The Hindu : New anti-terror initiatives

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 22, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

New anti-terror initiatives

THE POLITICAL SYMBOLISM of the return to Kabul by the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah, and a powerful pledge by the U.S. President, George W. Bush, to stay engaged in that southwest Asian country, which borders Pakistan, may signal new initiatives in the ongoing global "campaign" against terrorism. Viewed in a matter-of-fact perspective, it appears somewhat strange that Zahir Shah, a deposed monarch who has now returned home after nearly 30 years in exile, has been asked by the international community to play a role in the anti-terror "campaign". The frail 87-year-old former king seems determined, though, to extend a helping hand to the present interim Afghan administration in its herculean efforts to unify his fractious country, which remains a prime focal point of the ongoing multilateral efforts to address the globalised phenomenon of political terrorism. Zahir Shah's modernising agenda — his forgotten legacy of a bygone era — is now being increasingly recalled by the Afghans themselves despite the historical reality that he was overthrown in the early 1970s. Relevant to the present situation is Afghanistan's plight as a failed state — a condition traceable to a series of internal feuds and external interventions since Zahir Shah's fall from power nearly three decades ago. His current home-coming, planned and encouraged by the international community as a political dynamic that could catalyse a positive Afghan resurgence, acquires importance in this very broad context.

A virtual maxim of the present international political discourse is that the battle against globalised terror can be won only if Afghanistan ceases to be hospitable to religious radicalism and the related creed of venomous violence. Although this marks only one aspect of the apparent global "campaign" against terror, the importance of the international community's Afghan mission cannot be exaggerated, given the political logic of America's military response to the September 11 terrorist outrage and the chain of related events on the international stage. It is in this context that Zahir Shah is being seen as a leader who might be able to rally the ethnically diverse Afghan population for civilised matters of state with no place for tactical or strategic politics of terror at home or abroad. His perceived moral authority is the basis for the role that a recent international conference on Afghanistan had reserved for him. He is expected to convene a Loya Jirga or a traditional pan-Afghan conclave to choose a transitional Government that might in a stipulated time lead the country to democracy. An apparent choice before the Loya Jirga will be to confirm the present interim administration which was assembled on the drawing board of the recent international conference.

The U.S. President has now made a commitment to help Afghanistan find its feet economically, and he invokes the spirit of the Marshall Plan that was implemented so as to stabilise the world in a crucial way favourable to Washington's interests in the wake of World War II. In a sense, it is a welcome sign that Mr. Bush should want to inject some economic vitality into an impoverished Afghanistan as he seeks to decimate all traces of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda terrorist mafia in that country. At a political level, it appears that Mr. Bush wants to insulate Afghanistan from terrorism in much the same way as the Marshall Plan had been executed with a sub-text of anti-communism as a primary motive force. However, Mr. Bush's aid-Afghan call cannot match the economic magnitude of the Marshall Plan, and Washington seems very keen, too, at this time on sharing the costs with other major powers. Overall, the new sense of urgency on Mr. Bush's part is linked directly to Washington's frustrations over prolonged uncertainties about the fate of an elusive leadership of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda terrorist cartel.

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