Military

DATE=08/10/2002

TYPE=ON THE LINE

NUMBER=1-01172

TITLE=THE STATE OF AFGHANISTAN

INTERNET=Yes

EDITOR=OFFICE OF POLICY 619-0037

CONTENT=

THEME=UP, HOLD UNDER AND FADE

Host: Afghan tribal leaders met in June to form a transitional government in Afghanistan. At this loya jirga, Hamid Karzai was elected president. His government has made tremendous progress, bringing stability to the war-torn country. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees have returned to their homes, and the country is no longer a safe haven for al-Qaida terrorists. But the government still faces daunting challenges. International peacekeepers, led by soldiers from Turkey, maintain security in the capital, Kabul. But rival warlords still vie for control of Afghanistan's outlying regions. Afghan vice-president, Abdul Quadir, was assassinated in July, and since then Mr. Karzai has turned to United States special forces to provide his personal security.

How goes the reconstruction of Afghanistan? I'll ask my guests, Haron Amin, deputy chief of mission at the Afghan Embassy in Washington, Marin Strmecki, director of programs at the Smith Richardson Foundation, and David Isby, author of the book on Afghanistan, "War in a Distant Country". Welcome, and thanks for joining us today.

Haron Amin, what is the state of the transitional government in Afghanistan? Has Harmid Karzai been able to achieve stability in the government?

Amin: If you look at what has happened in Afghanistan in the past seven months or so, we have gone through a military campaign -- very successful, then a political process has begun -- very successful. With the loya jirga, it has the blessing of the Afghan nation, and it is has only been more than a month that president Karzai has outlined the major framework of what Afghanistan aims to achieve over the next seventeen months or so. So far, so good. Small impediments should not hinder or discourage us to move forward. We are very determined, we are very resolved, we are blessed by the international community's campaign in Afghanistan, and we want to make sure that we achieve a state. That is a daunting task. Challenges are ahead, but we are firmly there and want to get this achieved.

Host: David Isby, perhaps the most visible threat to the government was the assassination of one of the vice presidents. Have his killers been found?

Isby: No, his killers have not been found, and the list of suspects is a distressingly long one. Certainly, there has been violence previous to this. Another cabinet minister, prior to the loya jirga, met an unfortunate and violent death. But violence is going to be part of Afghanistan, unfortunately, for some time to come. I'm personally, guardedly optimistic of the future. But you have to realize that when things go bad in Afghanistan, they go bad very badly, and very quickly.

Host: Marin Strmecki, there have been some reports, in the Washington Post at least, of some tension within the government between Hamid Karzai and the defense chief, perhaps reflecting a bit of a split of ethnic tensions in the country. Is that tension real, or not?

Strmecki: I think the tension is very real. The problem you have is that there is a crisis of legitimacy in the Afghan government. Although the loya jirga was held, there were substantial irregularities at the loya jirga, and the U.S. used its pressure to sideline the candidacy of the former king of Afghanistan, who had the support of probably two-thirds of the delegates who attended there. So there is dissatisfaction, a question whether the loya jirga truly let the Afghan people select their leader. And as a result, the loya jirga produced an unbalanced government. The Northern Alliance faction, led by [Defense] Minister [Mohammad] Fahim, continues to be dominant, and he himself is pushing quite aggressively to try to monopolize power in the government, using his control of the instruments of force in the government.

Host: Haron Amin?

Amin: I would agree with some of that assessment, but also disagree with others. The fact of the matter is that in Afghanistan, you've got twenty-three years of war. We are going towards a stable government. Democracy, as you know, is a process, not a finite institution. It only grows to become what we aim for it to achieve. In Afghanistan, we have gone through the first six months with a great degree of achievement so far. An invisible enemy, protected by the Taleban, has been rooted out, and instead there is, in its place, a government that is legitimate. It has four legitimacies: the international, the national, the political, and the historical. All these things are there. Of course, granted, that you cannot have the perfect setting in Afghanistan. That's given. But this is the best combination that you could have which has the blessing of the former king of Afghanistan. It has the blessing of the Afghan nation. I think the media, in a way, has overly exaggerated the extent of the disagreement between various officials in the government. But from what I know --- and I was there in Kabul two weeks ago -- I saw that these things were really not there. I think the media has blown it out of proportion.

Host: David Isby?

Isby: During the war, everyone has tried to polarize Afghanistan in various ways: class, culture, religion, and especially ethno-linguistic. We cannot remove these divisions this month with the loya jirga, these are very real. And it says a lot that the Afghans all still want to live in Afghanistan, not like in the former Yugoslavia, who wished to split apart. The reality on the ground is that General Fahim -- or now Marshal Fahim, he's promoted himself -- is the winning side in the civil war as well. And because he has the most coherent armed force in the country, yes, he has, de facto a great deal of leverage. Just saying that you are legitimate because of this, when there are, so far, not any forces to replace him, especially armed forces, is just buying you more trouble. Yes, you have got to become more inclusive, yes, peace is more important than power. There are a lot of problems. But I certainly don't see Fahim and Karzai as being a crisis that's going to blow up Afghanistan.

Strmecki: What you have just said is that legitimacy comes from the gun. And that is exactly what you want to avoid in Afghanistan. Legitimacy doesn't come from the gun. It should come from the support of the people through the Bonn process. There are others in Afghanistan who could certainly raise forces, and they could obtain support from foreign powers, much as Marshal Fahim, who has support from Russia and Iran. But thankfully, that is not happening. The key thing the United States has to do is to try to manage a political process that rebalances the government, so that legitimacy doesn't come from the gun but rather from political support, and nobody is tempted to use the incentive of arms to try to retake legitimacy.

Isby: But that's going to take fifteen, twenty years, perhaps, to put it away. If these people could raise forces, they didn't raise forces to fight the Taleban, before nine-eleven, which is where the forces of the Northern Alliance were. They were there on the ground. The gun will only be superceded as the measure of legitimacy by civil society, by Islamic and Afghan legitimacy, as you rebuild civil society and the government. And that will start with the completion of the Bonn process, but it certainly will not finish it. So saying,

"Oh yes, we could have backed some other ethnicity," that there could be people of the Pashtun ethnicity who failed, really, to put together an integrated opposition, because a lot of Pashtun politics are divided by tribe, locality, and ethnicity. It's very hard to put together a national-level Pashtun leadership. Just the factors, aside from president Karzai, show that there's not a lot of backing for that thing.

Host: Haron Amin, let me ask you a little bit about, in terms of this stability on the ground, being something of a precursor to the flourishing of the democratic process. Where in Afghanistan is peace and security best-established at this point, and where are the flash points where stability is most at risk?

Amin: Let me start by saying that had there not been security, then one-point-six-million refugees would not want to choose to return to shattered homes, to land mines, and fields are not amenable to cultivation. But they have chosen to do so. That tells you that the degree of security in Afghanistan -- it is not ideal, like the political process in Afghanistan, but we are going towards that. The fact of the matter remains that, apart from three provinces, almost all the other twenty-nine or thirty provinces are in a stable situation. Kabul, by far, is a place with a great degree of security. According to the outgoing British general of the ISAF Forces, it was deemed more secure than Washington, Moscow, and London. That is the case. That is the fact. But again, remember there are various processes in place. The military process -- we want to make the army an all-inclusive unit. But we have to work with what we have right now on the ground -- security, police force. The ideal is that everyone should be involved. But we have to have a solid base for that. Whether that is in terms of development of the banks, or development of the country, we have to start with what we have immediately and then make sure that others would be included, that professionals will be integrated that Afghan-Americans and others will be also incorporated into the government. So, given what has happened in seven months, I can tell you that this is a quite remarkable undertaking, and I think that our officials in the international community have done a remarkable and eye-catching job.

Host: Marin Strmecki, one of the flash points would be in the south [of Afghanistan] where a warlord named Bacha Khan Zadran is defying the government in Kabul. What's the state of affairs there?

Strmecki: Well, he's certainly a renegade, and has defied president Karzai's demands that he come to heel. The danger is that individuals like that will gain support from neighboring countries like Pakistan, if there's a general discontent in one part of the country against the central government. That's where the imbalance in Kabul is going to create some genuine political difficulties. That's why re-balancing the government is critical to maintaining stability.

Isby: But more important to stability is actually reconstruction. The people in Khost will care less about the ethnicity of cabinet ministers if they see that there is something in it for them, in reconstruction, in rebuilding, in a better life, with not looking for external support, but cooperating with the process in Kabul. What they need is not just a quota at the cabinet level, they need the promises of reconstruction from Tokyo to be made very real, and now. They need the Americans on the ground, helping. They need people to start rebuilding because that is going to build stability. The former king, were he physically capable of taking a larger political role -- Paktia is an area where he still enjoys a great support-you know that there is a lot of royalist sentiment there. So if he were capable, perhaps a trip to Khost would be one thing he could do to help resolve those issues.

Amin: But there was an ultimatum delivered in Kabul over the last few days, both by president Karzai and also by the former King, saying that Bacha Zadran is a renegade element, that he needs to be eliminated. And an ultimatum has been delivered to him and I think that it is very important for this dual track or parallel track of warlords and the central authority -- that we ought to put that behind ourselves. I'm talking about the international coalition. I think everything has got to go through the central authority and the direct support to the warlords, if anything, or [to] the centralized power, should go through the central authority so that they would not flag this card of instability blessed by the impunity by the international community.

Host: David Isby, along those lines, the central government has made an effort to bring people who are called 'warlords' throughout the country into the government, making them part of the government. There was a lot of concern about that at the time of the loya jirga. How has that worked out in practice?

Isby: A 'warlord' -- of course, there is no such word in Persian. We in the West tend to use it for any Afghan with a gun that one doesn't like. But the key thing is that these people are now generally hedging their bets. They're not sure that the process will work. But the key thing is that they are not looking for foreign support to engage either in conflict against other Afghan warlords, or the government in Kabul. So, generally, they are along with the process. People like Ismail Khan, for example. Many of these are not nice people, others are. Certainly, they are a reality, they are facts on the ground. And much as one may claim that in the future they should not be legitimate, you have to tell them that 'you can play along, be part of the process'. And make it for them so that if they play along they will feel good, and their supporters will feel good. Try to create a win-win situation for reconstruction.

Host: Marin Strmecki, there's been some effort to collect weapons that is having some success up in the north of Afghanistan. Is that some measure of success?

Strmecki: It is a measure of success, but probably a minor one. As David [Isby] said, people are hedging their bets. So they will make a show of providing some weapons. But they're going to hold many in reserve. Ultimately, the threat is only partly the caches [of weapons] that are already in the country. The real threat comes when warlords, or ethnic factions, or political organizations, make contact with foreign powers. They are a little less optimistic than David. I see certain warlords making connections with Iran. The U.S. military is saying that new weapons are showing up in eastern Afghanistan, which suggests that Pakistan may be active again. So I would put a real warning flag there.

Host: Where do you thinkwhich country poses the most threat for producing instability in Afghanistan?

Strmecki: Well, right now the government in Kabul is really the client or friend of Russia and Iran. That's who supported the Northern Alliance for all those years. And so the odd man out is the one who is likely to challenge that stability, so we have to worry that Pakistan will abandon the restraint it has shown to date and maybe have support also from Saudi Arabia.

Host: Haron [Amin]?

Amin: I would disagree with that, and here is why. The international coalition is clear on its mandate in Afghanistan. I think one thing that there is consensus about, is the fact that this enemy -- al-Qaida -- and Osama bin Laden have to be totally destroyed and obliterated. That consensus is shared by almost all the neighbors in the international coalition. Everyone agrees on that. Now, in terms of various countries working, I think that they have thrown their lot on behalf of the Afghan government, making sure that the central authority would be enhanced. I think that might be a lot of assessments, ill-founded or whatever you might want to call them, as to try to assess, just like on the ethnic issue. When I was in Afghanistan, trust me, that the ethnic issue was by far a bigger issue when it comes to media from outside, than it is actually on the ground. Remember, if Afghanistan really had the tendency to rely and fall on its ethnicity, then Afghanistan would have disintegrated a long time ago. Every recipe for disaster was injected into Afghanistan for the past twenty-three years. Yet, the Balkanization of Afghanistan never occurred. Every Afghan wishes to be an Afghan first, and then maybe member of an ethnic group, like in the United States. Here you have Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Indian-Americans, whatever it might be. So I think that the threat is over-exaggerated. I'd say, give this process another seventeen months, and you'll see that Afghanistan will go back to a precedent, a precedent of civil society, of quasi-capitalism, and others, that Afghanistan already had, beginning with the twentieth century. So the opportunity is there. I think that eventually, when everyone sticks to this theme, we are going to succeed.

Host: David Isby, one of the threats to civil society is, of course, just at the ground level, banditry in the countryside, on the roads, that gets in the way of being able to travel, goods being able to get around, aid and development getting around the country. It's been reported that it's not safe to be on the roads outside of Kabul at night. Are those reports true, or exaggerated, and what can the government do about that kind of banditry?

Isby: Security is a problem. In fact, that's again part of legitimacy. One way an Afghan government legitimizes itself is to show that it can protect its people. The Taleban's legitimacy was always shaky. One thing, however, which reinforced it was the shared opinion that in Pashto-speaking Afghanistan, they kept people safe and secure against things such as banditry. I think this shows the importance of things such as training Afghan police and military. This is what the U.S. and members of the international community are doing. Until they are there working with the local authorities, the so-called 'warlords', to get them not to tolerate this. And perhaps, most importantly, from this to work towards reconstruction to allow I-S-A-F [International Security Assistance Force] -- perhaps, an expanded I-S-A-F -- to get out, and even if not to patrol roads, to show that banditry is not going to be tolerated. That being said, it [banditry] is going to be there, and keeping it suppressed is going to be a lengthy process.

Host: Haron Amin, how does the government attack the problem of banditry?

Amin: Well, in January in Afghanistan there was no newspaper, there was no radio, no television, no telecommunications. Basically, there was no means of informing anyone. And yet every Afghan remained behind this campaign. How do you from here, from this point on? The Afghan government is training a police force. It is addressing that issue. We are also training a military force, with the help of the Americans and others. The issue of narcotics, and so on. Remember, that there was a quick and swift military campaign, which gave way to a political process. Then we have a government. Now, the next thing is direct foreign investment in development projects. From out of the one-point-six million refugees that have returned to Afghanistan, if you cannot equip them with shovels, well, they're going to equip themselves with guns. That is what warlordism is all about. That is what banditry is all about, and al-Qaida will find a lot of these elements. So, the international community needs to deliver on the promises it made in Tokyo, so that we can jump on this new bandwagon of reconstruction and take the mentality away from war and annihilation.

Isby: And by going to the central government, this is a way in which the central government can slowly start to make itself relevant, to make itself the only source of power and legitimacy, rather than the warlords or the local commanders.

Host: I'm afraid we only have a couple of minutes left. Marin Strmecki, let me ask you, what is the U.S. military doing right now in Afghanistan?

Strmecki: The U.S. military is operating in small units in the south and east, still looking for remnants of the Taleban and al-Qaida. They've used air power, sometimes tragically, hitting civilian targets. A lot of work has to be done to improve the intelligence we operate upon. I think the United States should take a stronger role. I think it should join I-S-A-F, and I think it should have troops in Kabul to try to create a center of political security so that the institutions can be built without the threat of force among political factions.

Host: Haron Amin, we only have about thirty seconds left. What is the relation between the U.S. military and the Afghan government?

Amin: It's excellent. More will be done in the future. In this campaign, no one can lose. If we lose God forbid the only winner is going to be Osama bin Laden. Apart from doing all these other things, such as the army, the police and so on and so forth, there needs to be the judicial review of the Afghan laws. Then we can go by the rule of law, and the enforcement of those laws, so that life and investments will be protected.

Host: I'm afraid that's going to have to be the last word. I'd like to thank my guests for joining me today, Haron Amin, of the Afghan Embassy in Washington, Marin Strmecki of the Smith Richardson Foundation, and defense analyst David Isby. For On The Line, I'm Eric Felten.