Comment on US policy toward Afghanistan
Newton's third law of physics states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. While this is certainly true in science, it's also proving to be true in politics. This paper deals with Afghan politics in an attempt to understand the complex issues that have resulted in the rise of the presently ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. Applying Newton’s Third Law to this part of the world, 'action' refers to U.S. support of the Afghan mujahideen revolting against Soviet rule in the 1980's. Aid was in the form of state-of-the-art arms and ammunition delivered to the warriors in Afghanistan via neighboring Pakistan, which served as a conduit. This equipped untrained rebels with guns and rockets, which they used, at the time, to fight Soviet forces, who were trying to establish socialist rule in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, thus, served as a far-removed battleground on which the two superpowers of the cold-war fought for supremacy. Once the Soviets left in 1989, however, the U.S., and the world at large, lost interest in the country, leaving huge amounts of ammunition in the hands of tribal warriors, who turned their guns on each other, as well as on the West. The `reaction’ is being witnessed today, as terrorists trained in Afghanistan who were funded by the U.S., are expressing their dissatisfaction with what seems like everything "western" by targeting Americans around the world. The bombings of two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, and the bombing of USS Cole, a U.S. naval battle ship, in Aden, in 2000, have been blamed, by Washington, on what it refers to simplistically, as 'Islamic fundamentalists'. These Islamic fundamentalists are trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan and rose to power on arms supplied by the U.S. during the Reagan administration; they use their expertise on the very people whose money fed, and possibly, still feeds them. How did this happen? What leads to U.S. support of Pakistan even today? What can the world at large do about the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan? Should we even do anything? These are just some of the questions we are faced with when we start analyzing the recent history and politics of Afghanistan.
The history of AfghanistanIn trying to analyze Afghan politics, we must look at the tribal history of the country and try and understand its traditions. Afghanistan has never been a united society with a central leadership. The nature of the society and its many tribes1 dictates that there must be a decentralization of power. From 1933 till 1973, King Zahir Shah ruled Afghanistan in exactly this kind of decentralized fashion, with local leaders weilding much more power than the king did. For many of those forty years, he ruled under the guidance of his cousin and prime minister, Daoud Khan. In 1963, though, with the resignation of Daoud he asserted his independence, and drafted a constitution for Afghanistan, which provided legal equality for men and women. The constitution also gave precedence to secular law over Islamic Shari'a law. These constitutional reforms polarized Afghan society, as people either favored a faster pace of change, supporting the Peoples' Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which was a socialist group touting Kremlin-style politics, or a return to conservative Islamic tradition. This kind of reaction from the society is what makes it tough to analyze the priorities of Afghan people even today. On the one hand, they have a right to gender equality and freedom of speech and expression, but on the other hand, they might not actually attach as much importance as anyone in the West to either of these two rights, as they might to the preservation of Islamic tradition, and conservative social values. This makes it very important for us to stand back and understand the values of the people in Afghanistan, before we espouse democratic and secular principles in such a society. Having said that, however, we should note that there are a variety of ethnic groups in Afghanistan, each with its own values and principles. There is not, therefore, any consensus in Afghan society as to what degree of liberalism is acceptable. The levels of freedom, in all likelihood, will need to be decided by individual ethnic groups, with local government, and even local laws. This is the way Afghan society was set up before the arrival of the Soviets1. Local governments, which reported back to a central authority with only limited power in local issues, was the result of centuries of evolution in a democratic and politically liberal society.
In 1973, King Zahir Shah was overthrown in a coup by his cousin Daoud. Daoud was a liberal, and the coup was met with resistance from the religious conservatives. He also wanted to reduce Afghanistan's dependence on the Soviet Union on the economic, political and military fronts. This was seen as a threat by the Soviets, who many believed, helped orchestrate the coup to overthrow and kill Daoud in 1978. The PDPA, which took power as a result of the coup, was in favor of Soviet style rapid reforms. They made education compulsory, and used force to apply changes, disregarding the traditional and cultural values of the Afghans. This prompted an uprising by the masses against the PDPA, who they viewed as just a puppet in the hands of the Soviets. There was also a call for 'jihad' or a holy war, by Islamic fundamentalists, who were in the minority in Afghan society at the time. It is important to note the distinction between the popular uprising of the people of Afghanistan against imposed cultural change by the Soviets and the PDPA, and the mujahideen fighting a holy war. A power struggle within the PDPA also ensued, ending in the assassination of Nur Mohammed Taraki, the president , by Hafizullah Amin. Amin was disliked by Moscow, and the Soviets were left with the options of either withdrawing support to Afghanistan, or intervening militarily, to remove Amin from power to instate a more Moscow-favorable person at the helm. It was impossible for the Soviets to withdraw support, as that brought the possibility of an end to socialist policies in Afghanistan, and a possible 'Islamization', especially in view of the recent rise to power of radical Islamists in neighboring Iran. So the Soviet Union went for a full scale military intervention in Afghanistan, played a direct role in killing Amin, and instating Babrak Karmal and later, Najibullah, as president in Afghanistan. They also sought to quell the mujahideen uprising through air raids, and large scale destruction on the ground, which adversely affected the farming communities in Afghanistan, and displaced families, who were forced to flee to refugee camps in Iran or Pakistan.
The mujahideen were aided militarily by the U.S., via Pakistan, if only because they were against the USSR. The people of Afghanistan, who were also fighting Soviet intervention, were not supported by the U.S. – the reasons for this anomaly we can only guess. It is conceivable that the U.S. wanted to fund someone who would play their game, and would blindly fight the Soviets with the fervor of a religious war, rather than fund people who had their own values and livelihoods to defend. Whatever the reasons behind the U.S. choosing to fund groups of radical Islamists with little popular support, the common man in Afghanistan was caught between the Soviets who were ready to destroy everything in Afghanistan, including civilian settlements, and a group of religious zealots, armed with weaponry they were not trained to use. The people of Afghanistan, thus, were forgotten, and not paid any attention to as the two superpowers, one in disguise, fought a bloody war.
Pakistan, as a poor third world country, surrounded by formidable neighbors in China, the USSR, and India, saw this as an opportunity to glean everything possible out of the situation. General Zia-ul Haq, the then ruling military leader in Pakistan, negotiated with the U.S. to get large scale military aid, in addition to that being sent for the mujahideen in Afghanistan. He also told the U.S. that Pakistan would serve as a conduit for arms into Afghanistan on the condition that the U.S. not only fund, but also give it a free hand at developing its own nuclear program. The U.S., desperate at the time, for an ally in the region, agreed. Thus started Pakistan's foray into the world of nuclear power. Today, the U.S. and the world are well justified at considering Pakistan the most dangerous nuclear power in the world, on account of a very unstable government, a dysfunctional democracy, and power struggles in politics, that make it difficult to understand who calls the shots in that country.
Through the 1980s, the Soviets fought a costly war in Afghanistan, finally completing a pullout in 1989. The cold war itself ended soon after, but the socialist government in Afghanistan, lasted for two years after the country that created it itself had disintegrated. In 1992, the mujahideen took power in Kabul. It is important to realize here, that the U.S. and Pakistan had believed that the PDPA government would not last long after the withdrawal of Soviet forces, and hence, urged the mujahideen parties to form a coalition interim government2. They tried to do this, but when the Najibullah government did not fall in 1989, the mujahideen groups, unable to arrive at a consensus on how to form a coalition, turned their arms on each other. This resulted in some fierce infighting in Afghanistan, and a prolonged 'jihad'. In 1992, the interim government finally took power, with Burhanuddin Rabbani at the helm. Rabbani, being an ethnic Tajik, did not have the support of the majority Pushtuns in Afghanistan. This created problems for the mujahideen government right at the outset. The mujahideen rule was fraught with strife all over Afghanistan. Various rebel groups that had headquarters in various cities around Afghanistan, fought to retain control in those areas. As a result, there was hardly any peace in Afghanistan, even though the jihad had officially ended. This could explain why a group of students who called themselves the Taliban, were looked upon favorably, when they moved systematically through Afghanistan in 1996, purging the populace of weapons. The Taliban have their headquarters in Kandahar, and now control 95% of Afghanistan, the exception being the panjshir valley in the northeast, which is still ruled by a mujahideen group, referred to as the northern alliance.
The TalibanThe Taliban movement started as a small student group in Kandahar in 1994 (1). The students were taught a radical interpretation of the Quran in jirgas (religious schools) in refugee camps on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, run by some of the most radical Islamists known. They came back to Afghanistan, to create an Islamic state based on this interpretation of the Quran. When the Taliban succeeded in gaining control of a large portion of Afghanistan within a short time in 1996, the people welcomed them, as it put an end to the constant bombing and shelling that they had witnessed over the past fifteen years.
Soon, though it became clear that the Taliban were more radical in their interpretation of the Quran and in their implementation of the Shari'a law than anything the world had ever seen. They immediately issued a dress code for everyone in Afghanistan, disallowed women from working in the urban setting with men from outside their family, allowed women to get health care only in hospitals specially set up for treating women (1), banned television on the grounds that Islam was against the 'visual representation of the human form'1. Most importantly, they banned girls from attending schools. The Taliban believe that more than going to school, the emphasis should be on the kind of education children receive. Girls, according to the Taliban, learn everything they need to know in the society, at home (1). Boys can only attend jirgas. Education, as we know it, was stopped completely.
The ideals of the Taliban are entirely foreign to anyone brought up on modern, liberal values. In analyzing them, however, we should be careful to take into account the naturally conservative nature of Afghan society. It is extremely tough to gauge the sentiment amongst Afghans today, as so few are willing to speak out, for fear of punishment by the regime. Whether this silence on the part of Afghan people is due to a fear, or a lack of access to media, or even due to a contentment with the Taliban laws, is a matter that needs to be addressed by the media.
Most important from the point of view of the U.S., is the housing of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire, by the Taliban. Bin Laden fought on behalf of the mujahideen in the 1980s, but now, is alleged to be supporting, mostly financially, the Taliban. Bin Laden is on a list of the ten most wanted criminals by the FBI in the U.S. He has been blamed for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, and is blamed by the U.S. for any international crime that no organization claims responsibility for.
(In case you're wondering, I wrote this in 2000, well before 9/11)
The U.S. should realize, that if it wants bin Laden and the Taliban to stop targeting Americans around the world, it needs to explore ways of stopping completely the availability of the money that funds them. Air-raids against the country are going to adversely affect only the people of Afghanistan, while leaving the Taliban and other terrorist training camps virtually unaffected.
Afghan relations with its neighbors and the omnipresent issue of oilThe Taliban regime is widely viewed as repressive, radical, and against gender equality. This has prompted most nations to reject the Taliban government. Prominent exceptions, though, are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Pakistan has a very evident agenda in supporting the Taliban. It is to Pakistan's advantage to have a government in Kabul, that will dance to its (Pakistan's) tunes, resulting in a vast Islamic block stretching from Afghanistan to Central Asia. This affords Pakistan some confidence when dealing with its relatively powerful neighbor, India. The U.S. too, feels that it needs an ally in the region, and with the traditionally non-aligned nature of India, the U.S. has had to rely on Pakistan. This complicates the situation, as U.S. support for Pakistan translates indirectly into support for the Taliban, as Pakistan is firmly behind the radical organization. This might explain the lack of a strong U.S. policy against the Taliban. Washington probably finds it impossible to speak out firmly and loudly against the Taliban when its strategic ally, Pakistan, as well as Saudi Arabia, the ally it needs at all times to fulfill its oil requirements, back them.
Afghanistan is bordered to the north, by three countries, that came into existence after the fall of the Soviet Union, and are still trying to find their identity outside the shadow of Russia. There is the constant possibility that Islamic fundamentalism will spill over from Afghanistan into Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Russia, of course will do its absolute best to avoid such a scenario. Today, Russia's concern is not so much a diplomatic and psychological stranglehold on Central Asian politics, as maintaining an economic advantage in the area. They would rather have the Central Asian republics remain militarily and economically dependent on Russia, than have them bear allegiance to Pakistan, and therefore, indirectly, to the U.S. As I write this, I wonder if the cold war is really over. In this region of the world, especially, which lies at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle east, and South Asia, it looks like you still have to be aligned with either the U.S. or Russia, in order to have your military and economic needs met.
Look closely, though, and you might see another spoke in the wheel: China. It's tough to see it on the map, but Afghanistan has a sliver of land that borders China. China has become worried of late, that radical Islamism might spill over into its western province of Xinjiang. China would like to work with Iran and Pakistan to bring peace to Afghanistan. The Taliban, for their part, would rather strike a deal with China than risk air-strikes by Russia, who think the Taliban have been training Chechen rebels. In addition to ending the war, China wants to cement a good relationship with Iran. On the 25th of July, 2000, Taliban diplomats assured China that they would not allow any anti-China activities to be carried out inside Afghanistan (4). (An inadvertent acknowledgement of activities against other nations being carried out under Taliban rule, may be?). Any negotiations between China and the Taliban, will no doubt worsen China-Russia relations. Both these countries want to assert their supremacy in Asia, and if China forges ahead in relations with Iran, it might indeed win this diplomatic battle. Russia, however, is more concerned with economic gains, and military ware has always been Moscow's economic strength. In the past few days, Russia, announced that it would support Ahmed Shah Masoud's mujahideen forces that are fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, one of the few areas in the country that the Taliban has not yet gained control over. This support will be military aid, along with chemical weapons, made available to Masoud, via Tajikistan. With this announcement from Russia, one would expect to see the Taliban scrambling to cement a peace deal, and possibly a military agreement of some kind with China. The last thing that Afghanistan wants to see right now, is a renewal of a full-fledged war, with external elements calling the shots. In light of this, the warring factions in Afghanistan, the Taliban and the northern Alliance, have agreed, according to the United Nations , to hold talks in an effort to bring peace to the war-torn land (4).
Afghanistan needs desperately, to maintain good relations with the Central Asian oil-rich republics. There are two possible routes for transporting oil that these countries produce, to the waterways so that it can be transported to the lucrative markets of Europe and North America.. They are through Iran, or through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obviously, whichever countries are chosen to build pipelines through will benefit enormously economically. Chinese ships have recently been granted rights to load and unload cargo at Port Said, the gateway to the Suez canal (4). China in fact, is seen to be an emerging power in the control of the world's waterways. It's easy to see Beijing's plan to control oil transport around the world. This would also explain its efforts to forge good relations with both Iran, and Afghanistan. This way, whichever country has pipelines built through it, China stands to gain.
Kazakhstan has acknowledged the Taliban as the major force in Afghanistan. It is interesting to note that this has come even as the military ruler of Pakistan, General Musharraf, is visiting Kazakhstan. It'll be interesting to know what transpired in the meetings between the premiers of these two countries. Whatever each country's interest is, it looks like everyone has to gain from peace in Afghanistan. In all these grand plans being hatched around the world, though, there is one interest that is conspicuously missing - the interest of the Afghan people.
Alternatives to fundamentalism and violence in Afghanistan: what can we do to help?Since no country seems to prioritize the interests of the Afghan people, we need to ask whether there are any alternatives to violent factions ruling Afghanistan. Is there a democratic undertone to society? It is very difficult to assess the situation in Afghanistan today, because of the many contradictory reports about Afghan social sentiment. It is important to keep in mind, in such studies, however, the naturally conservative nature of society in the country. As stated before, it is difficult to gauge social sentiment regarding the Taliban, as it remains possible that their ideologies do in fact reflect the conservative Islamic tradition in Afghanistan. It is increasingly becoming evident, however, that while most Afghans supported the Taliban in the first three years of their rule in the hope of a lasting peace, they are now disillusioned with the Taliban's total repression of the freedom of expression of the people of Afghanistan (5). There is at least one seemingly democratic organization that is active, but is forced to work underground, in Pakistan. Representatives of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (
RAWA), recently visited the U.S. and spoke out against the Taliban regime (7). Members of RAWA have been outspoken in condemning the U.S. policy of supporting the mujahideen against the Soviets. In the view of RAWA, the mujahideen were not the true representatives of the Afghan people at all; they were Islamic fundamentalists, who were a minority in the society. The U.S. supported them, and converted them into party leaders and politicians. RAWA also condemns the 1998 air-strikes by the U.S. against Afghanistan on the grounds that the people who really suffered were the Afghan populace, and not the Taliban leadership.
RAWA holds very important the values of democracy and human rights (7). They believe that when there is no peace in the country, there is no point in fighting only for women's rights. Hence, they are campaigning for a complete purging of Afghan society, including the Taliban, of arms. They would like to see King Zahir Shah reinstated as an interim ruler, while the society recovers from 20 years of war, and oppression, giving people a chance to build a democracy in which the rights of people are respected.
In order for peace to return to Afghanistan, it will be very important for every country that is aiding either the Taliban or Ahmed Shah Masoud's Northern alliance, to completely stop such support. Military disengagement being the need of the hour in Afghanistan, the Russian decision to arm the northern alliance with chemical weapons becomes all the more appalling. For military disengagement to take hold, the U.S. and the U.N. will have to actively persuade Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia from stopping military support to the Taliban5, the Northern Alliance and other mujahideen groups. It is only when the sources of arms and ammunition for the warring factions dry out, that peace will return to Afghanistan. The U.N. should also engage in peace-keeping during such a period of transition.
Most importantly, the international community will have to recognize the fact that the warring factions in Afghanistan are the result of money poured in by them, and that until the monetary and military funds dry out, the war will rage on. The ones who suffer, will be the people of Afghanistan. The international community was responsible for starting the war, is responsible for the continuing war, and the overall terrible situation in Afghanistan today. After 21 years of violence, the international community will have to bear the responsibility of giving back to the Afghan people, the right to rebuild and rule their own lives.
References:
1 Marsden, Peter; The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 1998)
2 Rais, Rasul Bakhsh; War Without Winners (Oxford University Press, 1994)
3 www.heritage.org
4 www.stratfor.com
5 www.afghanistanfoundation.org
6 www.saidit.org
7 www.rawa.org
Farmer Thirthan with his Turmeric harvest. Photo: THI
