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 merica
has been deluged with offers of assistance from both real friends,
such as Britain, and from those wishing to take advantage of the
present crisis. All offers should be entertained. The scale of the
massacre of innocents was so sickeningly great that every ounce
of effort must be exerted to exact justice. Yet, equally, we should
have no illusions about those who are now lining up with the United
States against the Taliban. For the purposes of the war that was
declared against America on September 11, they should be embraced
with open arms — and open eyes.
Whether it
is the anti-Taliban opposition in the Northern Alliance (whose inappropriate
official title is the United Front) or the former Soviet republic
of Uzbekistan (which is now hosting US troops and aircraft), these
new partners from Central Asia are frankly corrupt rogues, which
have ineffectively fought the Taliban in the past. The squabbling
guerrilla groups of the Northern Alliance claim to be the solution
to the Taliban problem. But the unpleasant truth is that they are
a significant cause of Afghanistan's current ills, the Taliban included.
Most of the Northern Alliance was in the anti-Soviet Mujahedeen.
After the Soviets scuttled out of Afghanistan in 1989, they struggled
to defeat the Afghan Communist regime led by Mohammed Najibullah.
Their fractious incompetence and failure to deliver peace after
the eventual fall of Kabul, in 1992, fuelled support for the Taliban.
Along with extensive Pakistani and Saudi Arabian assistance, the
Taliban also used flat-out bribery to detach Mujahedeen groups from
one another. These facts tend to be downplayed by those pious commentators
who claim that the U.S. "abandoned" Afghanistan.
The Northern
Alliance controls barely 10 percent of Afghanistan. Without Ahmed
Shah Massoud, assassinated by the Taliban on September 9 (in a murder
that has bin Laden's fingerprints all over it), the Northern Alliance
has no credible military commander. One key Alliance leader, General
Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek and formerly staunch Communist,
exemplifies the British saying that while every man has his price,
you can only ever hire an Afghan. Dostum betrayed Najibullah in
1992 to help the Mujahedeen. He then turned on the Mujahedeen, in
1994, in a bizarre alliance with the most extreme fundamentalist
leader then in Afghanistan, Golbudin Hekmatyar. He has been twice
defeated by the Taliban and expelled from Afghanistan. His ineffectiveness
led the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan to cut off its assistance
to him. Turkmenistan now has unofficial relations with the Taliban,
to which it supplies electricity in return for a quiet border.
The behavior
of the Northern Alliance since September 11 has been far from inspiring.
They basically wants U.S. air power to fight their war for them.
When U.S. aircraft were initially engaged in attacking Taliban air
defense targets, the Northern Alliance fretted that the Taliban
would collapse too soon. Most combatants like wars to end as soon
as possible, for the obvious reason that war means death and suffering.
Democracies regard war with distaste, as a necessary evil; not so
the Northern Alliance, which wants the war to be prolonged so that
it can waste yet more time cobbling together an alternative government,
and a force to police Kabul after the Taliban have been driven out.
The calls for a slower war speak volumes for the Alliance's indifference
to the plight of Afghans, for whom this is a war of liberation.
The Northern
Alliance then started moaning that the U.S. was not launching enough
attacks on Taliban military targets, particularly front-line troops.
Now that the B-52s have started to pound the well-dug-in Taliban
infantry, the Northern Alliance is complaining that the bombing
is not accurate enough. The bombing of Taliban front lines will
take many weeks to have any effect — ample time for yet further
ill-informed Northern Alliance complaints.
Not that the
Northern Alliance has been in much of a hurry to fight. They initially
indicated that they would attack the Taliban, but then said they
had suspended operations because of supply difficulties. An attempt
by a small, isolated Northern Alliance force to capture Mazar-e
Sharif, which was obligingly bombed at the same time by the U.S.,
has been beaten off by the larger Taliban garrison.
As the
U.S. is understandably keeping the Northern Alliance at arm's length,
it can instead call on its allies to give the Northern Alliance
the extensive military and political assistance it needs. Turkey
is sending 90 members of its Special Forces to train and assist
the Northern Alliance, a welcome contribution worthy of rather more
public thanks from the U.S. than has so far been forthcoming. On
the political side, Britain has dispatched a leading diplomat, Paul
Bergne, to act as its special envoy to the Northern Alliance. But
whatever support America and her allies give, a willingness to fight
is something only the Northern Alliance can supply.
The former
Soviet republic of Uzbekistan is a rather different case. Uzbekistan
has made significant Soviet-era military infrastructure available
to U.S. forces. In his speech to Congress on September 21, President
Bush referred to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) —
a terrorist movement, sheltered by the Taliban, which is attempting
to overthrow the regime of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan.
President Bush's statement, a wise diplomatic gesture, bore fruit
when the first U.S. aircraft arrived in Uzbekistan shortly afterwards.
U.S. combat troops are now serving for the first time on the territory
of the former Soviet Union, giving the U.S. the ability to launch
combat operations from air bases that are not under continual news-channel
surveillance.
Still, it is
worth remembering that the main recruiting officer of the IMU is
the government of Uzbekistan itself. Few in Uzbekistan have benefited
from the collapse of Communism. President Karimov, a not very former
Communist, runs a brutal dictatorship. His anti-free-market economic
policies have created widespread poverty — but he has so successfully
eradicated his peaceful, democratically inclined opponents that
the only effective opposition is now the IMU. Indeed, the IMU was
probably behind the massive car-bomb attacks in February 1999, which
killed 15 persons and nearly cost Karimov his life. Although large,
the Uzbek army has struggled against the IMU's crude infiltration
tactics. There have been two defense ministers in two years. Frustrated
with the equally poor performance of his proxies in the Northern
Alliance, Karimov started a dialogue with the Taliban in September
of last year. The Taliban took the offer of talks and then thumbed
their noses at Karimov, giving "political asylum" to one
of the leaders of the IMU, Juma Namangani, in February 2001.
Having guaranteed
Uzbekistan's security against Taliban retaliation, the U.S. has
found Uzbekistan willing to grant yet more facilities. The level
of access will grow in line with U.S. military achievements —
in war diplomacy, nothing succeeds like success. Yet the U.S. must
continue to discourage domestic repression, while encouraging vital
economic reforms. In return for targeted economic assistance, Karimov
may be persuaded to loosen up aspects of his domestic political
stranglehold, though he is notoriously resistant to advice. Like
the Northern Alliance, the Uzbek government should be helped, but
if it will not help itself, then there will be limits to what America
can do. In the end, this war will have to be fought with our own
bullets and bayonets, not through fragile newfound friends.
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