Triangulation, Afghan-Style
Bargaining around bin Laden.

By James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst & NRO contributor
December 4, 2001 8:55 a.m.

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.