Worsening Afghan imbroglio

UNTIL as recently as six months ago, President Bush and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld used to say that Afghanistan was a success story, that the forces of terrorism had been defeated and that democracy was flourishing through the successful holding of elections and the countrywide approval of Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, as president.

It was claimed that Kabul had become a bustling city, with a construction boom and that the central part of the city gave the impression of a prosperous capital. The size of the foreign community, it was said, had grown with some 40 countries maintaining resident missions and there was a large UN presence. It was even claimed that the writ of the government in Kabul was spreading to the outlying parts of the country and that signs of insurgency were limited to the provinces bordering Pakistan which had deployed over 80,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan to help prevent the movement of terrorists in either direction.

But the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan has grown at a remarkable pace over recent months. Though US forces in Afghanistan, said to number 1,8000, have been joined by a large Nato force, the growing insurgency has caused many casualties. With the war in Iraq also intensifying, President Bush is facing increasing criticism for his handling of the war on terror.

The recent visit of Presidents Musharraf and Hamid Karzai to Washington, where they held a joint meeting with President Bush, saw the two exchange hot words over their handling of the Taliban problem. Comments by serving and retired western generals, as well as an in-depth analysis of the situation inside Afghanistan, reveal a lack of carefully coordinated action by the western alliance.

Tracing the history of events since 9/11, US military operations that relied heavily on the Northern Alliance carried out operations in a manner that showed scant regard for Pashtun rights. One can recall the massacre of 5,000 Taliban who had been taken as prisoners during operations in the north. The US, though professing concern for civilian casualties, used carpet-bombing against the Taliban forces north of Kabul, resulting in massive civilian losses.

With the Northern Alliance striking out against the Taliban, who had driven them out of Kabul, and the US displaying its anger over the 9/11 attacks that were organised under the Taliban regime, there was a degree of indifference to Pashtun sensitivities that has resulted in the current breakout of Taliban resistance in east and south Afghanistan.

It is worth recalling that apart from deploying forces looking for Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, the US kept its military largely confined to Kabul. Indeed, even the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was kept confined to Kabul and during the first two years, requests from Karzai for western military support for other parts of Afghanistan was denied, so that the authority of the US-backed regime was limited to Kabul with local warlords assuming authority in other parts of Afghanistan. These warlords proceeded to expand the cultivation of poppy, which had been brought under control during the Taliban period.

The opinion is expressed increasingly by critics in the US that the diversion of the bulk of US forces to the attack on Iraq in March 2003, led to Afghanistan being treated as a secondary area of interest. President Bush had long planned to attack Iraq, both to gain control over oil, and to augment the security of Israel. Where he went wrong, was that while Saddam Hussein had denied any role to foreign inspired extremists, his removal virtually turned Baghdad into the nerve-centre of Islamic extremists.

Over the period starting with the attack on Iraq, Afghanistan appears to have become a country of secondary importance, because it hardly has economic assets, and was in desperate need of reconstruction after 25 years of conflict and destruction.

The presence of US and western missions had been reflected in the pledging of over 17 billion dollars for the rehabilitation and the reconstruction of Afghanistan. In actual fact, with Kabul lacking control over the countryside, and in the absence of infrastructure, very little has been achieved by way of reconstruction. Though nearly three million Afghan refugees were brought back from Pakistan and Iran, there was neither housing nor employment for them, and many of them went back. This has created disappointment with, even hostility against, the US and the Nato presence which are being seen as foreign occupations.

The Pashtun population, concentrated mainly in the east and south, has not only experienced neglect but also military repression. Though the policy of keeping the ISAF confined to Kabul has been changed and both US and Nato forces have taken on security duties in east and south Afghanistan they are running into growing resistance on the part of a people who are always armed.

Except for Osama bin Laden, and his close associates the Al Qaeda does not pose a serious threat, and President Musharraf was justified in claiming success in eliminating Al Qaeda elements who had gone to the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The resistance is now from the Taliban. The present force level of the US and Nato of about 40,000 is grossly inadequate to bring peace and order to Afghanistan.

The police and army under the Karzai regime is far from effective and, in keeping with Afghan tradition do not relish suppressing their own people. The US and affluent western countries have done very little in terms of economic reconstruction. President Karzai who is largely under the influence of the non-Pashtun ethnic groups of the Northern Alliance has very little credibility with the Pashtuns, and tends to blame Pakistan for allowing sanctuary to Taliban fighters. President Musharraf holds the view that the insurgency does not originate in Pakistan but is native to Afghanistan.

Furthermore, even before 9/11, there were many religious madressahs in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The anti-Islamic rhetoric of the Bush administration has made the Americans unpopular, notably in the Pashtun areas and President Musharraf has to attend to domestic issues, that include using the tribal system to discourage the resort to jihadism. The success that the Pashtun residents of Afghanistan are confronting in their insurgency is partly a reflection of the Afghan tradition of resisting foreign occupation.

The indepth analysis of the poor performance of the US and Nato in Afghanistan is being traced to two major factors. The first is that the western military presence is too small. When US and Nato forces were sent to the Balkans in the 1990’s they were much more substantial in numbers and equipment. Nearly 40,000 allied forces had been stationed in Kosovo that is less than five per cent of Afghanistan. A similar situation existed in Bosnia. Western military commanders, both serving and retired, believe that Nato and the US must increase their military involvement substantially to effectively bring under control a country like Afghanistan.

Perhaps more important is the need for urgent action to step up economic reconstruction. According to figures mentioned in Newsweek, the amount spent on economic reconstruction in Afghanistan works out to be nine dollars per person as against $ 249 in Kosovo. Above all, the anti-Pashtun bias emanating from the Afghan government in Kabul, which is dominated by non-Pashtuns, must be corrected.

We in Pakistan have a stake in a united, stable and peaceful Afghanistan. The policy of extending assistance to Afghanistan, without any desire to interfere in its internal affairs, is basically correct. The future economic development of our region will be ensured if there is peace and stability in Afghanistan. In particular problems of scarcity of both energy and water require the participation of this neighbour.

 By Maqbool Ahmed
 

Behind Iran’s nuclear imbroglio

George W Bush’s multifaceted stand on Iran have thrown a real challenge to his well-wishers in international arena as to consider him as a diplomat of gigantic stature and historical significance or a downright half-wit simpleton who has been bogged down by an authority whose magnitude and significance he is completely unable to assimilate, understand and exploit.

He started off with ‘access of evil’ mantra netting in Iraq and North Korea along with Iran then trailed off to spew out ‘regime change’ thriller on Iran. With the attack on Afghanistan and Iraq came the hymn bedevilling Iran for supporting ‘terrorism’ and then for the last couple of years the whole world is ensnarled in the propaganda against Iran for clandestinely making ‘nuclear-Islamic-bomb;’ Bush must be having a very scary sleep for the last many years: obsession has no bounds.

What he is to get from a peaceful nation of 60 millions people so far off from the US shores? He is talking everything except oil. Iran’s stand on its nuclear programme has been consistent and quite in lines with the NPT that Iran had signed in 1970. In the beginning of this year on 28th January Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, talking to BBC said that his country was ready to compromise over its nuclear programme. He said that Iran was willing to discuss concerns about an alleged weapons programme and offer guarantees. Ali Larijani made is abundantly clear that there were no chances that Iran would suspend uranium enrichment. He said, ‘They should not ask a brave nation with very good scientists to expect not to engage in nuclear research,’ However, he called for the resumption of talks in search for a compromise. He said, ‘If they want guarantees of no diversion of nuclear fuel we can reach a formula acceptable to both sides in talks.’

However US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice riding her high horses said there was ‘not much to talk about’. Completely ignoring Iran’s persistent claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful and energy oriented, she said, ‘Iran must not be allowed to get a nuclear weapon. It must not be allowed to pursue activities that might lead to a nuclear weapon and on that we are fully united.’ The scary side of the US diplomacy on nuclear issue is that despite the time laps it has not changed its position on Iran a bit despite having no tangible proof to support its over a dozen claims on militarization of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Last months two revealers have put the US strategic stand on Iran in perspective and proved it out rightly wrong rather mischievous. Vilmos Cserveny, a senior director of the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog, in a recent letter addressed to the Chairman of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has described the committee’s claim that the Iranians were trying to acquire nuclear-weapons capability as ‘outrageous and dishonest.’ The letter which was widely reported in the US media last week complained to Rep. Peter Hoekstra that the report by his committee had given ‘incorrect and misleading’ information to the IAEA to try to mislead it.

The committee report had stated that IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei removed a senior inspector ‘for concluding that the purpose of Iran’s nuclear programme is to construct weapons’; in reality, VilmorCserveny pointed out, it was Iran, not Mohamed ElBaradei, who had asked for the inspector to be replaced, under a right Tehran enjoys under agreements governing countries’ relationships with the IAEA.’ Another report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, brings the cat out on Iraq. The document said the CIA had learned in late 2002 from a top-level Iraqi contact, then foreign minister Naji Sabri, that ‘Iraq has no past, current, or anticipated future contact with Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda’ and and ‘Bin Laden was in fact a long-time enemy of Iraq’.

Bush and his acolytes are busy cooking stories to hoodwink the world community to advance their own agenda under the influence of diabolical fanatic Zionist lobby in Washington. Sheer strength of Iran’s argument and honesty of purpose can defeat these liars to bring peace, stability and security to the Gulf region as well as the world along with a just international order as a by product of a principled stand. One wonders why Iran cannot be allowed to enrich uranium to fuel its nuclear energy plants in the presence of tangible, verifiable and trusty supervision of nuclear watchdog IAEA with such huge technological paraphernalia on its disposal to do the job to everyone’s satisfaction: mistrust defies all logic. If America does not have confidence in Iran to allow it to exploit enrichment technology to make fuel for its energy producing nuclear reactors, then on the same logic, how Iran can trust America and its stooges for the fuel: Iran has to follow a policy of self reliance. Inquisition of George Bush cannot make Iran to unlearn the nuclear full cycle, an achievement that Iranian nation has gained through huge sacrifices and labour of its scientists.

It seems quite wishful to expect Iran to shut down the nuclear process entirely after achieving a significant advance at the research and development level. Why cannot the West live with it? There is absolutely no immediate danger of Iran going for a nuclear weapon so soon. The level of enrichment needed for nuclear bombs is far higher than the 3.5 per cent that Iran has achieved. Experts say it would take Iran a decade to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb from its current centrifuges that too if its enhances the enrichment level to 6 percent or beyond which is hugely impossible to go unnoticed with current IAEA inspection arrangement.

Although Nantanz enrichment facility has capacity for 54,000 centrifuges, Iran has installed 3,000 centrifuges for research and development purposes to alleviate West’s unfounded suspicion. Europe will naturally come to term with hugely cultured and peaceful Iranian nation very soon; only it needs to get rid of its US blinders.

Dr Syed Javed Hussain
The writer is a noted columnist and analyst presently teaching at a foreign university.