WASHINGTON, June 3 (UPI) -- Afghanistan's future as either a stable nation in the making or an ungovernable patchwork of squabbling regional and tribal fiefdoms remains a tossup six months after the toppling of its extremist Taliban regime and the establishment of an internationally backed interim government.
Hamid Karzai, chairman of the interim government, presides over an administration whose authority extends beyond Kabul -- if it extends at all -- mainly due to the acquiescence of local leaders who have chosen to not directly challenge it -- yet.
And though broad-based elections are planned this month for an 18-month transitional government, few expect easygoing, either in the voting process or in the establishing of a government whose composition would satisfy the sensitivities and aspirations of competing ethnic and geographic groups.
"The immensity of the task of rebuilding Afghanistan into something resembling a coherent state cannot be overestimated," the Belgium-based International Crisis Group said recently.
"Nearly three decades of political instability, including many years of savage warfare, the wholesale destruction of political and physical infrastructure and the inflammation of ethnic divisions, are layered on top of a nation that was among the poorest and weakest governed even in its 'Golden Age' -- before King (Mohammad) Zahir Shah was deposed in 1973," it said.
With more than 7,000 U.S. troops in the country hunting down remnants of the al Qaida terrorist organization held responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, and with a geographic location between the Indian subcontinent, Iran and former Soviet republics, whither Afghanistan is a question with immense portent.
"I think it's possible to do a lot better than we have done so far, but it is certainly right that we will not come up with a plan that has dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's, and if we did, it would probably be worthless," said Teresita Schaffer, a former U.S. diplomat in South Asia and currently director of the South Asia Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
Adds Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who has called for increased efforts at establishing law and order in the country: "Unless we take a serious look at our policy, I greatly fear we may be setting the stage for a tragic replay of recent Afghan history."
Afghanistan, which has felt the boot of the invader since the time of Alexander the Great, was occupied in 1979 by the Soviet Union. When it withdrew after a decade of grinding guerrilla war against U.S.-supported Muslim groups, the political void it left was filled by squabbling factional leaders who fought a bitter civil war, paving the way for the Taliban, which initially won popular support by promising law, order and peace.
It got law and order -- of an extremist Islamist variety, under which even music and kite flying were banned. Peace never materialized. Forces headed by deposed President Burhanuddin Rabbani retreated to the north, from where they waged their own guerrilla war against the Taliban until the United States jumped in with advisers and air support to oust the extremists in Kabul, who had given sanctuary and succor to Osama bin Laden and his terror network.
This time, the void left has been filled by Karzai's administration, but lawlessness continues in the country, where firearms are plentiful, available and used.
At issue now is the role of the U.N.-sanctioned, 4,500-man International Security Assistance Force. Originally established in December 2001 under British command, the coalition from various nations is due to transfer to Turkish control, and has been granted another six-month mandate by the United Nations for operating in Kabul.
Karzai's government, and many non-governmental organizations, would like its presence elsewhere in the country, something which the United States opposes.
The ICG, which conducts on-the-ground surveys in areas of conflict, reckons up to 25,000 peacekeepers are needed nationwide.
The United States, however, argues the role of its troops is combat; says other nations are not coming forward with additional peacekeeping troops; and believes the presence of so many foreign troops could interfere with ongoing U.S. military operations to hunt down Taliban and al Qaida remnants. In addition, some have suggested a large foreign peacekeeping force could well turn the Afghan's welcome and perception of foreign forces as liberators into the deadly perception of foreign forces as occupiers.
"I think everyone is acutely conscious this (peacekeeping) is going to be difficult duty, that they may well lose some people, that they may not look as heroes at the end of it, end up with a certain amount of egg on their faces because Afghanistan is tough terrain, politically and physically," said Schaffer.
"After a while you stop looking like a guest and start looking like an invader, and history has not been kind to invaders in Afghanistan."
Washington's answer to the dilemma has been to start training the nub of a national Afghan army, while Germany works to establish police forces.
Karzai, meanwhile, has been left to finesse political understandings with potential rivals but without any force to back up his mantle of authority.
"The problem basically is that the (Bush) administration's military victory in Afghanistan will lose much of its value unless there remains in Afghanistan a reasonably viable government that is able to prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a chaotic place favored by miscreants and terrorists of various sorts," said Schaffer, who warned that army building would be a multiyear process.
"What has been happening since they have been in office is that increasingly the local potentates who have always been powerful in Afghanistan have reasserted themselves in various parts of the country."
Near Kabul, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of an Islamist militant party and commander during the 1980s struggle against Soviet occupation forces, is said to pose a threat to the Kabul government, threatening to bring it down and also attack U.S. forces. A pre-emptive U.S. missile attack on a convoy in which he was traveling failed to eliminate the threat, and he remains at large.
In Khost, in troublesome Paktia Province, warlord Pacha Khan Zadran continues to hold sway, refusing to step down in favor the Paktia's appointed governor, Hakim Taniwal. He reportedly mortared the town of Gardez in April in asserting his continued rule, killing some 36 people.
In the north, south and west, warlords appear to be refraining from confrontation, but Kiernan Prendergast, the U.N. under-secretary general for political affairs, says the potential for violent clashes among rivals is "a worrying situation."
Schaffer and others note that Afghanistan has a history of weak central governments. Although that may not be what Washington would like to see continue, the fact should be recognized and weighed.
"In a sense, the objective is not a government that has full reach and control over the whole country, it's a government that has the political credibility to work out what amounts to non-aggression pacts with the local potentates, to eventually, with enough strength, to be able to discourage this kind of nationally self-destructive behavior on the part of the warlords," who each want part -- if not all -- of the spoils, she said.
"Karzai can't use military force to bring that about because he has effectively less military force than a lot of the warlords do, so he has to get aid out to other parts of the country and in a way that at least leaves Karzai relevant to the process."
U.S. troops handing out humanitarian packets to villagers have taken interim government officials with them as a sign of Afghan involvement, for example. The U.S. military's civil affairs office in the city of Kandahar, which helps with projects such as digging irrigation wells in villages, is near interim government buildings.
Harun Amin, charge d'affaires of the Afghan Embassy in Washington, agrees doling out international largesse is a key element to the survival of the interim and transitional government.
"Karzai is caught between money and guns," he told United Press International. "In order to alleviate the problem and reduce the power of the regional leaders, engage in enhancing and expanding the authority of the central government, it requires that the central authority be provided with the capacity for building, that projects should go through the central authority, hence it needs funds so that it could use the funds as leverage to expand its influence and, beyond that, impose and enforce laws in Afghanistan."
The international community estimates that financial aid to Afghanistan to help it recover from 23 years of warfare -- first against the Soviets, and later between the Taliban and anti-Taliban forces -- would be more than $1 billion next year, with billions more required later.
Amin said security was acceptable in all but two of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, "but there is room for improvement, and we hope we will be able to address this with the help of the international assistance and cooperation."
Afghanistan, he added, would like to see a temporary expansion of ISAF, but also looked forward to deploying its own police and military forces in the future.
He said ISAF's mere presence in a place contributes to order.
"You cannot compare Afghanistan with Somalia or with the Balkans," where they had to actively participate in peacekeeping, he said.
About 16,000 elected delegates from around the country will vote for about 1,000 delegates to a loya jirga, a traditional grand assembly to be held later this month. Together with about 500 delegates chosen by the government to represent groups such as women and refugees, the loya jirga will elect a transitional government.
Already there are rumors of delegate intimidation and vote buying, but Amin argues that even an imperfect vote would be a victory.
"Democracy is a process," he said. "There is no perfect democracy.
"We are trying to reverse 23 years of war," he said. "The continuity of the system is the important thing. We started with a military campaign, went into a political campaign (and) with the completion of the political campaign we will hopefully engage in the task of development."
In the meantime, the United States finds itself in the classic dammed-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. Either use funding and other obvious ways of securing public support for the Afghan government to buy time to train a national army and build stability, or expand ISAF and/or use its own forces in peacekeeping to sponsor an administration whose support among the people may be flimsy and short-lived.
A Soviet general once said that while you cannot buy Afghan friendship, you can rent it. Rudyard Kipling, who wrote about the days of the British Raj, is attributed with penning lines that should also caution anyone attempting to deal with the conundrum that Afghanistan has proven to be through the centuries:
"And the end of the fight is a tombstone with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."
