The 13th century Italian theologian and philosopher, Saint Thomas Aquinas, said that in order for a war to be just, the three things needed would be the "authority of the sovereign," a "just cause," and a "rightful intention." By that moral compass, the war in Afghanistan could probably be on its way to becoming one-third "just."
Whether the Afghan war concerned a "just cause" would be debated long and hard. Some believe the Bush administration viewed Afghanistan as a backwater along the road to Iraq - a sort of detour during which high-tech warfare and the anatomy of "terrorism" were put under scrutiny. Some others say the war itself created an enemy, which the U.S. needed in the post-Cold War world and took an interest in preserving.
As for its "intention," the war transcended Afghanistan and took protean forms. It made an appearance in the Ferghana Valley. It has crossed over to Pakistan's Balochistan province, and may be lurching toward Iran - another turf of Balochi sub-nationalism in a strategic swathe of land with an impressive waterfront facing the Arabian Sea. Indeed, the Afghan war resonates with ancestral voices prophesying war, as Coleridge's Kublai Khan would have heard amid the tumult of the steppes.
Meanwhile, the "authority of the sovereign" largely escaped attention. It is in this respect that Yunus Qanooni's election as Speaker of the newly elected Afghan Parliament inspires contemplation. The election was genuinely contested. Mr. Qanooni won narrowly defeating Abd al-Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf. For the first time in the post-Taliban period, a political equilibrium was allowed to develop without manipulation by American viceroys.
Mr. Qanooni was a key aide to Ahmad Shah Masood. He comes from the Afghan jihad and the anti-Taliban resistance. A gifted politician, Mr. Qanooni revealed his skill in the three critical weeks following Masood's assassination on September 9, 2001, by negotiating an Afghan government-in-exile to be headed by former King Zahir Shah. Afghans preferred a national front to challenge the Taliban Government in Kabul rather than a foreign invading army. Hamid Karzai made it a point to sideline Mr. Qanooni.
Mr. Sayyaf, on the other hand, has a pedigree going back to Zahir Shah's rule, as an Islamic scholar of high repute in Kabul. He headed the Mujahideen group with Wahhabi leanings (Ittehad), whose cadres subsequently moved in and out of the Taliban movement.
An impression prevails that Mr. Karzai preferred Mr. Sayyaf to Mr. Qanooni. But appearances can be deceptive in Afghanistan. Mr. Sayyaf is an enigmatic and mercurial personality. Where exactly he stood at any given time through the past quarter century vis-à-vis Pakistani and Saudi intelligence or the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, no one could tell.
Pakistan seems to have suffered a huge setback in Mr. Qanooni's reappearance in the top echelons of power. With Mr. Sayyaf as Speaker, new vistas would have opened for Pakistan in Kabul's corridors of power.
The Afghan Parliament has a hefty contingent of Mujahideen commanders and Taliban members, former communists who turned Pashtun chauvinists, and tribal leaders rooted in ethnic identity. These elements all grew up in Pakistani playpens some time or the other.
A last-minute closing of ranks between Mr. Qanooni and Tajik leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, on the one hand, and the consolidation of various progressive elements in Parliament who viewed a Sayyaf victory as a retrogressive development, on the other, would seem to have enabled Mr. Qanooni to scrape through.
What does Pakistan do now? The balance sheet of the war on terror reads dismal. Does the low intensity war make sense? The Taliban can surely create mayhem but cannot capture power. The U.S. is about to pass on the baton to NATO. Pakistan can end up annoying influential Western capitals.
Besides, there are discordant notes within the Afghan resistance. In his customary annual Id message on January 8, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was in alliance with the Taliban, did some plain speaking about President Pervez Musharraf's Afghan policy. Mr. Hekmatyar said: "The Americans are well aware of everything happening inside Pakistan. The CIA gets to know about developments in the Pakistani President's office faster than news about happenings in the Afghan presidential palace. The CIA and FBI are active inside Pakistan as they are in Afghanistan. Their establishments in Pakistan are as active as in Afghanistan. There too, they can arrest people and lock them up in prisons at will. There too, they fire missiles into the houses of their opponents from their surveillance aircraft, but the Pakistani officials promptly announce that there was an explosion in a house used for making bombs in which a terrorist was killed.
"The Americans have asked the Pakistanis to give up Kashmir and promised that, in return, they will make the Durand Line permanent and will help them bring the tribal areas under Pakistani control, areas which the British failed to control. Officials in Islamabad have accepted this deal."
The Taliban's initial reaction to the political developments in Kabul has been rhetorical. "Amir-al-Momenin" Mullah Mohammad Omar said: "Now a fake parliament has been set up and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney inaugurated it, but everyone is aware that the Afghans have not given up their resistance to this fake process. The resistance is getting stronger and is spreading to all parts of the country day by day. We assure all Afghans and the Muslims of the world that the Americans, apart from such theatrical events, will never succeed... The Americans will be forced to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan just as they are forced to withdraw from Iraq. Our struggle will turn into a national movement because every zealous Afghan Muslim knows that our soil has been given to the Americans by a few puppets."
Much will now depend on what happens in Kabul. Mr. Karzai and Mr. Qanooni have been characterised as political "rivals." But a complex calculus of power is forming. Mr. Qanooni's political platform is far from irreconcilable with Mr. Karzai's.
True, Mr. Qanooni had reason to feel embittered that in the presidential election, he might have "secured the votes but Karzai got the victory." But today, he too is a stakeholder. True, Mr. Qanooni had not minced words in questioning Mr. Karzai's leadership qualities. But he never wanted Mr. Karzai's Government to collapse either, as that would be "tantamount to giving Afghanistan to Pakistan" (to quote him). Also, Mr. Qanooni from his powerful post is finally getting the chance to realise his agenda of "national unity and stability and security."
Problem areas
But there are problem areas. First, the power broker who counts most is `Ustad' Rabbani. And, there is no certainty whatsoever that the `Ustad' has forgiven those who unceremoniously forced him out of the presidential palace in Kabul in the winter of 2001 to make way for Mr. Karzai. Whether a coalition of conservative Mujahideen elements cutting across ethnicity would incrementally assemble around `Ustad' Rabbani remains to be seen. He has extensive links with almost all Mujahideen leaders, including Mr. Hekmatyar or Mr. Sayyaf or Yunus Khalis - and also with Pakistani agencies. In the 1994-95 period, he even helped the Taliban. (`Ustad' Rabbani moved to Pakistan in 1973 as part of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's strategy to exploit political Islam as an instrument of state policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan.) Prof. Rabbani is the senior-most Islamist leader in Afghanistan today. Yet he is out of power. There is something odd here. The `Ustad' is a master tactician, who can be a dogged Afghan nationalist - if he chooses to.
Secondly, Mr. Qanooni must come up with something far better than Mr. Karzai's policies, which he himself has condemned as "driven by ethnicity and private gains." On the other hand, thanks to Mr. Karzai's ploys to create a pliable parliament, Mr. Qanooni is being handed down a factionalised legislature. He must now make it work. Thirdly, Mr. Qanooni has reservations about Mr. Karzai's Cabinet choices, which would come up for parliament's approval. He felt the Green Card holders from the Afghan diaspora who surrounded Mr. Karzai were out of touch with the realities of Afghan life.
Besides, Mr. Qanooni strongly feels that a parliamentary form of government suits Afghanistan's needs better. Mr. Karzai and his supporters, on the other hand, fought hard to enshrine in the constitution a very strong presidency. Equally so, the confusion in Iraq would have disillusioned the Americans too about the parliamentary form of government.
Not that Mr. Qanooni is prone to "anti-Americanism." He believes that an open-ended NATO presence suits Afghanistan's security needs. He has no problems if Afghanistan calls itself the U.S.' "strategic partner." But Mr. Qanooni regrets that Washington's policies take shape under "Pakistani influence," and "there are special groups in Pakistan who want to destroy Afghanistan's stability." He is on record that the Taliban's resurgence itself is not accidental but forms part of Islamabad's "strategic" plan of undermining Afghanistan's sovereignty. Of course, he has been critical of Mr. Karzai's ambivalent policy towards the Taliban.
Mr. Qanooni's election on the whole holds the potential for enhancing the "authority of the sovereign" in Afghanistan. But the sovereign is called upon to share power. Naturally, there is indignation that at this delicate juncture, Washington is inclined to announce "victory" in the Afghan war and march on.
The writer is a former Ambassador of India with extensive experience in dealing with countries of South West and Central Asia. He is presently a Visiting Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.
Source: The Hindu, Chennai, January 20, 2006.
* Views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Observer Research Foundation.
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