Mono, Ethnic Solutions:The Taliban's Cheque Book Campaign, Autumn 1998 - Part 2
The Osama Bin Laden Factor: The Paradox of American Policy
Zeev Maoz, an Israeli analyst writing in his scholarly book on the Paradoxes of War: On the Art of National Self-Entrapment, has dwelt at length upon the paradox of how nations, guided by very intelligent and rational analysis, sometimes knowingly get into traps of tremendously destructive proportions. Maoz has studied the casually induced contradiction between reasonable expectations and the outcomes of motivated behaviour based on them--in short the Policy Paradox. Nothing highlights this theme better than the somewhat paradoxical American policy positions in Afghanistan. These have mostly been guided (surprisingly) by tactical and short-term and often emotive agendas. The initial crusade against Soviet occupation was fuelled by an emotive agenda of seeking historical revenge for Vietnam. Over five billion dollars of military aid and equipment were recklessly flung in and an Islamic jihad was started. The USA did not even bother to wind it down once the Soviets left. It simply lost all interest. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the emergence of the Central Asian states and their huge hydro carbon deposits led to an equally sudden revival of American interest in this region. Now the revised tactical agenda went no further than seeking oil pipeline routes for its oil companies. The UNOCOL and Saudi Arabia went overboard in financing the Taliban to secure these oil routes. They completely ignored the perils of creating and letting loose such a rabidly fundamentalist organisation like the Taliban. The perils of such a course were painfully highlighted in the explosions that rent the US Embassies in Dar-es-Salam and Nairobi on August 7, 1998. The US has been bankrolling its own ultimate nemesis. Osama Bin Laden is now comfortably ensconced in the caves of the Zahawar Mujahideen base in the Khost province south-west of Jalalabad, (which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had financed and had constructed during the Afghan War).
Osama Bin Laden was once one of the star recruiters of the CIA who enrolled thousands of jihad volunteers from the Middle East (the Arabs, Sudanese, Egyptians and Algerians) for a jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Laden had set up the Makhtab-el-Khidmat or service office to recruit these jihad volunteers for the CIA. Having won their jihad against the USSR--these jihadis have turned their attention onto the second superpower. It is a supreme irony. The CIA funded Bin Laden's operations. The British MI-6 supplied him Blowpipe anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons. This Saudi millionaire's son inherited a $300 million fortune from his family construction business. He zealously drove bulldozers to gouge roads and caves in Afghanistan. He helped build the Zahawar-kelli-El Badr Camp as a CIA showpiece for the Afghan Mujahideen. In May 1998, the self same Laden had issued a fatwa to attack American personnel and property all over the globe. On August 20, 1998 he was holed in the same Zahawar camp when 60 American Tomahawak missiles slammed into it in a bid to finish Osama Bin Laden--one time star recruiter of the CIA. His Taliban hosts refused to hand him over and there was considerable popular agitation in the Pakistani public as the Pakistani government tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds on the business of the American Tomahawk strikes against Laden. That precisely is the paradox of American policy on Afghanistan. Even as the UNOCOL joins Saudi Arabia in bankrolling a Taliban conquest of Afghanistan, guests of the Taliban, ex-Mujahideen of the Afghan jihad, target US Embassies and personnel all over the globe. The New York World Trade Centre bombings are still fresh in the public memory. This jihad ideology has blurred international boundaries and made Lines of Control irrelevant. It is a dangerous new form of interventionism that threatens the established system of sovereign nation states in Central and South Asia. What is even more ironic is the threat that this jihad poses to American lives and interests all over the world. There is a very serious need for introspection and for developing long-term overviews for stabilising the region and putting in place a new security architecture that is not premised on a zero-sum-game mentality: a zero-sum-game in which Pakistan triumphs over each and every one of its regional competitors and assumes the sole responsibility for restructuring the security architecture of the region as per its wishes and the interests of Saudi and Western oil corporations.
Operation Infinite Reach
The most poignant epitaph to the Taliban's Autumn 1998 offensive in northern Afghanistan is provided by the American Operation Infinite Reach. On August 20, 1998, US Gen Joseph Ralston (Deputy Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) flew into Pakistan. He told Gen Jehangir Karamat that American cruise missiles were on their way to the Zahawar-kelli-El Badr Camp in Khowst. As per media reports, an American flotilla comprising one aircraft carrier (USS Abraham Lincoln), three cruisers (USS Shiloh, Compass and Valley Forge) and four destroyers (USS Milius, Elliot, Briscoe and Hayler) along with one submarine, launched a barrage of 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles from 120 miles south of Karachi on the Arabian Sea. The Americans had located Bin Laden in the Zahawar Camp with the help of his satellite phone. Luckily for him, he switched off his phone and fled just before the missiles slammed into one training camp (where Harkat-ul-Ansar volunteers for Kashmir were being trained) and one base and one support camp south of Khost and Tani in Afghanistan. Reportedly some 21 people were killed and scores other wounded in these attacks. The victory celebrations of the Taliban ended on a rather sombre note.
Ethnic Cleansing Versus Ethnic Reconciliation
The tragedy is that all UN and Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) brokered peace talks for reconciliation between the warring ethnicities in Afghanistan have failed. Iran had made a sincere effort to rope in Pakistan for yet another bid at ethnic reconciliation between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. Such a reconciliation could have possibly set the stage for a more durable peace and enabled a more representative and lasting arrangement to emerge in war-torn Afghanistan. Historic patterns repeat themselves. Pakistan has calculatedly used Islamic ideology and a Jihad facade to destroy one of the oldest nation states in South Asia. It deliberately prevented the emergence of any charismatic military leaders in Afghanistan who could act as the agents for the formation of a free and independent Afghan state after the Soviet withdrawal. It calculatedly starved militarily efficient and successful Mujahideen field commanders and routed over 70 per cent of the arms assistance provided by the USA and other countries to its Islamic proteges. This became so blatant that there was considerable acrimony between the CIA and the Pakistan government over this issue. Its failure to back up efficient Mujahideen military commanders assured that even after the Soviets withdrew, no Afghan Mujahideen forces were in any position to capture Kabul or any of the other key cities. Had the USSR not collapsed economically and had the Russians kept up their military and economic support, possibly Najibullah's regime could have continued to dominate the Afghan scene. His regime fell because of a shut-off of critical Russian support and the fierce ethnic cleavage between the Pashtun and the Farsiwan ethnicities. The KGB trained Jowzjani militia of Dostam and the Tajiks of Mahsood were the first to capture Kabul. First, Pakistan continued to back Hekmetyar till it realised that he was in no position to deliver Afghanistan. Then it dumped him unceremoniously and raised the Taliban. This triumphalist Pakistani mindset has led it to view itself as the winner of the jihad against the Soviet Union and it perceives Afghanistan not as a nation state that must be rehabilitated and reconstructed but as the legitimate spoils of its "victory" in jihad.
That is why Pakistan has deliberately eschewed the path of ethnic reconciliation and has encouraged the Taliban to embark upon a horrific programme of ethnic cleansing, especially against the Shia Hazaras. In March 1971, Pakistan had adopted a similar ethnic cleansing approach in Bangladesh. For a time it appeared as if it had brutally tamed the ethnic uprising of the Bengali Muslims. The long-term consequences of these brutal massacres were tragic for Pakistan itself. Invaders may have conquered Afghanistan in the past; retaining control of that country over time has always been problematic. The ISI advisors seem to have advised the Taliban to terrorise the non-Pashtun population into submission. It remains to be seen if this ethnic cleansing approach will not boomerang in a society which lays so much emphasis on badl--the tradition of revenge and the blood feud. Whatever short-term gains the Taliban may have made, its long-term effects could prove to be a horrific quagmire. Iran is so greatly incensed that it appears on the verge of massive military intervention. The nervous Taliban issued weapons to its border area civilians in panic. Initially, the Iranian military pressure had dramatically halted the Taliban's triumphalist march and relieved pressure on the beleaguered Hazaras and Tajiks. The Iranian troop concentration directly threatens Herat--the launch pad of the latest Taliban offensive—and initially forced the Taliban to recoil. The internationalist Islamic pretensions of the Taliban bode ill not just for the Central and South Asian region but also for the Middle East and Africa and as the Americans have tragically learnt to their cost (in the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania), even for the world's last remaining superpower. Even if the Iranians do not invade, their massive force concentration is poised against Herat, the logistical base for the Taliban's recent offensive. It has already served the purpose of relieving pressure on the north and putting the Taliban on notice that patience with its bizarre antics is running thin in this region. Crude attempts at ethnic cleansing are no solution to the intractable conflict in Afghanistan. Peace and stability can only return if a multi-ethnic, broad based and representative government comes to power in Kabul. The ethnic arithmetic is not such as would permit the domination of one tribe purely on the basis of terror and slaughter. Bribes for buying off Opposition commanders are a tactical gambit, not a long-term solution. Above all, Pakistan must realise that the zero-sum-game strategy that it is pursuing in the region--at the total cost of all its neighbours—is bound to boomerang. The Iranian military threat is just one manifestation. These could multiply as the patience of other regional actors begins to wear thin. What Afghanistan needs is ethnic reconciliation and not ethnic cleansing.
The Pakistani columnist, M.B. Naqvi, writing in the August 15, 1998, issue of the Dawn paper has summed it up most succinctly. Pakistan may soon be in no position to savour the Taliban's northern triumph. Its zero-sum-game mentality of imposing a win-lose situation on all its regional competitors has serious inbuilt pitfalls. Naqvi writes, "Let no one in Pakistan minimise the economic costs of the Taliban victory to Pakistan. One part of the cost is to ensure that the Taliban remains in power and that the internecine warfare among the various parties and groups comes to an end." He goes on to add, "As of now the political rear of the Taliban is not as securely united as it seems. At any rate, no one can think that the powers surrounding Afghanistan would take the defeat of their respective allies/proteges lying down. There is every possibility that these groups and factions of the Northern Alliance would be helped to regroup and start fighting the Taliban again. This implies a non-stop quasi-military vigil, which has to be maintained by continually aiding the Taliban forces. By and large, the Taliban government will have to be provided a security umbrella." Naqvi poses a very pertinent question: "Can we (Pakistan) afford it?" What is equally relevant for the Saudi and UNOCOL consortium is the ultimate price of the oil and gas that flows down this route. The Taliban's ethnic cleansing may well have guaranteed low intensity conflict for the next two decades along this route. The most worrisome aspect is that in its frantic attempts to prevent its fundamentalist Frankenstein of the Taliban from turning upon its own makers, Pakistan may well do its best to export jihad in a highly indiscriminate manner--simply to keep the footloose jihad warriors from turning upon itself. That could prove to be a very dangerous development for the region. In fact, media reports have quoted the former Pakistani Army Chief, Mirza Aslam Beg to the effect that the Taliban ought to repay Pakistan by sending its fighters into Kashmir.
The Final Denouement: The Paradox of the Oil Slump
Pakistan invested heavily in its anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. It put itself at serious risk by becoming the bridgehead for this jihad. It is somewhat ironic that when the time came to cash in on this very high risk investment, circumstances changed dramatically. Perhaps this paradox stems from Pakistan's over-ambition and over-reach, from a desire to play a remorseless zero-sum-game at the cost of all the regional states. In its quest for imposing a win-lose resolution of the Afghan conflict on all its neighbours, the Pakistani policy has been running into a series of paradoxes. Thus, Pakistan torpedoed all chances of ethnic reconciliation in Afghanistan by spurning the Iranian peace offer of mid-1998. Blinded by an ambition to corner all the trade and oil outflows from Central Asia, it used the fig leaf of the Taliban to impose a military solution. It encouraged the Taliban to adopt the route of ethnic cleansing and terrorising of the ethnic minorities. The Taliban victories were facilitated by large doles of dollars from Saudi Arabia which were used to simply buy off the opposition. In August 1998 came Pakistan's final triumph--the Taliban overran Mazar-e-Sharif and Bamiyan and militarily held sway over 90 per cent of Afghan territory. The inherent contradiction of the policy paradox now came to the fore. The Taliban promptly announced that UNOCOL could now lay the oil-cum-gas pipelines. Pakistan, however, had not catered for the Osama Bin Laden terror bombings of the US Embassies. Nor had Pakistan visualised the impact of the money meltdown in South-East Asia. This has resulted in a sharp downturn of oil demand in the Far East. Petrol prices are at all time lows. The oil companies are no longer interested in adding the Central Asian oil flows to the oil glut in the world market. A creeping world- wide depression will further impair the oil demand. Ahmad Rashid writes in the September 17, 1998 issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review that after the US Tomahawk strikes on Bin Laden's camps, the US oil giant UNOCOL suspended its plans to build oil pipelines from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. It hurriedly pulled out its staff from Islamabad and fled the scene in a somewhat undignified exit at the very moment the Taliban secured the oil routes it wanted. This UNOCOL pull-out (for the time being) virtually ends US attempts to export Central Asian oil eastwards via pipelines that avoid Iran. In its attempts at over-reach, Pakistan and its creation, the Taliban, are now left facing an angry Iran--livid at the slaughter of ethnic Shias and the murder of its diplomats. Could there be a better example of a policy paradox of national self-entrapment based on perfectly rational but highly cynical calculations of a zero-sum-game strategy by Pakistan? |
