Asia Times Special

Asia Times:
NATO fighting the wrong battle in Afghanistan

By M K Bhadrakumar
Nov 4, 2006

The pre-dawn attack on the Zia-ul-Uloom madrassa in Pakistan's Bajour tribal region on Monday killing 80 people, mostly students, is bound to impact on the course of the Afghan war. No matter the repeated assertions by Islamabad to the contrary, widespread suspicions of US involvement in the attack have arisen.

The incident offers "proof" to those who clamor for Pakistan doing "more" that indeed Islamabad is going the extra league in the "war on terror". White House spokesman Tony Snow was quick to lavish praise on President General Pervez Musharraf for showing "courage and determination". If Musharraf is indeed standing in for a botched-up US military operation, the White House must owe him one hell of a lot.

But it doesn't add to his domestic political credibility to be seen as unwilling to resist, or incapable of doing so, the US assault on the sovereignty of Pakistan's borders. Islamabad is to conclude an agreement on providing "logistical support" for North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces during NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's first ever visit to Islamabad this month.

In fact, the agreement for transit facility was sought by NATO some six months ago, with US backing. Post-Bajour public perceptions of NATO in Pakistan cannot be favorable. But does Islamabad have a choice in the matter? Without Pakistan's support, NATO's extended supply lines to Afghanistan will run through airspace largely under Russian control. That is an unbearable dependence on Moscow's political goodwill - incompatible with NATO's further expansion into the territory of the former Soviet republics.

All this makes the umbilical cord tying Musharraf to the Bush administration that much more difficult to sever.

Without doubt, the Taliban will be the main beneficiary in Bajour as the tribal agencies revert to open war. The hostility toward foreign occupation of Afghanistan goes up by a few notches, while the prospects of any political process built around the jirga (council), as agreed on at the trilateral meeting at the White House in Washington in September of US President George W Bush, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Musharraf, recede even further.

Karzai said in Washington that the jirga would be "a very efficient way of preventing terrorists from cross-border activities or from trying to have sanctuaries". However, the Afghan jirga comprising some 1,800 delegates proposed to be held in Jalalabad next month promises to be sheer fantasy. It may even backfire, as the mood in the tribal areas hardens.

Also, prospects of any code of conduct (as agreed in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan) between Islamabad and the tribal leadership in Bajour are now almost nil. Despite its numerous flaws, Musharraf's overall approach made sense, and it ought to have been allowed to work as an experiment, if nothing else, in pacifying and incrementally restoring the traditional power structure in the tribal areas.

Therefore, an intriguing question remains as regards the timing of the attack on Bajour when Islamabad seemed to have all but wrapped up an agreement with the tribal leaders from the Mamond area, where the Zia-ul-Uloom madrassa is located. Almost everyone in Bajour is convinced that the missile strikes were launched by the US military through its pilotless Predator spy plane with the objective of subverting Islamabad's imminent peace agreement with militants.

Again, Karzai's recent initiative to reach out to Pashtun opinion in Pakistan will now fizzle out, and along with that his overall image of being a puppet of the US becomes even more difficult to erase in the Pashtun heartland.

In recent weeks, Karzai directly contacted Pashtun nationalists from North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan as part of his continuing attempt to consolidate a platform of non-Taliban Pashtun opinion. Karzai's interlocutors included Asfandyar Wali Khan, president of Pakistan's Awami National Party, and Mehmood Khan Achakzai, president of the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement.

Wali Khan publicly responded that Karzai wrote to him and then phoned him, and that he was supportive of Karzai. Khan said: "Right now two forces are operating in the region. One is promoting war, hatred and isolation, while the other is trying for peace and harmony. We are in the latter camp." Islamabad is sure to resent Karzai's "undiplomatic" dealings with fellow ethnic-Pashtun leaders in Pakistan. But after Bajour, even the anti-Musharraf politicians among the Pashtun nationalists in NWFP may have a problem in openly identifying with Karzai's cause.

Meanwhile, the reticence on the part of non-Pashtun groups within Afghanistan in sharing the grief and anguish of the Pashtuns is becoming glaring. All that Tajik leader Yunus Qanooni would say about the massacre of civilians by NATO forces in the Panjwai district in Kandahar recently was that "such tragic incidents will be repeated unless the government establishes a proper mechanism of cooperation between the local and foreign forces".

Qanooni has virtually offered himself as a more efficient collaborator than Karzai for the hard-pressed Americans - if a job vacancy arises in Kabul. This level of opportunism will only accentuate Pashtun alienation, which in turn makes a political reconciliation between the Pashtuns and "Panjshiris" in the near future almost impossible. Yet it is becoming increasingly apparent to most observers that a political accommodation of the Taliban is necessary if enduring peace is to be established.

Jason Burke, author and leading expert on international terrorism, wrote in the London newspaper The Observer last Sunday, "The Taliban remain a local phenomenon and are not to be believed to be in close liaison with the Saudi-born [Osama] bin Laden or his Egyptian-born associate Ayman al-Zawahiri." Burke quoted French intelligence sources to the effect that it was more a case of "ad hoc cooperation" between the Arabs and some of the major figures in the broad Taliban movement.

Burke rejected the commonplace caricaturing of the Taliban as a progeny of the Pakistani establishment. He said, "The Pakistani influence on the Taliban strategy does not surprise many observers. Senior NATO officials speak privately about 'major Taliban infrastructure' in the neighboring country, but Western military intelligence has consistently underestimated the group's depth and breadth - it can almost be considered the army of an unofficial state lying across the Afghan-Pakistani frontier that has no formal borders but is bound together by ethnic, linguistic, ideological and political ties."

It is easy to see what makes victory over the Taliban almost impossible. Colonel Oleg Kulakov, a Soviet war veteran who served for five years in Afghanistan and teaches at the Russian military academy, recalled a few days ago that "there was no task the Soviet armed forces were assigned and failed to carry out. However, the achievements at the battalion and brigade level could not be turned into political success." Almost all war correspondents currently reporting from Afghanistan agree with the assessment that battlefield victory is becoming almost irrelevant.

The British Broadcasting Corp's David Loyn's brilliant reportage from the Taliban lines in Helmand province offers an incisive account of the current state of play. Loyn, who had known the Taliban in the 1990s, estimates: first, the Taliban's ouster in 2001 couldn't obviate the political reality that the regime enjoyed popularity in many parts of the country, especially in Pashtun rural areas. It was popular because it was not corrupt, and it brought law and order. The Taliban's treatment of Afghan villagers is marked by "respect and familiarity". Second, the growing popular support for the Taliban is for a variety of reasons: Karzai's government is seen as corrupt and venal; people are fed up with the breakdown of law and order and are disenchanted with Afghan reconstruction; the abysmal poverty of the overwhelming majority of the people; atrocities by the occupation forces, etc.

Third, the Taliban's funding comes from sympathizers, including governments in Arab states and collections from mosques around the world. Taliban fighters are motivated by Afghan nationalism "fueled by Islam". They picture themselves as the "heirs of Afghanistan's warrior tradition". Thus, apart from "tactical links" (such as suicide bombing), the Taliban do not consider themselves as part of a worldwide jihad, rather they visualize that they are an "Afghan solution to an Afghan problem".

Loyn adds the caveat that despite the Taliban's access to cash, communications equipment and weapons, it is difficult to be categorical whether Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is behind the new rise of the Taliban. Apart from the main Taliban forces, which are under Mullah Omar, a number of other militias are based in Pakistan's tribal areas with the ability operate inside Afghanistan.

Loyn concludes that Taliban forces are unlikely to yield to anything short of the occupation troops leaving Afghanistan. A way out would be if they were offered some kind of power-sharing arrangement.

What stands out is the imperative need of a political solution to the Afghan problem. But to quote Loyn, "Given the way they [Taliban] have been demonized by the world, I wonder too if the Karzai government would be willing to make the compromises necessary to offer them an official role."

Evidently the NATO strategy of spreading goodwill from isolated "inkspots" is plain unrealistic. The Taliban have demonstrated their control over a wide region. They are confident and well armed. As Loyn narrated, "When we stopped for the night, they [Taliban] broke into groups to eat in different houses in a village. They demand and get food and shelter wherever they stop ... Thousands of young men now see them as a resistance force against international troops who have had five years and are not seen to have delivered results. Driving around the region during the next day with a local commander, Mahmud Khan, was a little like visiting villages in Britain might be with a popular local politician. He knew everybody and stopped often to chat."

That is why the Afghan war is not just a matter of US or NATO troop levels. The crisis forms several concentric circles. At the center lies the problem of a non-functioning, corrupt government that doesn't command respect because it lacks real popular support. Around it, an entire crisis area has developed in terms of weak authority, warlordism, breakdown of law and order, rampant opium trade, etc. This, in turn, provides a fertile ground to the Taliban's resurgence, which is inevitable regardless of whether or not Pakistani officials are turning a blind eye to Taliban activity in their territory. These are wrapped up with a fourth ring, namely the growing resentment among Afghans (and Pakistanis) about the continued foreign occupation of their country.

Equally, while international attention remains riveted on the southern and eastern regions, it is often overlooked that the northern and western regions also remain fragile. Not many realize that the "political settlement" in these non-Pashtun regions is a legacy of the formidable Zalmay Khalilzad (currently US ambassador in Baghdad) during his term in Kabul as President George W Bush's special envoy.

Khalilzad is an extraordinary alchemist. According to media reports, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been the latest politician to realize this. Maliki apparently aired his grievance to Bush in a telephone conversation last week that Khalilzad was behaving like a viceroy instead of a diplomat in Baghdad. He complained: "The US ambassador is not [former US overseer of Iraq L Paul] Bremer. He doesn't have a free rein to do what he likes. Khalilzad must not behave like Bremer, but rather like an ambassador."

The point is, Khalilzad's Bremer-like penchant for ruling the Afghans through self-administered decrees may come to haunt the mild-mannered, highly amiable, consensual Karzai. A few weeks ago, supporters of Uzbek leader Rashid Dostum became involved in bloody clashes with the forces of his old enemy, Abdul Malik, in the remote northern province of Faryab. This is a blood feud going back a decade or more, and shows how simmering tensions lie just below the surface.

If Dostum and Malik are coming out of the woodwork, Karzai may have a tricky time ahead. In comparison, the factional fighting 10 days ago in western Afghanistan has all the subtleties of a Persian puzzle. In the Shindand district south of the city of Herat, close to the Iranian border and where a strategically important air base of NATO is located (an invaluable asset in the staging of any US military strike against Iran), the local strongman Amanullah Khan was killed, ostensibly in clashes with the forces of another Pashtun commander, Arbab Bashir.

Bashir's son was taking revenge for his father's death at the hands of Amanullah Khan in an earlier encounter. This was apparently a case of a blood feud involving two Pashtun tribes - the Barekzai and Noorzai. But Arbab Bashir has also kept close links with legendary commander Ismail Khan, who still wields considerable influence in the region despite his removal from power as governor of Herat by Khalilzad in August 2004.

Geopolitics no doubt played a role in Ismail Khan's sacking two years ago after clashes instigated by Amanullah at the best of the US. Given his close ties with Iran, as long as he remained in power in Herat, the US couldn't establish total control over Shindand Air Base.

But now it is a new ball game for Ismail Khan - Khalilzad is gone, Karzai is weak and the Afghan bazaar is full of talk about Americans wanting to cut and run from Afghanistan.

It is difficult to foretell where commanders like Dostum or Ismail Khan or Malik will stand if push comes to a shove in Afghanistan. Dostum is an ethnic Uzbek, Ismail Khan is an ethnic Tajik, Malik is only half-Pashtun, but that didn't prevent them from occasionally collaborating with the Taliban and mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar during the 1990s.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years, with postings including ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-98) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Russia plays a double game over Iran

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi

A draft United Nations resolution calling for sanctions on Iran has been dealt a severe blow by China and Russia and, given the absence of any evidence of nuclear-weapons proliferation by Iran, the momentum for UN action against Iran has begun to fizzle. This raises the possibility that Iran's nuclear dossier may return to its proper venue - the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The Moscow-Beijing duet against sanctions follows the argument that as long as Iran's nuclear activities, sanctioned by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), are under the IAEA's inspection regime
and lack any evidence of military diversion, the justification for punitive measures by the United Nations is lacking.

Of the two, China has now taken the lead in pointing out the stark contrasts between Iran and North Korea, with various Chinese officials, including its envoys to Washington, Moscow and the UN, hammering the key point that unlike North Korea, Iran is a member of the NPT community, has renounced nuclear weapons and has been cooperating with the IAEA.

The same point has been articulated in Iran by, among others, its former chief nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, stating in a recent interview that "Iran simply wants to produce fuel for its nuclear reactors and is presently at the research and development phase. So what is all this noise about?"

Rowhani said a draft UN resolution now in circulation that proposes to ban the sale of nuclear and missile technology to Iran stems from the "anger of US and Western countries toward Iran's status and influence in the region and the world".

The draft is in response to an earlier Security Council resolution demanding that Tehran suspend uranium-enrichment activities by August 31. The council was to meet on Friday in New York to finalize a resolution.

According to Rowhani, the purpose of an "Iran sanction committee" envisaged in the draft is to "apply pressure on Iran" and to reverse the country's growing influence: "Iran's influence in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and among the Arab people of Persian Gulf enjoys a privileged status."

Interestingly, the joint announcements by China and Russia on the proposed sanctions coincide with a major international conference in Tehran of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has accepted Iran as an observer. The SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

In his opening speech at the conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki drew attention to the underlying reasons for his country's expressed interest in joining the SCO as a member, citing its shared security interests and outlooks with SCO members, such as the need for a "multipolar" world order.

Such overtures by Iran are bound to ingratiate it further to the veto-wielding powers of China and Russia, both of which have referred to their "strategic relations" with Iran playing an increasingly prominent role in the global calculus against US "hegemony".

Consequently, instead of opting for even milder, symbolic sanctions, the net effect of which may turn out to be purely negative in light of Iran's promise to curtail its cooperation with the IAEA in response to any sanctions, a more prudent course of action by the US and its European allies would be to agree to bring the Iran nuclear issue back to the IAEA. This is the appropriate forum to deal with what the IAEA's chief, Mohammad ElBaradei, has referred to as "issues of concern".

Yet such a logical and necessary move, which might prompt Iran to readopt the intrusive Additional Protocol of the NPT, is for the moment held back not only by the adamant US push for sanctions but also by lingering Russian doublespeak. This hints at a built-in ambivalence on Moscow's part, giving rise to speculation in Iran that Russia might be contemplating a bargain with the US over Iran, as it has done on a number of occasions.

Russia's doublespeak
This is a clear sign of Russian doublespeak: on Tuesday, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told the press, "We do not have information that would suggest that Iran is carrying out a non-peaceful [nuclear] program." This is consistent with what Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated, such as when he said that based on information he had received, he was convinced "Iran does not have the intention to build a nuclear bomb".

Yet on Wednesday, Ivanov told Russian television: "We don't want to have another nuclear state on our southern borders. It's obvious." Ivanov then echoed the same sentiment of some Russian parliamentarians who have openly hinted that Russia might back the draft UN resolution.

Ivanov's sudden accent on the potential nuclear threat from Iran puts him in sharp contrast with, among others, his country's foreign minister. Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly gone on record indicating the information corroborating the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program, much like Putin quoted above. Clearly, there is a policy quarrel over Iran in Kremlin's halls, and Moscow may switch to the United States' side. In that case, the pertinent issue is what will happen to Moscow's cherished "strategic partnership" with Tehran.

Strategic partnership revisited
Both Putin and his top foreign-policy advisers have repeatedly gone on record regarding the importance of Iran as Russia's "stable partner for a long time", to paraphrase Putin. As Russia's neighbor in the geo-economically important Caspian basin, Iran has been a stable market for Russia's goods, nuclear technology and conventional armament.

This is not to mention Iran's recurrent stability role in Central Asia and the Caucasus, reflected in Tehran's mediation in the recent civil war in Tajikistan and its steadfast refrain from criticizing Russia's harsh measures in Chechnya. Indeed, it was precisely in recognition of Iran's constructive role that Putin consented to Iran's observer status at the SCO.

But the whole edifice of Russia's Iran policy, ramifying the larger issues of Moscow's Middle East and Central Asia policies, is now potentially jeopardized by its doublespeak. This sends the signal that Russia might move toward the US policy of isolating Iran and ultimately dispossessing Tehran of essential nuclear know-how and technology.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahamdinejad reiterated his country's peaceful nuclear intentions in a telephone conference with Putin on Monday. And yet despite Iran's reassurances, nuclear transparency and burgeoning trade and security cooperation with Russia affecting its troubled Muslim republics, Russia is still wavering. It could commit a major strategic error by bandwagoning with the US and endorsing a revised version of the draft UN resolution that refers to the "proliferation threat" caused by Iran's nuclear program.

Is Russia bluffing, given Ivanov's admission that talk of sanctions was helpful to bring Iran back to the negotiation table? According to certain Russia experts, Moscow is merely applying a pressure tactic, and doing so partly as a result of Putin's misgivings toward the radical drift of Iranian politics. After all, Putin's Russia has declared itself in congruence with the West and despite talks of a "multipolar" world by certain Moscow strategists, there are limits to Russia's anti-Americanism, which puts Putin somewhat at odds with Tehran.

Perhaps a more substantive foreign-policy restructuring on Iran's part is required before the realistic hopes for a more meaningful Russia-Iran alliance. particularly via the SCO, can be fathomed. A careful scrutiny of Russian experts' view of Iran leaves no doubt that Moscow is averse toward Tehran's language of threats against Europe and its dismissal of the Security Council. It prefers a more soft-power Iranian approach with signs of genuine conciliation on the nuclear issue. Otherwise, there will be significant new limits on Russia's cooperation with Iran, including on the much-delayed Bushehr power plant, irrespective of their shared "containment" policies toward US power.

Bushehr: Russia's trump, or losing card?
A focus of attention now is the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor in Bushehr, where construction of a Russian-supervised nuclear plant has been under way for 11 years. It was initially scheduled to go operational several years ago.

Moscow has lobbied hard for the exemption of this reactor from any UN sanctions barring the transfer of technology to Iran. The draft resolution, while permitting continued Iran-Russia nuclear cooperation on Bushehr, nonetheless bans the export of nuclear fuel, thus potentially rendering the reactor incapacitated when and if it is completed.

Unsurprisingly, there is a systematic attempt in the US to raise the specter of Iran "going nuclear" via the spent fuel from the Bushehr power plant, this despite the fact that in February 2005 Iran and Russia signed an agreement on the return of spent fuel to Russia. Thus, to cite an example, a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal completely glosses over this agreement and claims that letting Iran have its sole nuclear reactor was tantamount to "giving Iran the bomb".

The Bushehr reactor may be experiencing insurmountable technical difficulties, since it began as a German enterprise before being taken over by Russia. But some voices in Iran have begun to wonder if the real reason for the constant delay is something of a tacit cooperation between Moscow and Washington.

Iran would naturally be entitled to a full refund of the US$1 billion-plus that it has expended on the project already, should the Russian contractors ultimately throw in the towel once their lame excuses are exhausted.

Already, the lengthy delay has marred the prospect of additional Russian power plants for Iran, as envisaged in a memorandum of understanding signed in Moscow in July 2002. Indeed, Russia has much to lose and little to gain from the Iranian nuclear row.

For the moment, however, with the Bushehr reactor officially some "95%" completed and slated for operation in late 2007, Moscow is tacitly using it as a trump card to bring Iran into line with the IAEA's and the UN Security Council's demands. This is evidenced by US officials such as Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state, who explicitly asked Russia to link Bushehr's fate to Iran's response to the UN's demands.

However, this is a risky proposition that endangers Russia's relations with Iran on a long-term basis. What Moscow policymakers should concentrate on as a viable alternative is how to bring the IAEA back into the picture and save the Security Council from yet another paralyzing crisis.

This requires, in turn, that Moscow jettison its doublespeak once and for all and speak with one voice on Iran, instead of showing more and more signs of an unhealthy bipolar disorder when it comes to Iran.

Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Taiwan's first lady faces corruption charges

By John Ng

HONG KONG - Pressure on Taiwan's embattled President Chen Shui-bian to step down heightened sharply on Friday after public prosecutors announced they would file corruption charges against his wife, Wu Shu-chen.

According to the island's government-run Central News Agency, prosecutors had also found evidence that Chen was implicated in the corruption case, but as Taiwanese presidents are immune from criminal charges, no action would be taken now. A formal indictment against Chen could be issued after he steps down or finishes his term, prosecutor Chang Wen-cheng said.

Another prosecutor of the Taiwan High Prosecutors' Office said at a media briefing that Wu was accused of embezzlement, forgery of documents and perjury involving NT$14.8 million (US$448,500).

Three former aides of Chen, including Ma Yong-cheng, the former secretary general of the Presidential Office, Lin Teh-shun and an accountant, Chen Chen-hui, were also indicted in the case, which involved the mishandling of a secret state fund, said Chang.

The 120-day investigation, which was launched on June 29, had involved the summoning of 276 witnesses, Chang said. "Finally, we have found evidence that between July 2002 and March 2006, Wu Shu-chen, through other persons' purchase invoices, embezzled over NT$14.8 million of secret state funds," Chang said.

Both Chen and Wu have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

"The High Court prosecutor has also determined that President Chen is involved in the case ... but under the constitution we have to wait until he is recalled or finishes his term before we can take further action," Chang said.

The investigations into Chen and Wu, and separates investigation and charges against their son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming, have sent Chen's support rate to as low as 18%, leading to continuous street protests calling for his Chen's ouster.

The prosecutors' announcement immediately sparked off a now round of calls for Chen to step down.

Ma Ying-jeou, chairman of the major opposition Kuomintang (KMT), said Chen should step down as soon as possible, urging Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to force him to resign.

The KMT and another opposition party, the People First Party, said that if Chen still refuses to resign they will move for his recall (resignation) in the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan's parliament.

Shi Ming-te, former DPP chairman who organized hundreds of thousands of protesters to take to the streets demanding Chen's stepping down in September-October, called his supporters to gather on Friday in front of Presidential House to demand Chen's immediate resignation.

According to Taiwan's constitution, if Chen steps down, Vice President Annette Lu Hsiu-lien will become president.

However, political analysts believe Chen will fight to the last minute against resignation and there will be political instability in Taiwan in the coming weeks.

John Ng is a Hong Kong-based freelance journalist.

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

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