Solution to Afghanistan

The Pentagon’s seemingly wise new solutions for Afghanistan are divorced from reality and likely to suffer the fate of Obama’s pre-election slogan of change. It is being said about Marjah that “we cannot win this war, but we can help the Afghans win it.” The question is: which Afghans and what kind of help? The footage of troops interacting with the locals showed a mere five to six dust-covered old men carrying blankets given by US Marines. The town-hall-style meeting with Afghan civilians showed forty to fifty elderly Afghans whose spokesmen sang praise of corruption-free Taliban rule. In a blockaded combat zone, there were no mobile camps run by the Marines for wounded civilians or captured Taliban. With three Marines to every Afghan soldier, only 2 per cent of army and police recruits from the south, and Dari as the language of training, the political conciliation of Marjah is ill-conceived. At the national level, the Karzai government is born of massive electoral rigging and violates the core principle of democracy: respect for individual vote. It carries no legitimacy whatsoever with the Afghans, though he is acceptable as the “lesser evil” to America and India.

There is thus a tension between the local control of democracy and the American control of democracy in Afghanistan. This tension is hardwired into America’s Afghan venture. Any government in a box that the US generals are ready to roll out after “clearing” an area will be a government that is not born of legitimate political practices–i.e., is not a democratic government. Going by the Afghan tradition of dealing with illegitimate governments, there is every reason to expect the Taliban will return once the Nato troops move out of Marjah and other areas of operation throughout the country.

The ideal solution would be for the US troops to leave Afghanistan, followed by fresh and fair elections under UN auspices. With foreign troops gone, combat fatigue will make the Afghans turn to nation-building. Just a fraction of US war capital could help a truly elected government build schools, hospitals and infrastructure with the same sincerity which galvanises the amazing Afghan resistance. There has been no Stinger missile display in Afghan resistance that would point to foreign hand equipping it. That is why the American media has started talking about the Afghan resistance with respect. The media’s focus on Afghans’ commitment to their independence has now replaced the focus on latter’s stupid involvement with Osama bin Laden ten years ago.

The departure of US troops can only be facilitated through a dialogue. Unfortunately, the Afghan resistance lacks a sophisticated leadership capable of handling the complexities of dealing with the US to Afghanistan’s benefit. Already, a very auspicious moment has been missed. The first six months of Barack Obama’s ascent to office, followed by Washington’s acknowledgment that 70 percent of Afghan Taliban were not US enemies, was a propitious time for the Afghan resistance to start negotiating, with the caveat of resuming combat in case of unacceptable terms. This would have strengthened Obama’s position vis-à-vis the Pentagon-CIA-Corporate nexus, raising his domestic stock, versus the neocons who got America stuck in a quagmire in Afghanistan, with no exit strategy. The nexus has now prevailed over Obama’s promise of change.

Afghanistan stands a historic opportunity to prosper due to being a potential hub of energy supply from Central Asia to Pakistani, Indian and Euro-American markets. The emergent and advanced economies have an ever escalating demand for the ever diminishing fossil fuels. Central Asia is rich in its deposits but is landlocked, except through transit via Russia, China, Iran, or Afghanistan-Pakistan. Given regional and international political realities, Indian and Euro-US markets are vying for the Afghan-Pakistan route.

In the offing is lucrative pipeline links to Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours to the west, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (through which all of the rest of Central Asian energy supply can flow through Afghanistan) and in the east to Pakistan and through it to India.

If the US had not invaded Afghanistan and thereby destabilised the whole region, Afghanistan stood an unprecedented chance of economic cooperation and integrated infrastructure development, leading to prosperity for all its inhabitants. India and Pakistan would have had incentive to resolve their outstanding issues through dialogue. Afghanistan would have integrated into regional and world markets, which in time would bring progress functionally related to such integration. Pakistan could have risen as the new regional hegemon, offering military protection through defence pacts to Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and dealing with India on equal terms.

The fallout of American intervention weakened Pakistan and turned India into a bully. The religious radicalisation of the region now augurs ill for India’s long-term security. Afghanistan, instead of enjoying cultural exchanges and integrated infrastructure development with Central and South Asia, is engulfed in war, terrorism and misery. The American economy crashed, which made its military ventures far more destructive to its population’s welfare then ever before. No good has come of the neocons’ venture into Afghanistan.

If such a situation is not reversed through a meaningful dialogue in Afghanistan, the logical progression of events points to local genocide. Washington has decided to sustain its otherwise unsustainable suburban lifestyle through military means, deployed for securing competition-free access to fossil fuels. By the time the US has taken its Afghan surge to a logical conclusion, the Pakhtuns will most likely be wiped off the region, and what is left of them will be a diaspora of biblical tragic proportions. Their women could be faced with starvation or prostitution (as did Iraqi women), their children sold into slavery. The US will try to change the ratio of ethnic composition of Afghanistan to produce a state with a majority Uzbek, Turkmen, Tajik and Hazara mix, which can be integrated into Central Asian region in a politico- economic framework. One of the most heroic people on earth, and one of the most honorable cultures in human history are faced with extinction at the hands of Western forces in Afghanistan because the former lack wise leadership and the latter thinks it can kill without accountability. The precise number of dead in the region has never been released by the Pentagon.

This is all the more tragic because for once in history, the Afghans stand a chance at rapid economic development. They can enjoy border-free trade with Central Asia in the northwest to Pakistan in the east. Afghanistan can establish a free trade zone at the very centre of its land, between Mazar-e-Sharif in the north to Qal’eh Now in the south, and between Kabul and Kandahar in the east. The Afghan free trade-zone could be the hub of international economic activity on the one hand and a source of national integration on the other. It could provide the Afghans livelihood and service the emerging Asian economies with their largest pool of the world’s rapidly enriching population. Every major energy corporation in the world is waiting to put up shop in the region once peace is established. The Pakhtun habit of hard work could make them the most coveted local work force for corporate ventures. Jobs with lucrative salaries to tremendous business opportunities could make the Pakhtuns of the area thrive instead of dying in dust for the honour of their land and the love of their religion.

The US is not telling that it wants control of an energy corridor through Afghanistan. It is presenting. instead, fake goals such as dismantling of Al Qaeda, because it has pitched its oil seeking wars of aggression as “defensive.” If Washington spoke the truth, instead of being funny and offering money to the fighters to capitulate, maybe the Afghan resistance would acquiesce to an arrangement of mutual benefit.

If violence continues, genocide is the only logical conclusion of Obama’s Afghan surge. If resistance starts to prevail, B52s will roll in. Any other goal setting by Pentagon is a delusional venture into imaginary successes denied by reality.

The tragedy can be averted but for lack of local leadership.

New solutions for Afghanistan?Thursday, March 11, 2010, Zeenia Satti.
The writer is a Washington-based consultant on geopolitics. Email: zeenia.satti@yahoo.com