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Asia Times
US explores its Afghanistan exit options
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With Afghanistan daily slipping into more
anarchy and chaos, United States authorities, aware that
they are unlikely to ever bring stability to the country
by military means, continue to explore political avenues
that ultimately could pave the way for them to withdraw
from the country.
First there were the talks at the Pakistan Air Force
base in Quetta with "moderate" elements of the Taliban
(which immediately failed due to the US insistence on
the sidelining of Taliban leader Mullah Omar). Then came
the formation of Jaishul Muslim, a formal grouping of
lesser Taliban lights (which failed even to enter into
Afghanistan), and moves to pry some of the more powerful
mujahideen commanders from the anti-US resistance
movement.
And last week, former Taliban foreign minister Mullah
Abdul Wakeel Mutawakil was released from US custody in
the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, where he had been
in detention since handing himself over to the US in
February last year.
Mutawakil has often been described in the Western media
as a more "respectable" face of the Taliban. Shortly
before the US sent troops to Afghanistan in late 2001,
he reportedly had a major disagreement with Mullah Omar
over sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan. It was reported that Mutawakil led a group
of Taliban who wanted bin Laden to leave Afghanistan to
avoid US reprisals against the regime for sheltering al-
Qaeda. Before becoming the Taliban foreign minister,
Mutawakil is believed to have served as a spokesman and
personal secretary to Mullah Omar.
The US has been forced to pursue different tactics in
Afghanistan as a result of the failure of their hand-
picked man, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, to
significantly establish his writ (ie, the US writ) over
the country, let alone the capital, Kabul. Similarly,
the carefully chosen (ie, compliant) governors in the
southern provinces have proved incapable of stamping
their authority in their regions, which have now become
hotbeds of resistance.
The real power pillars of the Kabul regime, including
the Northern Alliance and General Abdul Rasheed Dostum,
have now clearly marked the boundaries of their
interests, and they are at complete odds with those of
the US. Pakistan, too, has shown leanings toward those
who are not favored by the US right now.
The current role of Pakistan A few weeks ago, a top US
diplomat visited the Pakistani port city of Karachi, and
in an informal meeting told this correspondent that the
US was very satisfied with Pakistan’s role in cracking
down on al-Qaeda. "Pakistan really helped us in
arresting them," the envoy said. However, with regard to
the Taliban, Pakistan’s role was altogether another
matter, and it could not be fully trusted, the diplomat
said.
Over the past months, Pakistan has supported select
Afghan commanders with whom it had forged links during
the former USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
These were covert operations, but now Islamabad is
openly telling the US that it will "tame" these
mujahideen if the US considers them important enough in
Afghanistan’s power structure.
Well before the collapse of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan in early 2002, Pakistan did its level best
to create an alternative force to fill the looming power
vacuum, but unfortunately its choices, including the
Hizb-i-Islami, Afghanistan of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, were
not acceptable to the US. As a result, Pakistan had to
digest the bitter pill of a pro-India, Iran and Russia
Northern Alliance being given the dominant slice of
power in Kabul.
But now, with the US’s first choice proving so poor, US
authorities are keen on soliciting Pakistan’s assistance
in sorting out the mess in Afghanistan, which includes
the "moderate" Taliban concept, which initially the US
found repugnant.
This initiative has increased with the release of
Mutawakil, who is now expected, with help from the
Pakistanis, to be given a senior position in the local
government in Kandahar, the former spiritual
headquarters of the Taliban.
At the same time, options are being explored to recruit
other powerful former Taliban ministers into the central
cabinet in key positions, including that of defense. On
the one hand, they would then be in a position to cool
the anti-US resistance, and also serve as a
counterweight to the Northern Alliance, which the US is
now finding somewhat recalcitrant.
The main problem would remain, though: the big names
among the field commanders who have a large and loyal
following among the masses. This is where Pakistan comes
in, and it is working on behalf of the US to "convert",
for example, the legendary mujahideen Maulana Jalaluddin
Haqqani.
Soon after September 11, 2001, Pakistan authorities
invited Haqqani to Islamabad, where he was offered
inducements by US authorities to change sides. He
refused, and gave up his high position in the Taliban
regime to take up arms as a guerrilla against the US-led
invading army.
He currently commands a large force in the Paktia,
Paktika and Khost regions where the resistance is at its
fiercest. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence,
according to Asia Times Online sources, has assured the
US that sooner or later Haqqani will be on their side.
Close aides of Haqqani, though, dismiss out of hand such
talk.
Which leaves the US no closer to breaking the deadlock
in the country.
Northern Alliance Some well placed sources have
confirmed to Asia Times Online that contact between the
Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan, Dostum and two powerful
hardline Islamic parties of the Northern Alliance - the
Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan led by Professor Burhanuddin
Rabbani and the Ittahad-i-Islami Afghanistan, led by
Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf.
Apparently, recent anti-US skirmishes in Sarobi, Logar
and Imam Sahab were the result of this new nexus. Such
an alliance would further undermine US interests.
Hamid Karzai Many supporters of former monarch Zahir
Shah, who initially backed Karzai in the hopes of
royalists being allowed back into government, have
become disillusioned as they believe that Karzai wants
to become the unequivocal, and long-term leader of
Afghanistan.
Karzai did have some support in Kandahar, but the latest
mass escape of Taliban prisoners there illustrates that
the network in the local administration has deep roots.
Ever so slowly, events continue to turn against the US.
But even as the US attempts new approaches to counter
these developments, such as talking to moderate Taliban,
there is a growing awareness that the Taliban are not
the real issue. They became US targets after September
11 for the simple reason that they were providing bin
Laden and al-Qaeda sanctuary. The Taliban, therefore,
were one of the first real casualties of the "war on
terror".
Now, al-Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan has effectively
been broken, and it poses no threat to the US in that
country. Thus, a growing argument runs, since there is
no threat, should the US really care who rules the
wasteland that is Afghanistan, be it the Taliban or the
Northern Alliance or a combination thereof? Better that
the US pull out its troops and leave the Afghanis to
themselves.
Taking this reasoning a few steps further, one can only
speculate how long it will be before the US begins
dialogue with Mullah Omar.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.