Afghanistan dropping off US radar screen
By Ehsan Ahrari
On February 26, President George W Bush, in a major speech at a conservative think tank in Washington, declared, "Our coalition of more than 90 countries is pursuing the networks of terror with every tool of law enforcement and with military power. We have arrested, or otherwise dealt with, many key commanders of al-Qaeda. Across the world we are hunting down the killers one by one. We are winning and we're showing them the definition of American justice."
Contrast the preceding statement with the following items published in the news section of Radio Free Europe on February 27 regarding Afghanistan. One byline read, "Afghanistan: UN suspends aid work due to uncertain security". A UN spokesman told reporters that the decision of the world body to suspend aid work in some areas of Afghanistan was taken "after tensions had risen in several of the country's northern provinces". He went on add, "There has been no progress in efforts to disarm warlords operating in the region." Two other headlines read, "Fighting in Afghanistan's Faryab province continues" and "Highway robbery in Afghanistan".
Victoria Burnett of the Financial Times of February 27, under the title "Afghanistan: War is won but peace could yet be lost", writes "... the Taliban is believed to be regrouping, now with a new ally, renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Barely a day goes by without a rocket fired at a coalition base and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force], the international peacekeeping force in Kabul, is rattled after a spate of attacks. In recent weeks coalition forces have twice engaged in the heaviest fighting for a year."
In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 attacks on its territory, the US initiated a very important endeavor in Afghanistan, under the rubric of a global war on terrorism. The easiest part of the war in that country - the military campaign - was more or less complete. But one major reason the US went into Afghanistan was to ensure the emergence of that troubled country as a peaceful and stable place, preferably a democracy. That nebulous and imprecise statement contains a lot of complexities, frustrations and heartburn. However, if the terrorist forces were not to regroup and return with a vengeance in Afghanistan, the US had not only to stay engaged for years to come, but it was expected to start a campaign, in earnest, of nation-building.
Yes, Bush loathed the very notion of nation-building even while he was a candidate during the 2000 presidential elections. But that was a different time, and, indeed, a different era. Even as he was sending his troops to Afghanistan to dismantle the Taliban regime, Bush might have not known that he was also committing his country to that nation for the next 20 years. This observation is not at all popular anywhere in Washington. That, nevertheless, is the reality, with warts and all. The US choices in Afghanistan are indubitably unambiguous: rebuild it or lose it, perhaps, to worse terrorists than you ousted in 2001.
The foremost objective underlying nation-building in Afghanistan remains widening the scope of legitimacy of the government headed by President Hamid Karzai, a candidate handpicked for the job by the Bush administration. However, to this day, from the perspective of legitimacy and authority, Karzai acts more as a mayor of Kabul than the president of the Republic of Afghanistan. His capability to expand the legitimacy and authority of his government is based on, but is not limited to, a number of very important variables.
First, the building of institutional infrastructure all over Afghanistan is itself a Herculean task. To start with, he has to build an extensive network of roads, schools, irrigation, transportation and health systems, and, more important of all, a stout law enforcement system. And the list goes on.
Second, he needs mega-bucks to build this infrastructure. Needless to say, he is entirely dependent on a group of donor nations for funds to carry out this awesome task. On this point, the industrial donors have established a shameful record. According to one report, "A January 2002 conference in Tokyo produced pledges totaling $4.5 billion over five years for Afghanistan's reconstruction and security. But the finance ministry in Kabul has said that $20 billion to $25 billion will be needed to rebuild the nation's crumbled infrastructure." The same report notes, "Congress has approved the American commitment made at Tokyo, setting aside $3.3 billion. But contributions from other countries have been lagging. The result has been dashed expectations among the Afghan people and the government."
The third variable is the building of the Afghan security forces. Building these forces in a war-ravaged country is awesome, indeed, by any stretch of the imagination. For Afghanistan, this task is immensely complicated by the presence not only of multi-ethnicity, but also of deeply entrenched rivalries and hatred that accompany that reality. Presently, two armies coexist in Afghanistan: the fledgling Afghan National Army and the loosely knit group of fighters who came together to fight the Taliban. The United States is training the Afghan National Army, whose current size is reported to be 3,000 recruits. However, according to a report issued by CARE (a US-based NGO), few have been paid. "About half have deserted because of tensions between different ethnic groups, low pay and poor housing." Warlords, on the contrary, have a very good record of maintaining their militia because they can offer them "steady salaries, good housing and prestige", notes the report.
Fourth, the continued presence of warlords itself is a constant challenge to the already shaky authority of Karzai. For law and order in and around Kabul, he is dependent on the ISAF. The rest of the country is under the purview of 8,000 American forces who are in charge of expanding the government's power. However, as frustration among the 44 percent of the Pashtun population escalates, American troops are likely to be perceived as an occupying force. There also remains a question whether American forces are primarily driven by the motivation to expand the legitimacy of the Karzai government or to capture the remainder the al-Qaeda terrorists. Arguably, there are some linkages between the two motives.
Fifth, the presence of a robust "opium economy" continues to serve as one of the largest challenges to the authority of the government to implement crop substitution policies. According to a UN report issued in the beginning of February, "Afghan poppies serve as the raw material for about 80 percent of the heroin and other opium derivatives sold illegally in Europe." It goes on note the "corrosive effects" of the Afghan drug trade on its neighboring states. "Data from the region show," it states, "there are close to 1 million opiate abusers in Iran, 700,000 in Pakistan, and more than 300,000 in Central Asia. Shown as a percentage of the population over age 15, this amounts to nearly 1 percent of the population in Pakistan and Central Asia and 2.8 percent of the population in Iran. That's a far higher percentage of abusers than in Western Europe."
The labor-intensive nature of the opium cultivation is also engulfing a large chunk of the Afghan population, including women and children. A very obvious solution is to engage this population in "alternative economic means". For women, such an alternative includes providing jobs, while for children, an eminently better option is to send them to schools. Thus, we come full circle: for all these activities, the Afghan government not only needs financial assistance, but technical assistance from donor states.
Hamid Karzai is only too aware of his country's needs. That is why he showed up in Washington in the last week of February, at a time when Washington was fully immersed in pushing through another UN resolution legitimizing the Bush administration's impending invasion of Iraq. His message was simple but poignant, "Don't forget us if Iraq happens," Karzai said. "If you reduce the attention because of Iraq ... and if you leave the whole thing to us to fight again, it will be repeating the mistake the United States made during the Soviet occupation."
But "not forgetting" Afghanistan means making a very serious commitment about nation building. It is about letting Afghanistan grow into a moderate Muslim democracy, and not goading it into becoming a Scandinavian democracy. Afghanistan will never become a Scandinavian democracy. But then who said that becoming a moderate Muslim democracy is not a better option than emulating Scandinavians, or even the Americans every step of the way.
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