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15.10.03, 09:04
Central Asia
US explores its Afghanistan exit options
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With Afghanistan daily slipping into more anarchy and chaos, United
States authorities, aware that they are unlikely to ever bring stability to
the country by military means, continue to explore political avenues that
ultimately could pave the way for them to withdraw from the country.
First there were the talks at the Pakistan Air Force base in Quetta
with "moderate" elements of the Taliban (which immediately failed due to the
US insistence on the sidelining of Taliban leader Mullah Omar). Then came the
formation of Jaishul Muslim, a formal grouping of lesser Taliban lights
(which failed even to enter into Afghanistan), and moves to pry some of the
more powerful mujahideen commanders from the anti-US resistance movement.
And last week, former Taliban foreign minister Mullah Abdul Wakeel Mutawakil
was released from US custody in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, where
he had been in detention since handing himself over to the US in February
last year.
Mutawakil has often been described in the Western media as a
more "respectable" face of the Taliban. Shortly before the US sent troops to
Afghanistan in late 2001, he reportedly had a major disagreement with Mullah
Omar over sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It was
reported that Mutawakil led a group of Taliban who wanted bin Laden to leave
Afghanistan to avoid US reprisals against the regime for sheltering al-Qaeda.
Before becoming the Taliban foreign minister, Mutawakil is believed to have
served as a spokesman and personal secretary to Mullah Omar.
The US has been forced to pursue different tactics in Afghanistan as a result
of the failure of their hand-picked man, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai,
to significantly establish his writ (ie, the US writ) over the country, let
alone the capital, Kabul. Similarly, the carefully chosen (ie, compliant)
governors in the southern provinces have proved incapable of stamping their
authority in their regions, which have now become hotbeds of resistance.
The real power pillars of the Kabul regime, including the Northern Alliance
and General Abdul Rasheed Dostum, have now clearly marked the boundaries of
their interests, and they are at complete odds with those of the US.
Pakistan, too, has shown leanings toward those who are not favored by the US
right now.
The current role of Pakistan
A few weeks ago, a top US diplomat visited the Pakistani port city of
Karachi, and in an informal meeting told this correspondent that the US was
very satisfied with Pakistan's role in cracking down on al-Qaeda. "Pakistan
really helped us in arresting them," the envoy said. However, with regard to
the Taliban, Pakistan's role was altogether another matter, and it could not
be fully trusted, the diplomat said.
Over the past months, Pakistan has supported select Afghan commanders with
whom it had forged links during the former USSR's invasion of Afghanistan in
the 1980s. These were covert operations, but now Islamabad is openly telling
the US that it will "tame" these mujahideen if the US considers them
important enough in Afghanistan's power structure.
Well before the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in early 2002,
Pakistan did its level best to create an alternative force to fill the
looming power vacuum, but unfortunately its choices, including the Hizb-i-
Islami, Afghanistan of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, were not acceptable to the US. As
a result, Pakistan had to digest the bitter pill of a pro-India, Iran and
Russia Northern Alliance being given the dominant slice of power in Kabul.
But now, with the US's first choice proving so poor, US authorities are keen
on soliciting Pakistan's assistance in sorting out the mess in Afghanistan,
which includes the "moderate" Taliban concept, which initially the US found
repugnant.
This initiative has increased with the release of Mutawakil, who is now
expected, with help from the Pakistanis, to be given a senior position in the
local government in Kandahar, the former spiritual headquarters of the
Taliban.
At the same time, options are being explored to recruit other powerful former
Taliban ministers into the central cabinet in key positions, including that
of defense. On the one hand, they would then be in a position to cool the
anti-US resistance, and also serve as a counterweight to the Northern
Alliance, which the US is now finding somewhat recalcitrant.
The main problem would remain, though: the big names among the field
commanders who have a large and loyal following among the masses. This is
where Pakistan comes in, and it is working on behalf of the US to "convert",
for example, the legendary mujahideen Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani.
Soon after September 11, 2001, Pakistan authorities invited Haqqani to
Islamabad, where he was offered inducements by US authorities to change
sides. He refused, and gave up his high position in the Taliban regime to
take up arms as a guerrilla against the US-led invading army.
He currently commands a large force in the Paktia, Paktika and Khost regions
where the resistance is at its fiercest. Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence, according to Asia Times Online sources, has assured the US that
sooner or later Haqqani will be on their side. Close aides of Haqqani,
though, dismiss out of hand such talk.
Which leaves the US no closer to breaking the deadlock in the country.
Northern Alliance
Some well placed sources have confirmed to Asia Times Online that contact
between the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, Dostum and two powerful hardline
Islamic parties of the Northern Alliance - the Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan
led by Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani and the Ittahad-i-Islami Afghanistan,
led by Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf.
Apparently, recent anti-US skirmishes in Sarobi, Logar and Imam Sahab were
the result of this new nexus. Such an alliance would further undermine US
interests.
Hamid Karzai
Many supporters of former monarch Zahir Shah, who initially backed Karzai in
the hopes of royalists being allowed back into government, have become
disillusioned as they believe that Karzai wants to become the unequivocal,
and long-term leader of Afghanistan.
Karzai did have some support in Kandahar, but the latest mass escape of
Taliban prisoners there illustrates that the network in the local
administration has deep roots. Ever so slowly, events continue to turn
against the US.
But even as the US attempts new approaches to counter these developments,
such as talking to moderate Taliban, there is a growing awareness that the
Taliban are not the real issue. They became US targets after September 11 for
the simple reason that they were providing bin Laden and al-Qaeda sanctuary.
The Taliban, therefore, were one of the first real casualties of the "war on
terror".
Now, al-Qaeda's network in Afghanistan has effectively been broken, and it
poses no threat to the US in that country. Thus, a growing argument runs,
since there is no threat, should the US really care who rules the wasteland
that is Afghanistan, be it the Taliban or the Northern Alliance or a
combination thereof? Better that the US pull out its troops and leave the
Afghanis to themselves.
Taking this reasoning a few steps further, one can only speculate how long it
will be before the US begins dialogue with Mullah Omar.
