A decade ago, Afghanistan was admired around the world for the bravery of
its people in standing up to the Soviet army, and, through their
sacrifices, for helping to end the Cold War. Today, it is a pariah and an
incubator for terrorism. Instead of the sympathy we once felt, hearts are
hardened now by fear and disgust. Valorous images of the mujahideen
freedom fighters have been blotted out by the squalid cruelty of the
ruling Taliban and their murderous guests, most notoriously Osama bin
Laden.
How things went wrong is an important question to answer now. Whatever
happens next in Afghanistan, nothing can end the danger there if we repeat
certain mistakes of the past. Quick fixes won't stick. Kill or catch bin
Laden, and the fanatical Taliban will still be around, one set of players
in a proxy civil war fed by neighboring Pakistan, Russia and Iran.
Breaking the Taliban's hold on the country so they can replaced by an
equally unpopular bunch--the discredited Northern Alliance now clumped
near the Russian border--is a recipe for more instability. Only a solution
that leaves Afghans finally free to choose their own government can
produce a society that is a threat to no one.
The Taliban government is only the most recent result of gamesmanship over
Afghanistan. But it shows how risky such manipulation can be. The Taliban
are a byproduct of the civil war that wracked Afghanistan after communism
ended in the early '90s, unleashed as Pakistan sought to oust a postwar
regime backed by Russia, Iran and India.
Islamabad assumed that this force of religious students would never look
for inspiration far beyond Pakistan. But Afghanistan had become attractive
to yet another group, the international Islamists, many of them political
outlaws in their own countries, who hoped to take advantage of the chaos
there to make Afghanistan the first state headquarters for world-wide
revolution. So what have we learned from past experience in Afghanistan
that would help us fight terrorism today?
• Be cautious in choosing your allies, and don't
assume that possible coalition partners have the same motives, or even
good ones Top
Part of this lesson has already been driven home. Many of today's
terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, were introduced to the Afghan
scene, and trained and armed by the CIA, during the Soviet war. Afghans
warned their American benefactors that it would backfire. Nobody listened.
Washington wanted the foreign Muslim legions to give the resistance an
international flavor, so the war didn't just look like a U.S. showdown
with the Soviets. It also assumed that Muslims would always be tactical
allies in the struggle against godless communism. We didn't plan for a
time when there would be no Soviet Union, leaving radical Arabs and the
like free to turn their guns on us.
We may not make that particular mistake again. But there are others
looming. In its rush to build support for antiterrorism efforts, the U.S.
may limit its options by joining up with countries that do not fully share
our interests, and that may actually seek to undermine the effort.
This is what happened during the anti-Soviet war, when all of the regional
players on the anti-Soviet side had extra agendas and exploited the Afghan
conflict in ways that helped pave the way for today's crisis. The
Pakistanis, Saudis and Iranians, for instance, all cultivated favorites
that they hoped to make dependent on them in the future. The result was
that when the communists were gone, Afghanistan had no genuinely popular
leaders in powerful positions, only puppet factions destined to slug it
out in endless conflict.
Now, Pakistan is in a bind. Its people are apprehensive and anti-American,
its military regime compelled to look tough on the Taliban. Only a
solution that turns Afghanistan toward neutral equilibrium fairly quickly
can head off disaster in Pakistan. It is essential that Islamabad now stop
playing favorites in Afghanistan.
The regimes of Saudi Arabia and Egypt were glad to ship members of the
radical Islamic opposition in their own countries off to fight the Soviets
in Afghanistan, and as far away from them as possible. Since then, many
Middle Eastern governments have done little to prevent millions of dollars
from their region going through their banks to the terror networks.
Presumably, they hoped this non-interference would buy them some immunity
from attack themselves. But they must move decisively now to turn off the
taps.
Though Iran was technically on the resistance side during the Soviet war,
it has played a spoiler role by backing a brutal Shia militia that has
done little but attack other Afghans. Iran set out to muck up every U.N.
peace effort for Afghanistan. It will seek to undermine any efforts to
bring peace now, except on its own terms.
The most bizarre suggestion, however, is that the U.S. enlist Russian
support for any forthcoming action in Afghanistan. True, Russia never
stops ranting about Islamic bandits, and many of its Central Asian
neighbors were genuinely alarmed by the rise of the Taliban. Yet most
eventually decided that no Taliban invasion was coming, or that the more
immediate danger came from Russia, which was using Islam scares as part of
a larger plan to bring former satellites back into its orbit.
• Don't start something you don't intend to finish
Top
The U.S. basically walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviet
defeat. The official line was that the civil war that followed made it
impossible to start programs to rebuild Afghanistan, since there was no
valid government in Kabul to give the aid to. By the time Strobe Talbott,
the Clinton administration's deputy secretary of state, got authority to
act, the U.S. was deferring more and more to Moscow, especially after
Russia's proxies in Kabul were driven into opposition by the Taliban.
One poisoned fruit of this cooperation was the joint Russian-U.S.
sponsorship of the U.N. sanctions imposed on Taliban Afghanistan. The
sanctions penalized only ordinary Afghans, not the Taliban's leaders, and
pushed many families further into starvation. They also radicalized some
elements of the Taliban that were wavering, and might otherwise have been
counted on to turn against their masters.
If the U.S. walks away again, as new set of bad guys can prevail. Russia
and Iran offer us the Northern Alliance, a collection of their own
Islamists plus some remnants of the communist-era militia. But these are
the same people whose brief rule in Kabul was so bloody and inept that
Afghans initially opened their arms to the Taliban.
Through all the years of their internecine warfare, Afghans have
maintained ties with each other--through tribal affairs, family ties and
traditional forms of negotiation, especially in a forum called the loya
jirga, or grand council. There are elements among every faction today that
could come together and start rebuilding a peaceful, neutral Afghanistan.
This can only happen, however, if the stage is cleared of outsiders.
It's not difficult to assign primary blame for all this. It rests above
all with the Soviet Union. And today, as ever, ordinary Afghans are to pay
the price. Their country, their lives and the society through which they
organized their political affairs have been reduced to rubble.
If the burden of the Taliban and other feuding leaders is lifted from
them, along with the despised foreign radicals in their midst, the people
of Afghanistan will thank us for it. And we will have found a way, while
helping to safeguard our own freedoms, to repay them for the great service
they performed only a decade ago.
Ms. Smith is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
