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Afghanistan: the Delusions of Victory
Gilles Dorronsoro*
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The U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan has brought
down the Taliban regime. But it has succeeded neither
in bringing peace to the country nor in subduing the enemy
altogether. So far, the U.S. and its allies have no recipe
for addressing the structural problems which lie beneath
the violent conflicts in Afghanistan.
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At first, the American war in Afghanistan was generally seen
as a clear victory.
Strong political leadership and overwhelming military superiority
had been enough to destroy the Taleban in a few weeks and to
dismantle the al-Qaida network in Afghanistan. The mood of the
media changed in spring 2002, with the failure of the Anaconda
operation in March and the growing disorder in the provinces.
The real turning point, however, was the resurgence of an armed
opposition in summer 2002 and the failed attempt to assassinate
Karzai in September.
More than a year after the fall of the Taleban,
there is still no Afghan state, but rather a weak and divided
government in Kabul. The national army is almost non-existent,
with only a few thousand men. Powerful warlords have consolidated
their control of the provinces and Afghanistan is again the
world’s foremost opium producer. Besides, the result of the
Pakistani elections in October 2002 showed strong support for
the pro-Taleban and pro-al-Qaida parties near the Afghan frontier.
Every day, opposition forces attack US troops, preventing the
stabilization of the country. Even the US military now accepts
the idea that all is not well in Afghanistan, but has so far
failed to come up with a winning strategy.
On the moral front, the activities of the US army
and its allies are coming under increasing criticism from human-rights
watchdogs.
The slaughter of thousands of Taleban war prisoners by Dostum,
a key US ally in the North and former communist militiaman,
has been exposed by several journalists. The bombing
of a wedding at the end of July killed around 50 civilians.
The Taleban prisoners, detained without trial for an unlimited
period, are not being treated in accordance with the Geneva
Convention. Finally, the torture of suspects at US bases (Bagram
in Afghanistan and Diego-Garcia in the Indian Ocean) has been
denounced by some sections of the American media.
To understand the current dynamics of the civil
war, we must first turn to the strategy of Osama bin Laden,
then to the failure of the state-building policy, and finally
to the armed opposition and the American war against counter-insurgency.
Bin Laden’s Strategy
We should first emphasize the inherent rationality of the 11
September attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. To put it this
way is to go against the interpretation of this attack in terms
of “religious fanaticism”, “clash of civilizations”, or even
“psychological disorder”; 11 September was definitively – leaving
aside all moral considerations for the moment – a highly successful
and efficient strategic move.
The input was minimal: twenty militants, probably
less than a million dollars, and a significant level of secrecy
and organization, especially given the fact that the assassination
of Masud, on 9 September, was part of the plot.
Set against that, the impact was dramatic: 3 000 dead and about
100 billion dollars’ worth of immediate losses. Moreover, civic
freedoms in the United States have suffered a real setback.
But to talk of rationality supposes that there
is an objective. Here we must assume that bin Laden is the product
of the current situation in the Middle East: the economic, cultural,
and military domination of Western countries, especially the
United States. With the fall of the USSR, the US became the
only major power in the region, as demonstrated by the Gulf
War in 1991. At that point, bin Laden, who was previously working
with the CIA in support of the Afghan mujahideen,
broke with the United States because of the permanent presence
of US troops on the sacred territory of Saudi Arabia. Basically,
al-Qaida constitutes a revolt against American hegemony in the
Middle East and, within the framework of Islamist rhetoric,
its pronouncements include many not-so-new arguments concerning
Palestine, the embargo against Iraq, and so on.
Al-Qaida wants to transform indirect domination
– via economy or culture – into a more military one, the likely
consequence of which would be to increase the gap between the
West and the Muslim world. We find here echoes of the strategy
of the Left in the 1970s, for example the Red Army Faction.
However, the latter never gained enough support among the wider
society to be able to survive and to change the political agenda
in the long term. In contrast, al-Qaida has popular appeal in
the Muslim world.
Besides this grand strategy, the intermediate
objective for bin Laden was to create a base for his transnational
movement, built during the Afghan war, with the “Arabs” fighting
alongside the mujahideen. Having failed to find a safe place
in Sudan, bin Laden had to return to Afghanistan in 1996. At
that time, numerous Islamist movements had training camps there:
Kashmiri fighters, Pakistani Sunni radical movements (Lashkar-i
Taleba being one of the most important), Central Asian Islamist
parties, and so on. Those movements were not only working with
the Taleban: Sayyaf and Masud also used to welcome Islamist
activists, as well as the Hezb-i islami of Hekmatyar, who had
long been favored by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI)
and the US. However, for a number of reasons, most of them were
in the eastern part of Afghanistan and near Kunduz, two places
where the Taleban quickly found support.
In these terms, the connection between bin
Laden and the Taleban was largely coincidental in the sense
that the sociological background and strategy of the two movements
differed significantly. Besides, the Taleban initially enjoyed
strong Pakistani and US support. We must remember that the fall
of Kabul in September 1996 was welcomed as a “positive step”
by the State Department. The change in US policy occurred only
at the beginning of 1997, but it never manifested itself as
support for the opposition, and Pakistan was basically free
to do what it pleased to support the Taleban.
At that point, al-Qaida suffered some severe blows,
mostly in Europe, but nevertheless managed to reorganize itself
in Pakistan. The organization acquired a degree of prestige
and strong support from the fundamentalist movements in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and Central Asia. The link now became definitive
between al-Qaida and the Taleban. Besides, the Afghan–Pakistani
border is a good hiding-place and perfect terrain for training
militants as guerillas, for example, to fight US troops.
The American Strategy
In the aftermath of 11 September, feelings in the US were running
so high that negotiations with the Taleban to dismantle al-Qaida
were practically excluded. War was the only option and the State
Department brilliantly gained the support of Afghanistan’s neighboring
states. With Pakistan’s dramatic shift in allegiance, the Taleban
regime became totally isolated. At that point, the military
strategy seems to have been largely improvised and a result
of the tensions existing between the State Department and the
Pentagon.
The initial US strategy was based on a close relationship
with Pakistan. The idea was to topple the Taleban and to replace
them with a more moderate movement that would protect Pakistani
interests in Afghanistan and clean up the radical movements
which were still sheltering there. A first move was a poorly
publicized rebellion in Khost in October 2001, but it did not
succeed and the Taleban were able to reoccupy the city in a
few hours. The loyalty of Haqani, a famous Jihad commander,
to the Taleban made it difficult to destabilize the eastern
part of Afghanistan. After that, the Pakistani government, which
was in charge of the operation, tried to infiltrate commanders
inside Afghanistan to spread the revolt against the Taleban.
The operation suffered a resounding setback as Abdul Haq, a
well-known commander of the Jihad against the Soviets, was captured
and executed by the Taleban. Hamid Karzai was able to escape
from Kandahar, thanks to an American helicopter.
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More than a year after the fall of the Taleban,
there is still no Afghan state, but rather a weak
and divided government in Kabul. The national
army is almost non-existent, with only a few thousand
men. Powerful warlords have consolidated their
control of the provinces and Afghanistan is again
the world’s foremost opium producer.
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There were at least three weaknesses in this strategy.
The first was to assume that there were credible
alternatives to the Taleban in the South. It appears
that, except in the eastern provinces, the “khan”
(traditional leaders) have been weak at least since
the beginning of the civil war. Besides, it is difficult
to imagine that the tribal leaders would have been
able to cooperate quickly and smoothly. The second
problem was the idea that the Taleban had no autonomy
from the ISI; in fact, the Taleban were by no means
ISI puppets, as could have been concluded from a
few examples. The move to take Herat in spring 1995
was premature and made against the will of ISI officers,
the assassination of Najibullah in 1996 after the
fall of Kabul was a diplomatic mistake, and the
negotiations concerning commercial agreements between
the two countries were difficult. The last point
is the timing of the operation. The negotiations
were conducted with the tribal leaders at the same
time as the US was bombing the cities, with the
inevitable “collateral damage”. Abdul Haq, in his
last interview before his death, explained quite
frankly that it was impossible to rally the elders
under those circumstances.
The failure of the first strategy led to a second
and much more direct one: the use of airpower to
break the resistance of the Taleban. After some
heavy bombing, the Taleban were unable to maintain
a coordinated military organization and there was
a general breakdown in the movement. The Taleban
evacuated the cities in disorder and quickly disbanded.
At that point – and, it must be emphasized, not
before – the destabilization of the South succeeded.
Millions of dollars were distributed amongst the
local militia, who were happy to line up alongside
with the victors and to resume the production of
opium, banned by the Taleban a year before. The
violence in Kandahar amongst the pro-American militias
was an early warning of the disorder to come. At
that point, the US largely lost its advantage because
it did not operate on the ground, but decided to
put its faith in unreliable Afghan militiamen. The
result was that, in Tora Bora for example, the al-Qaida
militants – and first of all bin Laden – were usually
able to escape to Pakistan. The same thing happened
with Mullah Omar, who took refuge in his native
province of Uruzgan, north of Kandahar.
The Failure of State-Building
The fall of the Taleban has created a vacuum that
has been filled mostly by warlords of the kind which
appeared to have been eliminated between 1994 and
2000.
Since December 2001, the local warlords have been
able to advance their autonomy militarily and economically.
In the North East, the Jamiat is dominated by Fahim,
minister of defense and the successor of Masud.
In the West, Ismaël Khan, a former commandant of
the Jamiat, is in control of Herat, but his influence
ceases in the Pashtun areas. Dostum is occupying
part of Mazar-i Sharif, but his main stronghold
is his native Sheberghan. There are frequent clashes
with his principal enemy, Ustad Atta, a close ally
of Fahim. The Hezb-i Wahdat is in control of most
of the Hazarajat, but relations are still tense
between the two factions of the party led by Akbari
and Khalili. In the South, the situation is even
more fragmented: the US-financed militia control
the cities, but fighting is common in the countryside.
The other worrying development
is the return of regional power to the Afghan scene.
Despite the Kabul December 2002 declaration, a document
signed by Karzai and Afghanistan’s neighbors calling
for constructive and supportive bilateral relations,
all the main Afghan factions have foreign backing.
The Jamiat is supported by Russia, Ismael Kahn by
Iran, Dostum by the Uzbeks, and Iran, again, has
contacts with Shiite groups such as the Sepah-i
Mohammad and the Sepah-i Quds in Northern Afghanistan.
The Pakistani government is becoming less and
less cooperative: relations with the US are deteriorating
and the Afghan government has been strongly anti-Pakistan
lately on the issue of trade routes. There is no
proof that the ISI is helping the Afghan opposition,
but, after some initial pressure on the fundamentalist
movements – the arrest of Sufi Mohammad, for example
– Musharraf has chosen to soften his approach. The
government has neither the will nor the means to
curb the increasing strength of these movements.
The Pakistani madrasa are producing up to 250 000
students (“taleban”) a year and there is no easy
way of changing this situation, particularly given
the continuing impoverishment of the education system
in Pakistan. Whatever the policy of Islamabad may
be, the situation on the Afghan border is, at least
as regards the tribal area, beyond the control of
central government for the moment.
Is the current fragmentation of Afghanistan a
transitory process or a long-term one? To put it
another way: how will the so-called “international
community” make a success of the “state-building
process” now going on in Afghanistan? For the time
being, the presence of 5000 soldiers of the ISAF
is ensuring the stability of the capital, but results
outside Kabul have been very limited. We see four
main obstacles to the reconstruction of the state.
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There is a strong ideological commitment against
the US, linked to the fundamentalist trend in Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
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There is no unity concerning the general organization
of the country in the future. How can common ground
be found between Dostum, a former communist, the Shiite
of the Hezb-i wahdat, the Islamists in the Jamiat,
and hard-line fundamentalists like Sayyaf? Interpretation
of Sharia’h law, the accepted basis of the legal system,
is much debated. The more liberal-minded Karzai and
the UN-supported NGOs are clearly in a minority.
The risk is that quite different modes of life will
be established in more progressive Mazar-i Sharif
or Kabul and in strongly fundamentalist places such
as Kandahar or even Jalalabad (not to mention the
countryside).
Second, the government in Kabul does not reflect
a viable compromise between communities and political
parties. In the Loya jirga (assembly) convened in
spring 2002, the US envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, pushed
aside the former king, Zaher Shah and imposed Hamid
Karzai as the new President. Without local support,
he is very isolated and his authority does not extend
beyond the capital. In Kabul, real authority is in
the hands of Fahim and the Panjshiris, notably in
the secret services, the army, the police, and the
diplomatic service. Fahim is using his official position
as defense minister to consolidate his party. The
helicopters bought from Russia in a forty-million-dollar
deal will reinforce Fahim’s troops rather than the
Afghan army.
Third, the ethnicization of the war in Afghanistan
is very real. Inter-ethnic tensions have increased
since the fall of the Taleban due to the already mentioned
killing of thousands of Taleban after their surrender
and the ethnic cleansing in the North conducted against
the Pashtun minority. The Pashtuns, more than the
Taleban, are the real losers of the war and they are
largely excluded from power in Kabul and subject to
foreign military operations.
Finally, the economic situation is very bad, partly
because of the return of around two million refugees
from Pakistan and Iran. The countries that promised
to give 4.5 billion dollars at the beginning of 2002
in Tokyo have not delivered. The humanitarian help
given in 2002 was essentially for emergency purposes,
with scarcely anything left for reconstruction.
The Guerilla and American Counter-Insurgency
What kind of guerillas are fighting the US forces
in Afghanistan? So far, the guerillas have been militarily
ineffective, with few casualties on the American side,
although they have been able to maintain enough pressure
to oblige the US army to continue military operations.
Three different factions are collaborating against
the US troops and the Karzai government.
The first faction, and perhaps the most important
in the long run, is the Taleban, or more precisely,
the neo-Taleban. The new movement, rebuilt after the
defeat in 2001, is probably less centralized and recruitment
less based on religion. The Taleban are still popular
in the Pashtun areas, particularly in Kandahar, and
the call to Jihad against foreign troops is familiar.
Mullah Omar has retained a following due to the apparent
failures of the Karzai government regarding law and
order and economic development. In large parts of
the Pashtun rural areas, the economic and security
situation was probably better under the Taleban. The
neo-Taleban have strong support in the Pakistani madrasas
and can easily recruit new members due to high unemployment
and the deep anti-Western feelings among the population.
The second group is the Hezb-i Islami of Hekmatyar.
Evicted from Pakistan and Afghanistan after his defeat
at the hands of the Taleban, he took refuge in Iran
from where he was expelled in autumn 2001. He survived
a CIA assassination attempt and took refuge on the
Afghan–Pakistani border. He still has support in the
East and followers in big cities (Kabul).
Third, international combatants, mostly Arabs,
are back in Afghanistan less than eighteen months
after the American invasion. They are now operating
in smaller groups (ten to fifteen men) and dispersed
in training camps along the border.
With no short-term prospect of winning,
this guerilla will prove difficult to eradicate because
it has a safe place to retreat to, sufficient arms
and money, and strong motivation. On the first point,
the guerillas are heavily dependent on a safe haven
in Pakistan. The presence of Hekmatyar, Haqqani, Mullah
Omar – and probably bin Laden – is sufficient proof
that the Afghan–Pakistani border is a reasonably safe
refuge for the worst enemies of the US. Second, there
are plenty of arms left and opportunities to buy more
with money from the drugs trade: a good indicator
of this is the fact that nearly all the arms captured
by the US army were new weapons. Finally, there is
a strong ideological commitment against the US, linked
to the fundamentalist trend in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
During the first month of the war, people from Afghanistan
were welcomed in the same way as in 1980, as mujahideen.
The recent elections saw the victory of the fundamentalists
in the North Western Frontier Province and Baluchistan.
They are now the main political forces in these two
provinces and this serves practically to rule out
any dramatic action on the part of central government.
Music, at least in public places, is de facto forbidden
in Peshawar, another sign of the growing influence
of the fundamentalists.
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For American power the risk is military overstretch
and growing popular rejection. The gain in terms
of security is debatable. _____________________________________________________________
Since Afghanistan has not been stabilized, the US
army is obliged to continue a counter-insurgency war
for an indeterminate period. At the moment, more than
8000 men in Afghanistan and about 55 000 men in the
neighboring countries are participating in these operations,
at a cost of two billion dollars a month.
There has been a shift in US strategy in recent
months. Until last fall, the US army was strongly
against the state-building policy, which was supposed
to be part of the UN mandate; however, it now appears
that the US army has changed its mind. US troops are
more active in the humanitarian field. With the so-called
“Provisional Reconstruction Team”, the US is trying
to position itself as the local leader and coordinator
of the NGOs. If the plan is implemented, the distinction
between military and humanitarian operations in Afghanistan
will completely disappear.
The second policy shift is a deeper involvement in
local fighting, with the result that US troops are
now becoming part of local vendettas.
Two shortcomings are limiting the effectiveness
of the counter-insurgency strategy. First, there is
a growing rejection of foreign troops in the Pashtun
area due to their brutal tactics and the estrangement
of the Pashtun from the Karzai government. Second,
the weakness of US intelligence. Despite the availability
of huge rewards, Mullah Omar, Hekmatyar, and bin Laden
are still at large, and not very far from the American
bases. Afghan society and especially the Pashtun clans
are difficult to penetrate; while foreign powers are
traditionally used to settle scores with local enemies,
it does not mean that the Afghans are ready to accept
foreign rule easily.
Conclusion: the Delusions of Military
Victory
For the US, the initial objectives of the war have
only very partially been fulfilled. Bin Laden has
not been found and the training camps are back on
the frontier. The US will be obliged to fight on in
Afghanistan for at least a few more years (five years
would be optimistic). So far, the guerilla is militarily
ineffective, but is doing enough to prevent the stabilization
of the country. The rebuilding of the state would
require a major change in the distribution of political
power. So far, the US has been unable or unwilling
to open up political institutions to other ethnic
and political groups, so compromising the state-building
process.
In a larger perspective, the invasion of Iraq
will perhaps have the same sort of effect. A quick
military victory and a very unstable political situation
with the same risk of an indefinite American military
presence in hostile territory. With the likely occupation
of Iraq, US troops will be heavily committed, from
Central Asia to the Gulf, with the exception of Iran.
For American power the risk is military overstretch
and growing popular rejection. The gain in terms of
security is debatable.
See Newsweek (26 August); the
documentary by Jamie Doran, Massacre at Mazar,
with Afghan testimonies of US soldiers’ participation
in the torture and killing of war prisoners; and
also a report from the Physicians for Human Rights “www.phrusa.org/research/afghanistan/report_graves.html”. The UN has deliberately suspended
the investigation, despite the fact that several
witnesses have been killed or imprisoned by Dostum.
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Gilles Dorronsoro
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Professor of Political Science; Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique;
Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Rennes;
gdorrons@club-internet.fr
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