It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over

The fallof Kabul and other Afghan cities has led many Americans to believe that the waris swiftly drawing to a close. The U.S. media is creating the impression thatthe takeover has brought 23 years of war, instability and oppression to an end.Nothing could be farther from the truth. Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, the war ain'tover 'till it's over.

First, ina country that traditionally has lacked centralized authority, the takeover ofthe capital city does not yet mean the conquest of all of Afghanistan. Talibanforces are regrouping in and around their de facto capital of Kandahar, wheresome factions plan to wage a guerrilla war. Afghans did not beat the British andRussian invaders by holding the cities, but by waging ferocious resistance frommountain strongholds. If Taliban or other Pashtun fighters launch aChechen-style hit-and-run defense, the war could drag on for years. The resultof a new guerrilla war would be the complete ethnic partition of Afghanistaninto a Pashtun south and non-Pashtun north. The media has highlighted therenewed food aid shipments into Afghanistan, but without noting that food hasbeen used by all sides as a weapon, with militias seizing aid shipments fortheir supporters, and blocking food from their enemy's territory.

Second,the Northern Alliance rebels' seizure of Kabul merely resets the clock back to1992, when as the mujahadin they took the city from Najibullah's Communists. Notonly did the non-Pashtun mujahadin execute Pashtuns, and legislate the firstlimits on women's rights, but they quickly turned on each other. Their fouryears of in-fighting left 50,000 dead, and led Afghans and the West to welcomethe Taliban as stabilizing "liberators" in 1996. Since then, NorthernAlliance rebels have had a reputation as corrupt "looters andrapists," according to a recent statement by the Revolutionary Associationof Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), and have taken control of up to 80 percent ofAfghanistan's opium trade. The returning Northern Alliance rebels are againexecuting Pashtuns in the city, much as returning Albanians attacked Serbs inKosovo two years ago. But the Northern Alliance seizure of Kabul gives it acentral role in any new Afghan "coalition" government, becausepossession is nine-tenths of the law.

Third,even if the U.S. or U.N. manages to form a shaky "coalition"government, the conflict may only restart, as it did in 1992 and in 1996. AllAfghan ethnic and political factions will assume their claim to power will berecognized by the U.S. powerbrokers. When they realize that Washington intendsto split the difference, some of them may quickly turn on their former allies.Washington attempted to build a multiethnic coalition under the aging King ZahirShah in 1992, and failed miserably. It tried to build a similar coalition thatsame year in Somalia. One of the fundamental errors made by the U.S. in Somaliawas an assumption that its unifying intentions would magically satisfy allmilitia factions. The other mistake it made was to only recognize militiawarlords as legitimate political players, and ignore civil society and clanelders. An Afghan regime that only patches together the guys with the guns, andleaves out the vast majority of Afghan women and men, will merely reward thepast two decades of violence, and set up up another U.N."peacekeeping" force for failure.

The Westsupported the mujahadin takeover of Kabul in 1992, the Taliban takeover in 1996,and now the Northern Alliance takeover in 2001. Its aims were usually to"liberate" Afghanistan from the last regime it supported. Washington'sinitial support for militant Islamist groups in Afghanistan (like Israel'ssupport of Hamas, and Egypt's support of the Muslim Brotherhood) ultimately blewup in its face. Yet because the militant Islamists are today virtually the forceexploiting public opposition to poverty, corruption, and foreign occupation inthe Muslim world, repressing them only legitimizes their growing popularity.Instead of backing or repressing far-right Islamic populist groups, the West andits client governments could be posing popular alternatives to draw frustratedcitizens away from them. Instead, the U.S. is merely repeating old mistakes bycrushing the Taliban, while hailing new Islamist militant groups such as theNorthern Alliance.

But thereis a method to this madness, more to U.S. aims in the region than is readilyapparent. Afghanistan has historically been in an extremely strategic locationstraddling South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Will the U.S. attemptto use the current crisis to establish a permanent presence in the region? Eachrecent large U.S. intervention has left behind a string of new military bases ina region where they had never before had a foothold The Gulf War left behindlarge U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia and three other Gulf states--the main Bin Ladengrievance that fueled the September 11 attacks. Military interventions in formerYugoslavia resulted in U.S. bases in four countries, including the sprawlingCamp Bondsteel complex in Kosovo. Were the military bases merely built to aidthe interventions, or did the interventions occur partly in order to station thebases?

The U.S.military is inserting itself into strategic areas of the world, and anchoringU.S. geopolitical influence in these areas, at a very critical time in history.With the rise of a new European economic superpower, and increased economiccompetition from East Asia, U.S. economic power is perhaps on the wane. But inmilitary affairs, the U.S. is still the unquestioned superpower. Why not projectthat military dominance into new strategic regions as a future counterweight toits competitors? French President Jacques Chirac correctly viewed the U.S. rolein the Persian Gulf as securing control over oil sources for Europe and Japan.Afghanistan lies along a proposed Unocal pipeline route from new Caspian Sea oilfields to the Indian Ocean. Allied checkpoints are now being set up along theAfghan highways that would serve as potential routes for the pipeline.

Majortests for U.S. policy lie in the days and weeks ahead. Will special forcesswitch to fighting against guerrillas in Afghani or Pakistani mountains? WillBush flatten Kandahar like Putin flattened the Chechen capital of Grozny lastyear? Will the Northern Alliance be allowed to dominate Kabul (like the KosovoLiberation Army became the UN "police force" in Kosovo)? Will a new"coalition" government stay together, or only give a seat at the tableto anyone carrying a Kalashnikov or RPG launcher?

Will BinLaden really be captured, or (like Saddam) be allowed to live in order tojustify a permanent stationing of U.S. troops? Will anthrax be used as a newexcuse to bomb and invade Iraq? Finally, will the new U.S. military bases inAfghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan become permanent outpostsguarding a new oil infrastructure? A failure of the U.S. to pull out of theregion after the war, to leave behind a government that truly represents Afghanicivilians, or to lure Muslims away from militant groups, will only give impetusto new Bin Ladens, and to future September 11s.

Also see:
A history of biochemical weapons
List of U.S. military interventions since 1890
A briefing on the history of U.S. interventions
Afghanistan is not simply like Vietnam
WORTinterview with Robert Fisk
WORT interview with Ahmed Rashid

(ZoltanGrossman is a doctoral candidate in Geography at the University ofWisconsin-Madison, and a member of the South-West Asia Information Group. mtn@igc.org.By arrangement with Znet,November 16)