that lasted for almost 18 months, the
Bush administration has come to realize that it is impossible to keep
Pakistan as a friend and simultaneously keep the Northern
Alliance-backed government in power in Kabul. The "puppet"
Pashtun leader in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, does not have the approval of
Pakistan and the majority of the rest of the Pashtun community
straddling both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. So, either one
has Pakistan as a friend with an Islamabad-backed Pashtun group in power
in Kabul, or one gets Pakistan as an enemy. There should be no doubt in
anyone's mind how the Bush administration would act when confronted with
such a choice.
Secondly, look at the Northern Alliance (NA) allies. The best ally of
the NA is Russia, the Bush administration's key contestant for supremacy
in Central Asia. In the 1980s, the United States spent billions of
dollars to get Afghanistan out of the Russian orbit. It is ridiculous to
believe that the Bush administration would act differently now to
protect the NA and Karzai. Much better is to have Afghanistan
sub-contracted to Pakistan and keep the Russians at bay, than to yield
ground to Moscow, who is hardly friendly to Pakistan.
Thirdly, the NA, and particularly the Shi'ites of the Hazara region of
Afghanistan, are close to Iran. Iran is building a road which will
connect the Iranian port of Chahbahar to the city of Herat in central
Afghanistan and link up with Kandahar in the southeast. While this is
going on, some neo-conservatives in Washington are screaming for Iranian
blood. Even if the Bush administration is not quite willing right now to
spill that blood, it is nonetheless a certainty that Washington will be
more than eager to see the Iranian influence in Afghanistan curbed. If
the NA-backed Karzai government stays in power for long, Iran would most
definitely enhance its influence. The Taliban do not want that and they
have sent a message recently by slaughtering the Shi'ites in Quetta with
the full knowledge of the Pakistani authorities. Besides being
anti-Russia, the Taliban are also anti-Shi'ite, or anti-Iran. This added
"virtue" of the Taliban has not gone unnoticed in the
corridors of intrigue-makers in Washington.
Finally, there is the India factor. A minor factor, it does, however,
come into play in calculating the pluses and minuses of the resurgent
Taliban option. The Bush administration wants closer relations with
India - not on New Delhi's terms, but on Washington's terms. Indian
activity in Afghanistan has increased multifold since the Karzai
government came to power in the winter of 2001. These developments are
being eyed suspiciously by Islamabad. While Washington would not make a
federal case out of it, it surely does not like to see India forming a
strategic alliance with Russia and Iran in Afghanistan. Washington would
rather like to break such an alliance quickly, particularly if its ally,
in this case Pakistan, wants such an alliance broken. Significantly, a
well-connected relative of Musharraf, Brigadier Feroz Hassan Khan,
formerly at the Wilson Center and now a fellow at the Monterey Institute
of International Studies, addressed these issues directly in a recent
publication.
Not just whistling in the dark
In the January issue of Strategic Insight, a publication for the Center
for Contemporary Conflict, Khan observed: "In Iran, President
Khatami is moving in tandem and cooperation with Pakistan in supporting
the Karzai government as manifest in the recent visit to Pakistan.
However there are hardliners in Iran who would want to continue with the
old game of supporting warlords and factions and consider Pakistan as
rival vis-a-vis Afghanistan, and who are still suspicious of the Saudi
role. Iran is pitching its bid, by constructing a road from Chahbahar
Port in the Persian Gulf through Iran's Balochistan area to link up
eventually with Kandahar in the hope of 'breaking the monopoly of
Pakistan'. Afghanistan is currently sustained primarily through the
Karachi-Quetta/Peshawar routes - Bolan and Khyber passes respectively -
which has provided Afghanistan with trade and transit with the outside
world for centuries."
Furthermore, Khan pointed out, "Russia remains involved with the
major warlords [of Afghanistan]. One such warlord, Rashid Dostum, was
recently on a shopping spree for arms and equipment from Moscow. Russia
believes it has its own experience and expertise in Afghanistan and must
reestablish its interests. Given the history, Pakistan is very
uncomfortable with this development."
Of course, the Khan's treatise would not have been complete without
pointing to the devious role of the Indians in Afghanistan. He said:
"India is a major proactive player now. It is providing
well-coordinated military supplies to the Northern Alliance thorough the
air base in Tajikistan. This includes weapons, equipment and spare parts
aimed at strengthening those elements that had become the sworn enemies
of Pakistan during the Taliban's rule. Fear in Pakistan is that despite
Afghanistan's changed policies, some elements still hold a grudge
against Pakistan and would be willing to do India's bidding. This would
bring the India-Pakistan rivalry into the Afghan imbroglio."
It is safe to assume that Khan, who has an extensive background in arms
control, disarmament and international treaties, and who formulated
Pakistan's security policy on nuclear war, arms control and strategic
stability in South Asia, is not merely whistling in the dark.
The terms of convenience
Now the question remains, what might Pakistan be expected to deliver in
return for the Bush administration granting it control over Afghanistan
once more? In the real world, Pakistan can help the United States
significantly. It has already agreed not to provide nuclear technology
to Islamic nations. Musharraf may have to give the United States control
of its nuclear research facility, among other things. More important
will be to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States and send two
brigades of Pakistani troops to Iraq to help out the beleaguered US
troops there. The arrest of Osama would surely justify the US mission to
Afghanistan, and could set the stage for America's eventual withdrawal
from that country. Another likely item on the agenda is Pakistani
recognition of Israel.
Would this new arrangement of "sub-contracting" (to use
Karzai's apt term) Afghanistan to the Pakistan-Taliban combination
complicate the already complex situation any further? Probably not. It
was evident in October 2001, when the United States went pell-mell into
Afghanistan with the help of the Northern Alliance, that America's
hastily-organized arrangement there was unsustainable. It was clear that
no matter what Islamabad says, or how much pressure is brought to bear
on it, Pakistan has absolutely no reason whatsoever to agree to such an
arrangement.
Washington came to appreciate the non-sustainability of this arrangement
when Musharraf, in a sleight of hand, brought the Muttahida Majlis-e
Amal - the MMA, also known as "Musharraf, Mullahs and the
Army" - to power in the two provinces bordering Afghanistan. At
that point, Karzai's tenure as president of Afghanistan shrank abruptly,
and Washington deemed it time to give up the "Marshall Plan for
Afghanistan" and settle for next best - Taliban rule in Afghanistan
under Pakistani control, once again.
Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co
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