U.S. and Russia Share Responsibility for 'Afghan Anthill'
"Regarded as a failure in its time, two decades after the end of the USSR's Afghan campaign it is now highly appraised.. … Moscow and Washington bear historic
responsibility for the events in and around Afghanistan. Their fierce rivalry over three decades ago stirred up an anthill that each superpower hoped to use to its advantage."
High hopes were pinned to the
presidential election in Afghanistan, which were scheduled to take place not
long after the inauguration of a new U.S. president. Obama made stabilizing the
country one of his top foreign policy priorities and the Afghanistan war - his
war. In the spring, the administration took some important decisions - a
significant increase in the number of American troops and the appointment of a
new commander for the operations [General
Stanley McChrystal].
In contrast to the strategy
of the previous administration which saw “free and democratic” elections as the
universal panacea for all social and political ills, America's current
leadership sees voting only as a means of bringing added legitimacy to its own
actions. To demonstrate to the population that their opinions mean something,
the curators of Afghan stabilization are taking a great risk - elections are
fraught with turmoil. On one hand, the Taliban promised to do everything possible
to sabotage the polls. On the other, opponents of Hamid Karzai, whose victory
is programmed into the electoral process, may attempt to correct the results of
the voting by means of mass protests, like those that recently occurred in
Iran.
[Editor's Note: Afghanistan's
Independent Election Commission announced in Aug. 31 that preliminary results would
be released between Sept. 3 and Sept. 7, with the final tally becoming
available Sept. 17. Nevertheless, commission officials have divulged that
ballots that have already been counted show incumbent President Hamid Karzai
with 46 percent of the vote, against 33 percent for his nearest rival, former Foreign
Minister Abdullah Abdullah.]
Be that as it may, not conducting
the promised elections would be unthinkable (this would be sure to cause an
explosion), so all that's left is to hope for the expected result - the success
of Karzai and the preservation of the fragile status quo that now exists. Then
one could proceed to implement a new strategy. The main problem for the Afghan
operation, which in two months will turn eight years old, is the absence of a
goal.
The initial goal - a strike
of vengeance for September 11 and the destruction of al-Qaeda’s military
infrastructure - was achieved by the beginning of winter 2001/2002. After that,
Washington shifted its attention to preparations for war against Iraq, and
Afghanistan was relegated to the strategic periphery. It was quickly understood
by all that the building of a modern democracy as proposed by those bright
neoconservative minds could never succeed in the country, but no other line of
action was ever put forward. And when the United States got bogged down in
Iraq, the Afghan problem was no longer actively discussed at all.
Just over two years ago, they
were forced to come to their senses when the situation in Iraq improved
somewhat, but it became clear that the situation in Pakistan has gotten out of control
and the Taliban in Afghanistan has regained practically all of their potential.
There was the danger of a military defeat for NATO and the United States.
American diplomacy has invested tremendous energy (with rather modest results) persuading
its European allies to expand their presence in Afghanistan. Then for the first
time, politicians and the military began to contemplate what, in fact, is the
purpose of the Afghan campaign.
Interestingly, in countries involved
in the Afghan campaign such as Canada and Great Britain, a whole series of studies
have been initiated into the Soviet occupation. Experts are particularly
interested in the experience of maintaining stability. During the Soviet
presence from 1989 to 1992, i.e.: after the withdrawal of the troops and before
the cessation of aid to President
Najibullah, who was able to maintain effective control of key locations
during that time.
Regarded as a failure in its time, two decades after the end of the USSR's Afghan campaign it is now highly appraised.
The campaign's most vital
component is recognized to have been the erection of an economic infrastructure
that was a result of ideology. The Soviet Union intended to plant socialism in
Afghanistan, so that it would follow the path of modernization. The coalition
that entered the country in 2001 had no long-term vision, so after eight years,
no material evidence has emerged of any positive Western influence. During
Obama's time, the strategy has been reformulated as the building of a
functioning state, but how to go about this isn't clear.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, describes how
the latest offensive of Pakistan and the 'neo-crusaders' is
At the International conferences
on an Afghan settlement held in Moscow and The Hague, the conversation centered
on the need for peace-building and winning the sympathy of the population. In
particular, the French president's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pierre Lellouche,
spoke of this with great energy, sparing no criticism of the Americans who he
said have done little but raid and bomb.
The reproach is probably not unfounded.
But the problem is that European members of the coalition have little or no
idea of what they're doing in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. For Americans at
least, it's a question of political prestige: a power that aspires to world
leadership cannot abandon what it begins.
Europe will breathe a sigh of
relief as soon as it can end its participation in the Afghan campaign without
violating its obligations to its senior partner, America.
The Old world isn't even too
scared about the chants of NATO generals on how failure in Afghanistan will
have a fatal impact on the reputation of the Alliance - the Europeans have always
wanted NATO to remain within the confines of its comfortable area of
responsibility.
The character of U.S. actions can be assessed by
reading the pages of recent publications. For example, an article in the latest
issue of the influential Foreign Affairs
is devoted to the need for an active campaign to attract Taliban to the American
side.
The authors acknowledge that
a military victory is impossible. But they point to the extreme “flexibility” of Afghan warlords and political officials,
i.e.: They are prone to changing loyalties. It was largely because of this that
in 2001, the “Taliban” were quickly dispatched - bombs and ammunition combined
with active bribery of the adversary. Most Afghans don't in fact have any rationale
for spilling blood on behalf of bin Laden’s “terrorist internationale,” the
latter being the main target of the United States.
If the goal is to establish the
conditions for withdrawal from Afghanistan that will save face for the foreseeable
future (and there is no particular reason to suspect otherwise), then
“Afghanization” of the conflict by involving “moderate” Taliban elements in stabilization
is the only correct option. But in this case, we are dealing with the matter of
an exit strategy, not what kind of government will be left there.
Global affairs journalist
Arkady Dubnov, a regular visitor to Afghanistan since the 1990s, likes to quote
a phrase he once heard there: “We Afghans can't be bought; we can only be rented.”
The history of Afghanistan
over the last 20 years confirms the truth of this assertion. And the investment
in training the Afghan security services, which is now being carried out by the
United States and NATO, only has meaning in the short term: the country will begin
a new life after NATO leaves and it's impossible to predict who these Afghan
officers, trained by American or British instructors, will be fighting.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
There is, of course, another
version of the American strategy in the region. According to which, Afghanistan
is important primarily as a bridgehead in the event Washington has the need to militarily
resolve a much more worrying problem: Iran. Then its strongholds on both sides
of the Iranian border - in Iraq and Afghanistan - would prove very useful. However,
this advantage may in practice turn out to be the opposite: given the Iranian
influence on its coreligionists and co-tribalists in both countries, the United
States may face an extremely dangerous rearguard underground movement.
Moscow and
Washington bear historic responsibility for the events in and around
Afghanistan. Their fierce rivalry over three decades ago stirred up an anthill that
each superpower hoped to use to its advantage. Today, one of them is gone [the
USSR], and the other is sick of the global burden it has taken upon itself. It
is only in Afghanistan that the same people do the same things they were doing
30 years ago: wait for the next hapless tenant.
