The Hamid Karzai Government in Afghanistan has an image problem. Neither the West which backs it nor the Taliban which despises it, has faith in the regime’s ability to do much good. The wait is for the inevitable
As the US-led forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2014 after more than 10 years of combat in the country, questions are not being asked on what they will leave behind. It is certain that they will leave behind a country in a state of political turmoil, in the grip of militant and sectarian violence — a nation at a crossroads. They will leave behind alive and kicking, elements that they had come to decimate from the face of earth. They will leave behind chaos not just in Afghanistan but also in the Asian region. The questions being asked are: How are those challenges going to be metIJ Does anybody have a roadmap, given that the likely scenarios which will emerge are pretty well knownIJ
But equally important is another question: How did things go so horribly wrong after a promising start when the US launched its attacks in Afghanistan soon after 9/11 and quickly removed the Talibani GovernmentIJ The answers are not merely of academic importance; they can provide an insight into what can now be done to contain the damage, ensure a better future for the people of Afghanistan and secure the safety of neighbours like India from what could be a extremist-influenced regime that could be installed, sooner or later in Kabul.
Many journalists, authors and academics have over the recent years written extensively on how the West has lost the plot. Jonathan Steele’s Ghosts of Afghanistan, Vahid Brown & Don Rassler’s Fountain of Jihad, Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, Peter l Bergen’s Manhunt, Sandy Gall’s War Against the Taliban, Kim Ghattis’s The Secretary and Abdul Salam Zaeff’s My life with Taliban, are a few of the books that have given various and varying perspectives on the contentious issue. But most of them are near unanimous on certain points. First, the US had blundered gravely in concentrating its military and financial prowess in Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein — who was hardly a threat to the US or the rest of the world in the way that the George W Bush Administration had projected him to be — when it should have been directing its attention and resources at neutralising the Taliban from the outfit’s strongholds in Afghanistan. Second, Pakistan ensured — even as an ally of the US in the latter’s ‘war against terror’, safe passage and protection to Talibani leaders that were being hounded by the forces of the West, and America did nothing about it. Third, even when the US decided to direct its attention to Afghanistan, it did so in a manner that alienated the general population whose welfare the West-led International Security Assistance Force was supposed to promote — and win the people over in the process.
Of course, senior Bush Administration officials have had their interpretation of the events, and those perspectives that defend the decisions are reflected in the books, for instance, by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (No Higher Honour) and former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld (Known and Unknown). Yet, the larger volume of material that is out in the public domain through the various independent writers leaves the assertion of Bush officials weak and nearly indefensible.
However, there is another reason for the failure of the West to decimate or even substantially weaken the Taliban. And that cause has to do with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s governance. While many writers have dwelt on the massive corruption and nepotism that has spawned in Mr Karzai’s Government and angered and alienated the people, it is Gall’s War Against the Taliban that deals with the issue at some length. Mr Karzai’s unpopularity (by all accounts his intentions are noble but his administration is scam-ridden) has not only rubbed off on the West (the two are allies, after all) but it has also given a handle to his opponents like the Taliban to gain the upper hand.
Even the US military cannot suppress the brewing discontent among vast sections of the population in Afghanistan over the breakdown of governance. It can be argued that writers from the West have been over-emphasising the defects in the Karzai regime to camouflage the colossal failures of their own countries.
While that may be true in some cases, the bottom line is that the Karzai regime has frittered away a golden opportunity to win over the hearts and minds of a people tired of the Talibani intolerance. And, its unpopularity has dragged down the acceptability level among the people for the Isaf.
In the chapter titled, ‘The Narco State’, Gall outlines how the massive poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, leading to the production of heroin and its international trade, has been bankrolling the Taliban insurgents for decades now. Yet the Karzai Government has done very little to tackle this fountainhead of funding, because poppy is also the source of illegitimate incomes for several of his Government’s senior functionaries — and possibly his kith and kin. Gall says this about Mr Karzai’s half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was assassinated in July 2011: “It was widely believed by foreign diplomats and officials in Kabul that Ahmed Wali was deeply involved in the hugely lucrative business of opium and heroin smuggling.” Confirming the perception, a senior US official is said to have remarked about Ahmed Wali: “If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck.”
Gall goes on to quote a detailed report by American journalist Gretchen Peters who, in his Seeds of Terror, exposed that heroin was bankrolling not just the Taliban and the Al Qaeda but also the Karzai regime. The money thus earned was used to corrupt all forms of good governance — if some existed in any small measure. Gall also quotes a senior US counter-narcotics officer, who wrote expansively and with candour that the Afghan President “is playing us like a fiddle”. Of course, it’s also true that the US-led forces benefitted on the sly to some extent from the illegal trade of narcotics. But if the Karzai regime had taken a firm stand, the tap could have been shut, insurgency would have struggled for funds, corrupt elements in the Afghan administration could have been contained and, perhaps, governance would have been more efficient.
It’s universally acknowledged that poor governance equals corruption, breakdown in mechanisms for the delivery of services to the people, arrogance of power and a complete lack of accountability on the part of the rulers. All of these ominous signs are apparently there in Afghanistan. That the Karzai regime will eventually pay for its follies, is certain. But the people will pay a heavier price if the dreaded Taliban uses the occasion to return to positions of power and influence.