Editorial

Take on the Taliban together

The recent removal of the top U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan is an indication that all is not well with American policy in that country. Does the change in command amount to a change in policy, or does it highlight the realisation that the steps taken so far have failed to tackle the problem of the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies? Both propositions may well be correct. When senior commanders are fired that amounts to an admission that they were not up to conducting their assigned military operations. And it is a measure of Washington's mounting frustration that it cannot even decide whether the poppy fields in Afghanistan should be allowed to survive and, if so, for how long. The earlier policy was to destroy the poppies because the heroin they yielded provided money for the Taliban. Now it is considered politic to catch the traffickers, rather than the producers, because that is seen as a more effective control measure that will ultimately eliminate those who help the Taliban. External perceptions are that the traffickers are the conduit between the Taliban and the outside world.

Of course Taliban and traffickers each avow the ideology of Islam. This is like the Vietnamese of more than three decades ago who similarly avowed the ideology of communism. They too were pitted against the Americans and they too managed to attract the support of rank and file members of the public who did not want to see their country run by foreigners. The resulting popular war ultimately forced the U.S. to withdraw. The fight with the Taliban and Al Qaeda is also starting to assume a popular edge with an increasing number of Muslims, both inside and out of Afghanistan. They think that the Islam propagated by the Taliban and Al Qaeda may be extreme, but it is Islam after all, the word of God, and none may contradict it. Pakistan faced a similar problem in the recently established camps of refugees from Swat. Although these victims had been hounded out by the Taliban and other Islamic extremists, many among them regretted leaving their homes. 'We would have brought the Taliban around to accept the education of women,' several later remarked.

The problem America faces in Afghanistan is that even the so-called 'good' Taliban are flying the standard of Islam. They, along with the Pakistan Army, look like chastising a people whose faith in Islam was and is unshakeable. So Washington may not have any option other than winning over the majority Pashtu speaking population which provides the Taliban with their manpower. One day Washington may even come round to the view that it has no other recourse than recognition of the Durand Line which has become a symbol of Pashtun nationalism. Deep as it is in Pakistan, the Durand Line inevitably divides the country. One day this could take concrete shape given the speculation that Washington has been exploring the possibility of creating a Muslim state between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The new Islamic state of Pashtunistan could one day integrate Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), parts of Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir and irrepressible Balochistan. Policy makers in Islamabad suspect Washington's alleged ulterior motives, which is why Pakistan has not fully committed itself to the fight in Afghanistan. Its argument is that it cannot do so without withdrawing its troops from the border with India. Top Pakistani military experts have even gone on record as telling America, 'You deliver us in India and we deliver you the Taliban.' What Pakistan has in mind is Kashmir.

Meanwhile, President Zardari has openly accused America of creating the Taliban. His assertion is that Washington used Pakistan to raise an Islamic fundamentalist force to fight against the non believing Soviets who occupied Afghanistan in 1979. Money and weapons were poured into NWFP and FATA (Federally Administered Territorial Agency) and training camps were set up to train thousands of young men in the art of wielding sophisticated arms. Zardari points out that once the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, the Americans followed suit overnight, leaving behind the weapons, training camps and their young protégés without any direction or prospects for the future. They were the ones who became part of the Taliban army. Zardari admits that successive governments in Pakistan then nurtured and used the Taliban for their own purposes until the tragic events of 9/11. But he goes on to argue that the moral responsibility for creating the Taliban lies with the Americans and it is therefore now up to the Americans to find a way out of the mess it brought into being.  When the Taliban set up their government in Kabul, Pakistan was the first country to give them recognition. It also imagined it would finally access the long cherished strategic depth that Afghanistan would provide to enable Islamabad to gain a foothold in Central Asia. Little did Islamabad realise at the time that the Taliban amounted to a Frankenstein that would one day threaten its creator.

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