The Hindu : Kabul and the 'war' on terror

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 12, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Kabul and the 'war' on terror

INURED AS AFGHANISTAN is to the politics of murder, the latest assassination of Abdul Qadir (a Vice-President in the present transitional government in Kabul) has turned the international spotlight on the U.S.-led `war' on globalised terrorism. Neither Afghanistan's U.N.-backed regime nor its chief patron, the United States, has been able to identify the terrorist force behind this crime. However, the U.S. President, George W. Bush, tends to view the killing as a grim reminder of the global community's responsibilities to stabilise Afghanistan so that it could be prepared for a democratic dispensation in about 18 months from now as mapped out by the United Nations. Given the irony in these circumstances that the barbaric assault on Qadir occurred in a city under the protective umbrella of the International Security Assistance Force, Mr. Bush's anxieties acquire a sharp edge. Qadir's claim to fame rested almost entirely on his credentials as an anti-Taliban leader, and Washington is obviously eager to look at the political signals behind his murder. The crux of America's "war against terror", especially in Afghanistan, is still very much linked to Mr. Bush's pledge to eradicate the infrastructure of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda axis of terror. This reality transcends the latest assertion by Mr. Bush himself that the ongoing global campaign against terrorism goes beyond the fate of the Al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, and his cohorts. It is against this background that Washington is concerned about the perceived audacity of the purveyors of terror in the face of a sustained American war against them.

For the transitional President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, the challenge is that of guiding a terrorist-infested failed state towards a possible democratic future. While he seems inclined to acknowledge the stakes of the international community, particularly the U.S., in the emergence of Afghanistan as a terror-free zone, Mr. Karzai is no less aware of the general sentiment of a perceived majority of his compatriots against external intervention in their country's political affairs. This explains his reluctance to depend heavily on the U.S. at this time of a simmering public outrage over Washington's blunder of killing scores of ordinary civilians who were mistaken for hard-core terrorists. While there are limits to any effort by the international community to rescue Afghanistan in these circumstances, Mr. Karzai seems to have decided to walk a fine line in spite of his image as a protege of the U.S.

The entire American establishment, not just Mr. Bush, tends to think that any prescription of leaving Afghanistan to its own devices is a risk that should be avoided regardless of the political price that this might entail. Washington surely is in no mood to commit itself to a more direct `anti-terror role' than that implicit in the presence of American special forces on Afghan territory and in the strike-threatening posture of the U.S. Air Force. While this reality is a derivative of the classical U.S. policy of insulating American lives from danger as far as possible, Washington remains inclined to preserve its political hold over Afghanistan in its status as the first frontier in the new global "war on terror". Important in this context is the new refrain that America should "not lose the peace" after having "won" the war against the terrorists in Afghanistan. Now, while it is debatable whether a war can be declared won in the absence of any certainty about the fate of the main leaders of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda network, there can be no doubt whatsoever about Washington's resolve to stay deeply engaged in Afghanistan in tribute to the slain Qadir. More significantly, Washington seems alarmed over the latest "evidence" that the "Islamic terrorists" are filling the cyberspace with encrypted calls for anti-U.S. "jehad". This will influence the American thinking on Afghanistan.

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