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The US in Afghanistan: the Delusions of Victory ?
(War in Times of Peace, Sanaa, 2nd and 3d November 2002)


Gilles Dorronsoro

Abstract

The US are obliged to stay in Afghanistan for at least a few years (3 to 5 years to be optimistic). The initials objectives have only be very partially fulfilled. Bin Laden has not been found, mollah Omar is still at large and their is no sign of a reconstruction of the State, especially not a national army. The war is going on in Afghanistan and there is no perspectives for a US withdrawal. The guerilla is militarily inefficient but has enough activity to prevent the rebuilding of the State.

The Afghan crisis is now also a Pakistani one. The al Qaida network is now in Pakistan, where the situation is politically bad for the US with the rise of a very fundamentalist and openly pro-Taleban majority in the NWFP and Balutchistan. The regional environment is less stable than a year ago and nothing is showing a marginalization of the islamist forces in Central Asia.

In a larger perspective, the invasion of Irak would probably have the same sort of effect. A quick military victory and a very instable political situation with the same risk of an indefinite American military presence in hostile territory. For the American power the risk is a military overstretch and a popular reject.




Texte intégral

Introduction

Last summer, the American war in Afghanistan was generally seen as a clear victory. A strong political will and a clear military superiority had been enough destroy in a few weeks the Taleban and dismantle the Al-Qaida network in Afghanistan. The change in the media mood came about this summer, notably after the bombing of a wedding (around 50 civilian were killed) and the exposure of the killing of thousands of Taleban war prisoners by the US allies. But the real turning point was the clear resurgence of an armed opposition in September (bombings in Kabul, failed attempt to assassinate Karzai).

Even the US military is now accepting the idea that all is not for the best in the Afghan war. A year after the fall of the Taleban, there is no Afghan State but a weak government without authority outside Kabul. The national army is almost non-existent with only 1500 men trained since a year. Afghanistan is again the first opium producer in the word. The last warning was the result of the Pakistani elections with a strong support for the pro-Taleban, pro-al Qaida parties near the Afghan frontier.

To analyze the current situation we will first go back to the strategy of bin Laden (I), then to the American war in Afghanistan, and the failure of the State building policy (II), and finally the situation in the neighboring Pakistan (III).

bin Laden's strategy : rationality or fanaticism ?

My first point here is to insist on the rationality of the 11th of September attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Saying that I want to go against the interpretation of this attack in terms of “religious fanaticism” or more largely in terms of psychological disorders. The 11th of September is definitively - besides all moral considerations at this point - a brilliant strategic move, notably because there is not “good” answer to give.

The input was quite minimum : 20 militants and probably less than a million dollars, even if the plan needed a good level of secrecy and organization, - not to speak about luck -especially if we consider that the assassination of Masud, the 9th of September, was part of the picture. The impact is what you know better than me : around 3 000 lives lost, about 100 billions dollars of immediate loss and hundreds of billions of indirect losses (the cost of the war, the impact on the global economy) and, finally, a profound change in the American - and maybe in the European ­ way of live.

But to speak of rationality suppose that there is an objective. Here we have to assume that bin Laden is the product of the current historical situation in the Middle East that is to say the economical, cultural and military domination of the Western countries - and especially the United-States - in a region that is vital for their economies because of the oil. With the fall of the USSR, the US became the only major power in the region and the Gulf war was, from that point of view, a clear demonstration of this point. It is also at that point that bin Laden, who was previously working with the CIA in the support of the Afghan mojâhidin, broke with the United States because of the permanent presence of US troops in the sacred land of Saudi Arabia. So, basically, the bin Laden phenomenon is a revolt against the Western domination in the Middle East and, under an islamist rhetoric, we find a lot of not-so-new arguments about the Palestine, the embargo against Iraq and so on.

The strategy is to transform an indirect domination (via economy or culture) into a more direct one and to increase the gap between the Muslims world and the Arabs regimes on one hand and the Western countries on the other hand. We can find some echoes of the strategy of the leftist in the 70 like die Rote Armee Fraktion for example, but the difference is of course that those movements never gained enough social support to survive and change the political agenda on the long term.

Besides this grand strategy there is an intermediate objective that is to have a sanctuary. Bin Laden has created a transnational movement in the 80' and this is quite a remarkable achievement, largely due to the Afghan war and the support of the Arabs countries and the United States to the presence of internationalist fighters alongside with the mojâhidin. Since then bin Laden has tried to find a sanctuary. He tried first in Sudan, but was finally expelled and had to come back to Afghanistan in 1996. At that time a lot of islamist movements had training camps in Afghanistan : Kashmiris fighters, Pakistanis Sunni radical movements (Lashkar-i Taleba was the most important), Central Asian islamist movements and so on. Those movements were not working especially with the Taleban : Sayyaf and Masud (now part of the Northern coalition) used to welcome islamist activists, as well as the Hezb-i islami of Hekmatyar (long time favored by the ISI and the US). But for different reasons most of them were in the East part of Afghanistan and near Kunduz, two regions were the Taleban quickly found a support.

So my point is that the connection between bin Laden and the Taleban is largely coincidental in the sense that the sociological background and the strategy of the two movements were and are largely different. Besides, the Taleban had initially a strong Pakistan and US support. Remember that the fall of Kaboul in September 1996 was welcomed as a “positive step” by the State department. The change in the US policy occurred only at the beginning of 1997, but it never came to a support to the opposition and Pakistan was basically free to do what it pleased to support the Taleban.

The American invasion and its political consequences

The two US strategies

The first US strategy was based on a close work relationship with Pakistan. The idea was to topple the Taleban and to replace them with a more moderate movement that would protect the Pakistani interests in Afghanistan and clean up the radical movements that were present in Afghanistan.

The first move was a not well publicised rebellion in Khost in October 2001 that was a failure because the Taleban were able to reoccupied the city in a few hours. The fidelity of Haqani, a famous commander of the Jihad, to the Taleban made it very difficult to destabilize the Eastern part of Afghanistan. After that, the Pakistani government, who was in charge of the operation, tried to infiltrate commanders inside Afghanistan to spread the revolt against the Taleban. The first infiltration was a clear failure as Abdul Haq, a well known commander of the jihad against the Soviet, was captured and killed by the Taleban. Hamid Karzai was luckier who was near Kandahar, was able to escape thanks to an American helicopter. Anyway the destabilization of the Taleban was becoming clearly a dream and the American bombings on Afghanistan have never provoked large defections in the ranks of the Taleban.

There was at least 3 weaknesses in this strategy. The first one was to assume that there were some credible alternatives to the Taleban in the South. It appears that, except in the Eastern provinces, the khan (traditional leaders) are weak since at least the beginning of the civil war. Besides, it was difficult to imagine that the tribal leaders would be able to cooperate quickly and smoothly. The second thing was the idea that the Taleban had no autonomy from the ISI. In fact, the Tâlebân are by no means ISI puppets as we could have concluded from a few examples even before the last few months. The move to take Herat in the spring of 1995 was premature and made against the will of ISI officers, the assassination of Najibullah in 1996 after the fall of Kabul was clearly a diplomatic mistake and the negotiations about the commercial agreements between the two countries are extremely difficult. The last point is the timing of the operation. The third point is that we were trying to negotiate with the tribal leaders and at the same time the US was bombing the cities (with the inevitable “collateral damages”). Habdul 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 one, much more direct: the use of the airpower to break the resistance of the Taleban. At that point the Taleban were not able to maintain a coordinated military organization and there was a general breakdown in the movement. The Taleban evacuate the cities in disorder and quickly lost the power. But at that stage the US largely lost its advantage because it did not operate on the ground but accepted to depend on unreliable Afghan militia. The result is that in Tora Bora for example, the al Qaida militants were most of the time able to escape to Pakistan. The combing of the Afghan mountains can take a very long time with eventually few results. The presence of Hekmatyar, Haqqani, Mollah Omar ­ and maybe bin Laden - in Afghanistan is a sufficient proof that the East and South of the country is a reasonably safe sanctuary for the worst enemies of the US.

Since there is no political stabilization of Afghanistan the US army is obliged to continue a counter-insurgency war for an undetermined period of time. At the moment, 8 000 men in Afghanistan and about 55 000 men in the neighboring countries are participating to these operations with a cost of 2 billions dollars a month.

The return to the fragmentation

The fall of the Taleban has created a vacuum that had been filled mostly by the same local commandants that have been eliminated by the Taleban between 1994 and 2000. Time is here an essential factor: since the fall of the Taleban the local powers had time to organize militarily and economically their autonomy and the likely length of the negotiations is giving more time to them. Actually we can describe the following majors military powers :

In the North a very loose organization regroups different parties and factions. The Jamiat is dominated by Fahim in charge of the military affairs is the successor of Masud. In Herat, Ismaël Khan is former commandant of the Jamiat but has conflicting relationship with Masud. Dostum is in control of part of Mazar-i sharif but his main stronghold is his native place of Sheberghan. Former communist, his milicia has committed numerous war crimes, the last one being the slaughter of thousands of Taleban war prisoners. The Hezb-I wahdat is in control of most of the Hazarajat (Bamyan).

In the South, the situation is much more fragmented. The US is financing local militia. Besides, the Taleban are de facto in control of a large part of the Pashtun rural area. The frequent bombing in Kabul, the attacks against the American bases is also going against the stabilization of the current regime in Kabul.

The failure of the state-building policy

The question now is to assess the most important point: is the current fragmentation of Afghanistan a transitory process or a long-term one ? Or to put it that way: how is the so-called “international community” going to make a success of “State building process” that is engaged now in Afghanistan ? The presence of 5000 soldiers of the ISAF was supposed to ensure the stability of the capital and allow the rebuilding of the institutions. So far the results have been very limited. We can see three main obstacles to the reconstruction of the State.

1) There is no unity (even in the Northern Alliance) about the general organization of the country in the future. How to fin a common ground between Dostum, an ex-communist, the Shiite Iran-oriented Hezb-I wahdat, the islamists in the Jamiat, the hard-line fundamentalists like Sayyaf ? Besides the Shariat, there is not much common ground. The risk here is to have a very different life in a more progressive Mazar or Kabul and very fundamentalist places like Qandahâr or even Jalâlâbâd (not to speak about the countryside).

2) The Loya jirga convened last spring has not produce a satisfactory result. At the moment, Karzai is very isolated and its authority is not going beyond the capital. In Kabul, the real authority is in the hands of the Panjshiris of the Jamiat, notably in the secret services, the army the police and the diplomacy.

3) Besides, the ethnicization of the war in Afghanistan is a reality. There are more inter-ethnic tensions 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 against the Pashtun minority. The Pashtuns, more than the Taleban, have lost the war and they are at the same time excluded from the power in Kabul and submitted to the American operations (bombings etc.).

Pakistan in the Afghan crisis

The events of the 11th of September have totally changed the Pakistani policy towards Afghanistan. In fact, for different reason, Pakistan was obliged to follow the American leadership but it is detrimental to his own interests. The destruction of the Taleban movement is the end of the Afghan policy as we have described it. The fall of Kabul in the hands of the Northern Alliance is a considerable humiliation for the Pakistani government. In this respect, the situation is not very different from the Kargil crisis in 1998 even if Kashmir is far more important than Afghanistan for the Pakistani people. What are more concretely the consequences for Pakistan :

1) Supporting the US, Musharaff ­ and the army ­ are taking a very unpopular stance. The polls are showing a very strong popular opposition to the American war in Afghanistan and the majority of the people are not believing that bin Laden is behind the 11th of September. The anti-American feelings are high in the population, probably more than in the Arabs countries. Besides, there is no gain for the Pakistan in the current crisis, except some financial help that apparently does not cover the losses caused by the war. Behind the Afghan crisis, the most important question is now the Kashmiris guerrilla movements. India is insisting to point them as terrorist organizations and the US is, to a certain point, obliged to condemn the guerrilla in Kashmir to be coherent to its “war on terrorism”. Pakistan, after a few weeks of illusion now feels isolated and under pressure for its Kashmiri policy.

2) The situation on the Afghan border is at least for the tribal area, beyond control at the moment. The border has always been difficult to control but it seems that the political agents are now to a point that they have to pay the tribe leaders to avoid an open conflict with the State. There is a strong popular support for the Taleban and the refugees coming from Afghanistan during the first month of the war were welcomed as in 1980, as mohajir.

3) The initial pressure on the fundamentalist movements (the arrest of Sufi Mohammad for example) was a risky move considering the general situation of the country. Otherwise, the madrasa are producing up to 250 000 taleban a year and there is no easy way to change that fact, considering the continuous impoverishment of the educational services in Pakistan. The results of the last elections have shown the progress of the fundamentalist in the NWFP and Balutchistan. They are the main political forces now in these two provinces and this will probably assure the Taleban and al-Qaida militants of a sanctuary.

Conclusions

The US are obliged to stay in Afghanistan for at least a few years (3 to 5 years to be optimistic). The initials objectives have only be very partially fullfilled. Bin Laden has not been found, mollah Omar is still at large and their is no sign of a reconstruction of the State, especially not a national army. The war is going on in Afghanistan and there is no perspectives for a US withdrawal. The guerilla is militarily inefficient but has enough activity to prevent the rebuilding of the State. The Afghan crisis is now also a Pakistani one. The al Qaida network is now in Pakistan, where the situation is politically bad for the US with the rise of a very fundamentalist and openly pro-Taleban majority in the NWFP and Balutchistan. The regional environment is less stable than a year ago and nothing is showing a marginalization of the islamist forces in Central Asia.

In a larger perspective, the invasion of Irak would probably have the same sort of effect. A quick military victory and a very instable political situation with the same risk of an indefinite American military presence in hostile territory. For the American power the risk is a military overstrecht and a popular reject.


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