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 uppose
you had Osama bin Laden tied up in your basement. What would you
do? Go medieval on him? I'm sure he'd be at home in the dark ages.
But seriously — you'd do the right thing. Not just because
it's the right thing, but also because there is a $25 million reward
on him (dead or alive, note), and if you keep him around too long
his friends might come looking for him, and for you.
OK, now put
yourself in the place of Northern Alliance leader and former Afghan
president Burhanuddin Rabbani. Do you have the same calculus of
interest? The reward is substantial, but not overwhelmingly so —
it's about 10% of the budget Rabbani had to spend when he last was
president, and a little over half the $45 million the Northern Alliance
is reportedly getting in military support from the U.S. each month.
You wouldn't worry that much about bin Laden's friends because they
have been trying to kill you for years anyway. How about doing the
right thing? Should you show gratitude to the country that has handed
you a military victory and put you back in Kabul? Younis Qanooni,
Rabbani's interior minister and the chief representative of the
Northern Alliance at the negotiations in Bonn, said of the taking
of Kabul, "The U.S. bombing was appreciated but the main job
was done by our own people." Meanwhile Ghorban-Ali Erfani,
a ranking member of the Northern Alliance's Leadership Council,
told the Iranian state news agency that the U.S. doesn't really
want bin Laden, he is actually a CIA agent whose mission was to
create a pretext for Western intervention in Afghanistan. With friends
like these...
Rabbani surprised
many last Sunday by stating that if his troops captured top members
of the Taliban or al Qaeda network, including bin Laden, they would
not be turned over to the United States until the Afghan government
had carried out their own investigation of why bin Laden came to
Afghanistan. Rabbani said that he intended to cooperate with the
United States, "but that was a matter for the future. First
we'll have an investigation, then we'll discuss it." He's not
saying no, but not quite yes. He'll hand him over eventually, but
first he'll have an investigation, which may take some time, and
then later have a discussion, which could also take awhile. But
he is cooperating fully. "There's no obstacle," he said.
"Of course, after the primary investigation in Afghanistan...
they can go to America, yes." Rabbani's command of American
political rhetoric is masterful. Call it triangulation, Afghan-style.
This move makes
perfect sense for the Northern Alliance. Bin Laden is the ultimate
blue chip. If they can find him and hold him, it will give them
tremendous leverage in bargaining with the United States. And it
would be certain that so long as they had control of bin Laden,
they would rule in Afghanistan. Even without Osama, the NA controls
Kabul. So they can afford to observe the negotiations in Bonn with
a certain amount of confidence, so long as they don't overplay their
hand.
The facts on
the ground are all that count in Afghanistan. Take for example the
Northern Alliance conquest of Mazar-e Sharif. Abdul Rashid Dostum,
the vice president of the overthrown Afghan government and a particularly
ferocious Uzbek chieftan, is the commanding general in that part
of Afghanistan. One of his first acts upon entering Mazar was to
order that all Northern Alliance troops leave the city to be replaced
by a 300-man-strong police force under his personal command. Why?
Because Mazar is in the middle of the Uzbek part of the country.
Because it commands the crossroads at the gateway to Uzbekistan
across the Amu Darya river. Because it allows control of the north-south
highway to Kabul, and there are plenty of tolls and taxes to be
collected. Are there any better reasons from his point of view?
Kunduz took longer than expected to fall in part because Dostum
had opened negotiations with Taliban commander Mullah Fazil at the
same time Tajik Northern Alliance commander General Mohammad Daoud
was trying to fight his way into the city. Why the schism? Again,
control. Konduz lies astride the main route to Tajikistan. Dostum
had the weaker hand militarily at Konduz, so he used negotiation
as a tactic and got in first. Daoud fought hard in the hills to
the east of the city but had to let Dostum take away the greater
haul of prisoners for ransom (or gold tooth extraction, after the
prisoner uprising). This is the shape of power politics in Afghanistan.
Dostum has pretty much boycotted the Bonn talks, and is eager to
see U.S. troops leave Afghanistan as soon as their antiterror mission
is completed. He can then consolidate his control of the north —
perhaps with Russian help — and get back to the business of
being a successful warlord.
The NA has
suggested Hamid Karzai as interim prime minister. Karzai is an influential
Pashtun tribal leader, a royalist and noble, and acceptable to many
factions. He is not a member of the NA, but he has lately had military
momentum, and his forces are working with the U.S. near Kandahar.
In return the NA will hold the levers of power, the interior, defense,
and foreign ministries. It is noteworthy that the U.N could craft
any agreement at all. The negotiators in Bonn were assembled from
four groups, the Northern Alliance and three prior peace processes,
the Rome Process, the Peshawar Process, and the Cyprus Process.
(That was a lot of process for very little peace.) Some groups were
excluded, such as the Taliban, and others have walked out, such
as Haj Abdul Qadir, leader of the main Pashtun faction of the Northern
Alliance. Rabbani has been watching developments carefully. The
Bonn conference is just another battlefront to him, and whatever
transition the negotiators settle on, it must be one the NA thinks
it can manipulate. The U.N. request for a list of names of people
who will lead the Afghan transition was particularly sticky. It
was a good opportunity to exclude certain inconvenient people —
Dostum didn't seem to appear on any of the drafts — but on
the other hand, others might be included that the Northern Alliance
would rather not have to deal with. Rabbani has said he will give
up power eventually, but has also said the Northern Alliance should
be a majority on the transition team. And if there is an impasse?
As chief negotiator Qanooni said, "we can choose a rational
method which corresponds with the present situation of Afghanistan."
In other words, Northern Alliance dominance — facts on the
ground.
Don't think
I'm being critical of the Afghans. They have been practicing this
kind of politics for centuries, grasping at power by increments
and doling out trust by the spoonful. It is what has made them the
success story they are today. The United States, or United Nations,
or any other agency, cannot keep them from pursuing their interests
in the manner to which they are accustomed. But the United States
must be aware of these dynamics, and attempt to harness the interests
of the various parties in pursuit of its own. The Bonn talks will
probably result in an agreement of some sort, and the factions will
use it to the best of their ability to compete with each other and
to hold as much power as they can. Bin Laden could become just another
instrument in this struggle. If that happens the antiterror alliance
could be faced with the prospect of having to accede to the demands
of Rabbani, Karzai, or some other Afghan leader as the price of
reaching its primary objective, namely, bringing the evil doers
to justice. One hopes the United States will not be sidetracked
by the machinations of the Afghan factions, or that bin Laden turns
up anywhere but in the hands of our friends in the Northern Alliance.
And if he does, and they take too long to hand him over? Sounds
like harboring terrorists to me.
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