Military

DATE=12/10/01

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=AFGHAN GOVERNMENT (2)

NUMBER=5-50659

BYLINE=ED WARNER

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

///// MAY BE USED WITH BKG 5-50659, AFGHAN GOVERNMENT (1). /////

INTRO: The aim of the interim Afghanistan ruling body, established at Bonn, is to keep the country's many factions together until a grand assembly provides a permanent government. The fear is the nation could revert to the strife of the early 1990's that led to the Taleban takeover. V-O-A's Ed Warner reports that making Afghanistan secure is basic to the success of the new government.

TEXT: Warlords are once again behaving like warlords, says Larry Goodson, author of "Afghanistan's Endless War." If this continues, Afghanistan will soon have the look of the early 1990's: checkpoints every few miles on the road as various groups extort money from travelers and sometimes take their lives. It will be government by gun.

/// GOODSON ACT ///

There is most probably going to continue to be a certain amount of lawlessness and anarchy in some parts of the country, and probably relatively peaceful, stable conditions in other parts of the country, and not a lot that the titular leaders in Kabul can really do to influence it one way or the other in the short run.

/// END ACT ///

It is possible these warlords have learned their lesson, says Thomas Greene, a former U-S diplomat who served in Afghanistan. They have much to lose, little to gain, by defying the new government:

/// GREENE ACT ///

The biggest danger would come from Dostum, the Uzbek leader, and Ismael Khan, the leader in Herat. But my hope is that both of these people, when tranquility returns to their home fiefs, will see such an advantage in it, if only from their own self-serving standpoint, that they will not do anything that will plunge the country into civil war again.

/// END ACT ///

Even though Political Science Professor Anwar Ahady of Providence College turned down a cabinet post in the interim government, he expects central authority to prevail over the warlords:

/// AHADI ACT ///

I think that government will gradually expand its authority to the rest of the country, and therefore, it would not have to deal immediately with Dostum and Ismael Khan and the others. There is enough international support for this government that would translate later on into pressure on all those warlords to fall in line.

/// END ACT //

Mr. Ahady and others say an international peace-keeping force is essential to keep wayward warlords under control as the new government gets under way. The United States has preferred to end the war before introducing such a force, but Richard Haas, policy planning director at the State Department, says one might be in place when the interim group starts to work in Kabul on December 22.

Larry Goodson says the United States should move faster in securing Afghanistan:

/// GOODSON ACT ///

There seems to be a real reluctance in Washington to think much about nation building in Afghanistan and to think much about a U-S presence beyond the body-bags phase of this whole operation. I think the United States has to send the message that we have a clear understanding of what it will take to make Afghanistan a functioning state once again.

/// END ACT ///

A failed state gives rise to terrorism, says Mr. Goodson. So Afghanistan must not fail again.

It will not be allowed to, says Mr. Haas. There will be no lack of U-S resources or staying power.

Will that be welcome? Writing in the New York Times, Laili Helms, a former adviser to the Taleban foreign ministry, says even the remaining Taleban consider the United States an honest broker that can keep Afghanistan together. (SIGNED)

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