Virginia Review of Asian Studies
AFTER 2014: AMERICAN POLICY, THE TALIBAN AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS
SAROJ KUMAR RATH
HOSEI UNIVERSITY
Abstract
Since time immemorial, peace in Afghanistan has always been absent.If ever peace made its presence, it becomes too costly for its inhabitants to afford.As time progressed its people developed the nebulous habit to cohabit with the elusive peace in the region.The bold and warlike character of the Afghans has always preserved them from being crushed by the despotic use of power by their chiefs or kings. Innovations are liable to be fiercely resented and opposed by the armed strength of the tribes concerned. The petty and selfish ambitions of the chiefs, tribal feuds and jealousies have always enabled an adroit ruler to maintain his authority. The circumstance in Afghanistan is identical since millenia. The present peril in Afghanistan is an outcome of an extended war amongst the Hamid Karzai-led Afghan government, Taliban including Haqqani, Northern Alliance, and petty or powerful warlords. Involvements of predatory foreign forces stretching the battle beyond limit. Combinedly all these present tough challenges for future peace in Afghanistan. This article deals with three principal questions - What will be the future situation of Afghanistan after 2014, whether Afghanistan would be the launching pad of international terror attacks, and whether War against terror in Afghanistan could be avoided?
Keywords: Taliban, Haqqani Network, Afghanistan, Northern Alliance, Terrorism.
On October 7, 2001, the United States launched airstrike on Afghanistan, which heralded the American reaction to the al Qaeda’s September 11 terrorist attacks on mainland America. The September 11 terror attacks caused nearly 2752 deaths[1], which infuriated and forced the US government to take decisive and stringent action against the perpetrators of the attacks. In the ensuing war spread over a decade, 1979 US troops and 1028 coalition troops lost their lives in Afghanistan[2]. The casualties incurred on the lives of the Afghans are humongous. During the decade long war, 20,000 Afghans comprised of civilians, troops, and militants lost their lives[3]. When the US attacked Afghanistan, 95 percent of Afghans did not know anything about September 11 attacks and why the US decided to attack Afghanistan[4].
A day after the September 11 attacks, Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf assembled his top generals at a secure bunker at the Operations Room of the Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff headquarters in Chaklala garrison near Rawalpindi to discuss Pakistan’s strategy. Gen. Musharraf told to his generals that ‘The US will react like a wounded bear and it will attack Afghanistan.[5]’The US goal in Afghanistan was to ‘Eliminate al-Qaida leadership and forces; Deal with al-Qaida in a manner that clearly signals the rest of the world that terrorists and terrorism will be punished; and collect intelligence for the worldwide campaign against terrorism’[6]. The US goal on Taliban was to ‘Terminate the rule of the Taliban and their leadership; End the use of Afghanistan as a sanctuary for terrorism; and Do so in a manner that signals the world that harboring terrorism will be punished severely’. However, the US had no plan, strategy, vision or interest for a post-Taliban Afghanistan. The US strategy was categorical that ‘The US should be involved in the diplomatic effort, but it is not in US power to assure a specific outcome. US preference for a specific outcome ought not paralyze US efforts to oust al Qaeda and Taliban. The US should not commit to any post-Taliban military involvement, since the US will be heavily engaged in the anti-terrorism effort worldwide’[7].
The US claimed military victory in Afghanistan before the end of November 2001 and by December 2001; the US supported the Hamid Karzai-led Afghanistan Government installed in Kabul. However, the lack of a vision or Marshal Plan in Afghanistan gave way to the post-Taliban chaos, conflict and uncertainties in the country. More than a decade had passed since the US achieved a quick victory in the trenches of Afghanistan. Nevertheless, Afghanistan is still on ferment without achieving either peace or progress in nation building. This article would empirically examine what will be the future situation of Afghanistan after 2014. There is fear and anxiety that after the departure of coalition troops, Afghanistan would return to its pre-9/11 stage. This hypothesis is closely scrutinized in this article and finally, in the light of declassified documents and research materials it is examined if war against terror in Afghanistan could be avoided.
War against terror in Afghanistan could be avoided
The Vietnam war of yore years started on August 7, 1964 with the passing of Tonkin Gulf Resolution by the US Congress, which gave the president a virtual carte blanche to wage war. 103 months later, in March 1973, the last US ground combat troops left Vietnam without achieving the desirable results. On October 7, 2001, the US walked into Afghanistan to wage war and as of May 2012, after a good 127 months, US troops are still languishing in Afghanistan while American generals fearing that the decade-old war is getting away from the US[8]. The US war in Afghanistan has passed Vietnam as America’s longest war. America’s longest war with 1979 casualties is not the bloodiest compare to Vietnam’s 58209 casualties[9]. The war cost in Afghanistan with a 1557.9 billion dollar is not the highest either compared to the 4104 billion dollar war cost incurred in the Second World War[10]. But the message of the war in Afghanistan is clear that the war in Afghanistan was a foreign policy error and even the lone superpower of the world has its own limitation in winning a distant war.
This section of the article would describe the peculiarity of Afghan society, medievalic Arabia-like situation of Afghanistan, and the US had in the past several chances to have bin Laden extradited from Afghanistan by Taliban. The paper argues that, the US missed those chances because of misunderstanding of the thinking of Taliban and Afghan society as a whole. I contend that the war against terror in Afghanistan could be avoided and the US could learn from its Afghan experience to avoid future foreign policy mistake.
The US closed its embassy in Kabul in January 1989, as the Soviet Union was completing its pullout, and it remained so until the fall of the Taliban in 2001[11]. The Clinton Administration opened talks with the Taliban after it captured Kandahar in 1994, and engaged the movement after it took power. However, the US failed to wield any influence let alone moderate the policy of Taliban and consequentially relations worsened between the two[12]. The US withheld recognition of Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. While the US refused to recognize any faction as the government in Afghanistan, Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani of Jamaat-I-Islami faction continued to sit at the United Nations as the official representative of Afghanistan[13]. The Taliban captured Kandahar in November 1994, entered Kabul in September 1996 and after capturing Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif subsequently ruled Afghanistan until October 2001. While the Taliban rule started since 1994, the US tolerated their presence in the soil of US until August 1997, when the State Department ordered the Afghan embassy in Washington, DC to close its office[14]. Curiously, although the UN never recognize the Taliban, the US and UN allowed the Taliban to operate an office at New York till February 10, 2001 when the US, citing UN sanctions, told the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan to close their office in New York.[15] The Taliban office in New York was acting as a liaison point for the UN and Washington that offered services to Afghans.
Contrary to the common belief that the Taliban were the patron, supporter and defender of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, they had a suffocating policy towards al Qaeda and bin Laden. After the end of Afghan war in 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia but because of his ultra-Islamic activities against the Saudi ruling family, he was forced to vacate the country. He lived in exile in Sudan since 1992 after the Saudi King ejected him from Saudi Arabia. By 1996, the US accused bin Laden of hobnobbing with Egyptian Islamic Jihad and sponsoring international terrorism. The same year US Ambassador in Sudan Timothy Carney had received instruction from his home government to push the Sudanese to expel bin Laden. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment outstanding against bin Laden[16]. In September 1996, Sudan expelled bin Laden from the country owing to increased US pressure. From Sudan, bin Laden travelled to Jalalabad to make Afghanistan as his new home. The US was infuriated in February 1998, when bin Laden announced the fatwa in the name of ‘World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders’, which advocated killing of Americans and liberate al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and the holy mosque in Mecca from their grip[17].
After the fatwa, the Clinton administration started a fresh initiative against bin Laden. In April 1998, a high level US team comprised of US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, Assistant Secretary of State Karl Inderfurth and National Security Council senior official Bruce Riedel, arrived in Kabul to press the Taliban government to either hand over or expel bin Laden. The Saudi government also joined US to seek the extradition or expulsion of bin Laden. The Taliban refused both requests and informed the visiting delegates that they did not know his whereabouts. The team returned without meeting Taliban chief Mullah Omar, who resided in Kandahar[18].
Surprisingly, the Taliban took the Saudi and US demands to expel bin Laden seriously. However, the Taliban are a strictly religious movement and they cannot abdicate their tribal code of sheltering a guest. Apart from that, the Afghan people admired bin Laden for his support for the resistance during the jihad against the Soviets. The Pashtunwali code never refuses sanctuary to those who asked for it. Even Jews had been granted such sanctuary in Afghanistan during World War II. Taliban foreign minister Maulavi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil revealed that, ‘If the Taliban throw him out, the people of Afghanistan will become very angry and they will overthrow the Taliban’[19]. The Taliban feared that if bin Laden is extradited, Afghan people would accuse them of taking money from the US and Saudi Arabia in exchange of bin Laden’s life.
The Taliban wanted to get rid of bin Laden but at the same time, they did not want disgrace or accusations of betrayal from their own people. Mullah Omar’s discomfort with bin Laden was also because of the fact that during this time the Taliban was active in its endeavor to establish tie with outside world especially with the US. Matter worsened further when bin Laden organized a press conference in May 1998 to publicize his ‘World Islamic Front against Jews and Crusaders’. The Taliban wanted good relations with Saudi Arabia and hence to resolve bin Laden issue, they had made two proposals to the Saudis in June 1998[20]. The two proposals of the Taliban were designed to provide ‘religious sanctity to their action on bin Laden’ and also to appease their home constituency – basically the avowedly religious ardent cadres of the Taliban. The first proposal involved the formation of a joint Saudi/Afghan group of Ulemas that would look at the evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in terrorism and the second proposal was envisaged to allow family members of any Saudis killed in the Khobar towers (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) explosion to bring their cases to an Afghan court[21]. These proposals were made by a religious regime to another religious regime (Saudi Arabia) directly and to the US indirectly. Saudi Arabia did not accept these proposals in its entirety but wanted further discussion and a deal with the Taliban regime. The US on the other hand ignored or remained indifferent to these proposals considering the Taliban too dwarfs a government to impose condition on the might of a superpower.
In June 1998, head of Saudi intelligence Prince Turki al-Faisal met Mullah Omar in Kandahar where the Taliban leader agreed to a secret deal to hand over bin Laden for trial in Saudi Arabia for treason, a crime punishable by death. Omar wanted the same joint Afghan-Saudi Arabia Ulemas commission to explain about the justification of bin Laden’s expulsion from Afghanistan. A month later, in July 1998, Mullah Omar sent an envoy to Saudi Arabia to reaffirm his commitment to hand over bin Laden and as a precursor to the handing over of bin Laden, he replaced bin Laden’s team of Arab bodyguards with Afghan bodyguards loyal to him[22]. One of the most striking errors of US foreign policy was not to avail this opportunity, especially because by this time the US was already aware of bin Laden’s potential to devastate US interests. The US repeated the error in future as well while dealing with the Taliban.
Nevertheless, before the deal was materialized, a new twist reached into the relations in between the Saudi Prince and the Taliban leader. On August 7, 1998 al Qaeda bombers hit US embassies in Dar es Saleem and in Nairobi killing 224 people including 12 Americans. Soon bin Laden was accused of masterminding the bombings and the Clinton administration retaliated strongly by imposing US sanctions on Afghanistan and persuaded the UN for sanctions on Afghanistan. America launched ‘Operation Infinite Reach’ on August 20, 1998, which changed everything[23]. The US decision to launch 66 cruise missiles on the alleged al Qaeda terrorist camps in or around Khost, Afghanistan had alienated not only the Taliban and Afghan people as well. Moreover, although the Amir-ul-Momineen did not approve the US missile strike, even in the aftermath of the US strikes, he told bin Laden that there were no two governments in Afghanistan and that the Taliban would deal with the US, not bin Laden. In September 1998 Prince Turki reached Kandahar with two jets full of commandos to take back bin Laden. In a stormy meeting, Mullah Omar reneged on his promise to hand over bin Laden and when Prince Turki reminded Mullah Omar of the grant he has been receiving from Riyadh, Mullah Omar accused the prince of doing the Americans’ dirty work for them. Prince Turki returned empty handed but Omar was equally annoyed with bin Laden[24].
The Taliban were tactfully deceived by bin Laden, who convinced them that he is not involved in the East Africa bombings and sent a written ‘pledge to the Amir-ul-Momineen’. Bin Laden said, ‘On this occasion we renew our pledge too that we consider you to be our noble Amir and that obedience, allegiance and assistance to you is as compulsory upon us as it is to an Amir appointed by Shariat’[25]. Bin Laden knew that the Taliban could not expel him as that would appears to the Islamic world as either the Taliban are frightened by America or they became the stooges of the Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden used this Taliban ambivalence to the best of his interest and consolidated his alliance with the Taliban. The US strategists and foreign policy analysts missed this point.
When the dust of US missile attacks on Afghanistan settled, the Clinton administration started fresh political maneuvring with the Taliban. On September 13, 1998, Mr. Alan Eastham, the US Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) at Islamabad met with Abdul Hakim Mujahid, the Taliban designee to head their New York Office[26] and a former ambassador to Pakistan. During this time, it was reported in the media that the Taliban had kept bin Laden under house arrest. However, Mujahid told Mr. Eastham that the news is inaccurate and the Taliban have only taken away all of his instruments of communication and warned him once again not to engage in political or press activities[27]. Strangely, Mujahid informed that 80 percent of the Taliban leadership opposes bin Laden’s presence, including Taliban deputy leader Mullah Rabbani[28], Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, and its acting minister of mines Mullah Jan. Hakim Mujahid said, Mullah Omar is the major supporter of bin Laden apart from the Kandahar governor Mullah Hassan[29]. A less known fact about the Taliban is that they are not a homogenous group and as Mujahid claimed, they are made up of 10 separate groups. Therefore, there was no uniform policy from the Taliban leadership either on bin Laden or on international terrorism. Taliban official admitted that they could not simply push bin Laden out because they will then fall under pressure from other Muslims. The Taliban expected bin Laden to leave the country on his own. The US policy during the Taliban rule was ‘not to pick a fight with the Taliban’. However, the problem of the US was the presence of bin Laden and his network in Afghanistan. Taliban official opined that the US and the Taliban will be inevitably drawn together because of regional factors, including a common dislike of Iran[30]. This Taliban bonhomie was never persuaded by the US.
A month after the Eastham-Mujahid meeting, on October 11, 1998 the US Ambassador of Pakistan William B. Milam met the Taliban Foreign Minister Maulavi Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and charge of the Taliban-controlled Afghan Embassy in Pakistan Syed Rahman Haqqani in Islamabad to carry forward the discussion on the issue of Osama bin Laden. Maulavi Muttawakil was a close assistant of Mullah Omar, who was in Islamabad for discussions with UN special envoy Lakhdaar Brahimi[31]. Dispelling clarity about Taliban’s policy on bin Laden, Maulavi Muttawakil informed his American host that bin Laden was invited to Afghanistan by the previous regime as in September 1996, when bin Laden came to Afghanistan, he settled in an area controlled by the Burhanuddin Rabbani regime[32].