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| Afghanistan: Back to square one |
| Hanif-ur-Rahman |
| Regarding the invincibility of Afghanistan the, ‘wily British prophet and advocate of imperial power’, Lord Curzon, said. “For 50 years Afghanistan had inspired the British people with a feeling of almost superstitious apprehension...it is only with the greatest reluctance that Englishmen can be persuaded to have anything to do with so fateful a region...Afghanistan has long been the Achilles’ heel of Great Britain in the East. Impregnable elsewhere she has shown herself uniformly vulnerable here.” (Lord Curzon)
Exactly about 20 years earlier, the Geneva Accords eventually resulted in the now defunct Soviet Union albeit forced withdrawal from Afghanistan which proved to be a graveyard to its prestige as well as to its physique.
The US “love affair”, “flirtation” and its “marriage of convenience” with the Afghan Islamists, in particular and Jihadis from around the Muslim world in general finally culminated in a bitter divorce and their subsequent enmity.
After getting its objective and goal by defeating communist Russia, US left Afghanistan in the lurch and went away stealthily. Soviet Union’s last President Mikhail Gorbachev called the Afghan war a “bleeding wound”. Besides other factors, the Afghan war finally led to the downfall of the once dreaded and mighty USSR in 1991.
The Soviet pullout from Afghanistan in 1989, left in control of Kabul, a surrogate regime of the well-built Dr. Najib-Ullah (Ruled from May 1985-April 1992), an ex-chief of Khad (Khidmat-i-Amneyati Afghanistan). However, Dr.Najib’s regime could not withstand the strikes of the popular Mujahideen groups. He was forced out from power and found shelter in the United Nations’ compound where he met his tragic and ignominious death at the hands of Taliban.
The ‘victorious’ entry of Mujahideen into Kabul did not end the miseries of the Afghans rather it further aggravated their sufferings. A gory and sanguinary era of civil war began among the various Mujahideen parties to get control of Kabul. The incumbent Tajik President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who came to power through a Pakistan-sponsored Accord, later on threw the Accord to the four winds and, with his master guerrilla and graceful defence minister Ahmed Shah Masood, clung to the power, in spite of Hizb-i-Islami’s devastating attacks on Kabul.
The continuous bloodbath in Afghanistan gave birth to the conservative and much maligned Taliban Movement, which subsequently controlled about 90% of Afghanistan, with alleged external support. The short but stern Islamic rule of the Taliban enforced in the areas under their control, ended shortly after US started Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, in retaliation of the now famous but tragic event of 9/11, supposedly masterminded from the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
With the announcement of the much-awaited President Obama’s Afghan policy, it seems that history is repeating itself. Twenty years ago Soviet-Russia left a Pakhtu-speaking President Najib Ullah in power of Kabul. But by 2011 another super power would be leaving another Pakhtun President Hamid Karzai in control of Kabul, though popularly elected yet under the shadow of American-led coalition’s bayonet and massive rigging in the recently-held election.
After 18 months, the US forces would be no more conspicuous by their presence in Afghanistan. Although, it is yet to be seen whether President Obama fulfils his promise by withdrawing American forces and execute his Afghan war policy by July 2011. As Obama’s Democratic predecessor, President Bill Clinton had failed to follow his words during his tenure when he had pledged to withdraw American troops from Bosnia by the Christmas 1998.
In case the US and for that matter the NATO forces go back to barracks or go back to their pristine destinations, Afghans would be pitched against Afghans. Another bloody phase in the Afghan history seems to be in the womb of time.
The US mishandling and confusion of the Afghan affairs can be gauged from the fact that it took 25 days to attack Afghanistan while it deliberated for months to send additional 30,000 reinforcements.
The American retreat may plunge Afghanistan into another phase of civil war. The anti-American and anti-Karzai forces, now flushed with ‘victory’ and emboldened by US withdrawal, would push Afghanistan into the fourth phase of the civil war since 1989: first Mujahideen vs. Najib Ullah, second Mujahideen themselves, phase three Taliban vs. Northern Alliance and the fourth one (God forbid), is in the wing of time. The mess created by the American entry in Afghanistan would further push the Afghans to another “nasty and brutish” era.
Who would ensure that the past era of dirty real-politik would not revisit Afghanistan? And Afghanistan would not be a playground to the machinations of the regional states/powers and their mini great game?
The Islamist in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world now emboldened by the American ‘defeat’ would step up their campaign/jihad against their respective pro-American governments. In case, Taliban or Taliban-like regime comes to power in Afghanistan, it would again become a rendezvous to the Jihadis or terrorist outfits and they would re-direct their activities against American interests and the interests of its allies.
In the final analysis, if Afghanistan is to be saved from continuous blood-letting and becoming home to the terrorists and others, a two-pronged strategy must be followed. First, the Afghan leaders must realise the gravity of the situation and they must unite for their own sake, for the sake of their country and for the sake of the Pakhtuns on this side of the border who suffer due to decades-long conflict in Afghanistan. They must not play anymore in the hands of the regional and extra-regional powers.
Second, the US and its lackeys establish a formidable network of Maddares (religious schools), in Pakistan and along the Pak-Afghan border, in order to defeat communism in Afghanistan. However, the anti-communist strategy backfired, and besides irreparably radicalizing the societies both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the once “moral equivalents of the founding fathers of America” turned out to be the implacable foes of US, ‘modernity’ and democracy. How many schools and universities have been established by US and its ever-willing and not- willing allies in those areas, in order to counter the menace of radicalism and terrorism? It is a big question to the champions of democratic values-US and its allies?
It is needed now, that the same forces lavishly invest in imparting modern education to the people here, by establishing a cobweb of educational institutions in the Pakhtun areas across the Durand Line, so that the forces of darkness as well as US past anti-communist and pro-Islamists policy could be counterbalanced.
The era of gloom and doom started with the Soviet interference of Afghanistan in 1979, must come to an end with the Americans and NATO forces pullout by 2011.
The world must pay heed to the prophetic words of poet Mohammad Iqbal that “Asia is comparable to a living body composed of soil and water. The heart that beat inside the body is Afghanistan. The destruction of Afghanistan would be the destruction of Asia. And in its progress and prosperity lies the well-being of Asia” Rather I would like to add that not only Asia but the destruction and well-being of the whole world lies in the destruction or well-being of Afghanistan. Of course, the recent history is a testament to the fact.
hanikhanbaj@yahoo.com |
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