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Editor's
note: The opinions expressed in this article are the author's
and do not necessarily reflect the views of NDU, the Department
of Defense, or the government of the United States.
 fghanistan
has a problem named Osama bin Laden. The Taliban regime has given
him sanctuary; he is a fellow warrior and a kindred spirit, a veteran
fighter against the "Jews and Crusaders," a man who makes
things happen. In the past the price for allowing bin Laden to operate
from Afghanistan was economic sanctions — against a country
with no economy to speak of. But now, with the United States in
a state of war, bin Laden in the crosshairs, and the Taliban in
the way, the Afghan regime may think twice about their hospitality;
if not, we may help convince them.
The Taliban
("Seekers") movement had an astonishing rise to power
in Afghanistan. It was formed in 1994, comprised mostly of young
Pushtun graduates of Pakistani Islamic colleges, and led by mullah
Mohammed Omar. The movement, fueled by religious fanaticism and
backed by Pakistan, quickly achieved military success against the
fractious coalition government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, who ruled
Afghanistan following the downfall of the Soviet-backed Communist
regime. By 1996 the Taliban had captured Kabul and deposed the Rabbani
government. Today they control 90% of Afghanistan.
The Taliban
implemented a strict form of Sharia (Islamic law), a theocratic
totalitarianism enforced by the innocuous sounding "Department
for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice." The Taliban uses
religious strictures to maintain political control and meets dissent
with torture and execution.
The Taliban
armed force is about 45,000-men strong, including 9-10,000 Pakistani
volunteers and several thousand Arabs, most of whom are members
of bin Laden's Al Qaeda movement. They have around 200 serviceable
armored vehicles and a handful of fixed and rotary-winged aircraft.
The Pakistani Army, particularly the ISI (military intelligence)
that oversaw the U.S.-backed Mujahedin during the war with the Soviet
Union, has been a mainstay, and is largely responsible for their
military successes.
The Afghan
conventional forces are not particularly strong by Western standards
— their supply systems are fragile, their equipment obsolete
and ill maintained. The United States could invade Afghanistan,
assuming we could place a large enough force in Pakistan, which
itself is a big assumption. But we would quickly find, as the Soviets
did, that occupying Afghanistan and controlling it are two different
things.
Afghanistan
has always been a tough place for outsiders. It is landlocked, mostly
mountainous, hard to control under the best circumstances, awash
with weapons, swarming with experienced guerilla fighters trained
in 20 years of civil war and invasion, and has a reputation to uphold.
Invading Afghanistan would be a mistake; fortunately, an invasion
is unnecessary.
The United
States is not at war with Afghanistan, nor should it be. The U.S.
has no reason or desire to control that part of the world. There
are no natural-resource interests and no trade interests. The current
Afghan problem is a very limited one — the Taliban regime is
providing protection for Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terror
network, and we want the Afghans to hand them over. This would not
be unprecedented — bin Laden has lost patrons before. International
pressure forced him out of Sudan to Afghanistan in 1995. The Taliban
should understand that it is in their interest to cooperate with
the United States on this issue. They gain much more from our friendship
than from bin Laden's, and they will pay a higher price being our
enemy. The Taliban could root out Al Qaeda much more thoroughly
than the United States ever could without their cooperation. In
return the U.S. could continue the humanitarian assistance on which
about a third of the Afghan people depend.
If the Taliban
chooses to continue to protect bin Laden, the United States and
its allies will have to take action. The first important move has
already been achieved — severing the relationship between the
Taliban and Pakistan. General Musharraf has taken a very brave step
in siding with the United States, and it is especially noteworthy
considering that the U.S. virtually abandoned Pakistan after the
end of the Cold War. Detaching Pakistan removes an important source
of Taliban materiel, intelligence, and training support, without
which it will be difficult to keep their internal enemies in check.
By deploying their troops to the Pakistani border, the Taliban have
had to decrease their presence elsewhere, which will give the Northern
Alliance and other opposition groups a chance to retake some ground.
Pakistan is
also a natural base of operations for U.S. and coalition assets,
as it was during the Soviet-Afghan war. One frequently hears that
U.S. special-operations forces should "go in and get"
bin Laden. This is much easier said than done. Special-operations
forces are light and mobile, and can grab people when they know
exactly where they are, have the element of surprise, and face at
worst light opposition. Our manhunt for Somali warlord Mohammed
Farah Aidid shows what can happen when all this goes wrong. There
are few reasons to expect much different in Afghanistan — at
least not without local assistance.
That being
said, there is a great deal the United States can do. The Taliban
maintains control of Afghanistan through military force. The regime
has many internal enemies, most of whom are more moderate Muslims
and have no ideological interest in Al Qaeda and consider bin Laden
an enemy. Also bin Laden is an Arab and has no kinship ties in Afghanistan
— he has no tribe to fall back on for protection. The U.S.
can assist the Afghan opposition groups with training, intelligence
support, and supplies, just as we did with the Mujahedin. We could
— overtly or covertly — eliminate Taliban heavy conventional
forces, the Afghan air force, and destroy or disrupt Taliban communications
and infrastructure nodes. We can mount a psyop campaign against
the Taliban to destabilize their government by manufacturing "enemies
within" (totalitarian regimes are notoriously paranoid). The
objective is not to take over Afghanistan, but to engage the natural
centrifugal forces of Afghanistan, to create a creative chaos that
will disrupt or destroy the Taliban regime, remove bin Laden's cover
and flush him into the open. We then use Afghan rebel allies or
mercenaries — our posse — to bring bin Laden back "dead
or alive."
This type of
warfighting might be unsatisfying for Americans. It is neither quick
nor easy. It lacks the visceral satisfaction of a "kill them
all and let Allah sort them out" solution. It requires persistence,
subtlety, secrecy, and relentlessness, the same qualities that make
the terrorists effective. It does not involve mass movements of
troops and heavy equipment. It does not produce large-scale battles
and exciting video. It does not end with a peace treaty, or a formal
act of surrender. It may be that one day bin Laden and a few dozen
others simply turn up dead, and no one knows what happened or who
was responsible — except for a few grimly satisfied patriots
in a Pentagon ops cell.
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