It is uncanny how, the more things change, the more they remain
the same. Case in point is the situation in Afghanistan.
Never the most stable of countries, Afghanistan has defied
the stereotype country politically and in all other aspects. Historically the
country has been a bit of a pariah. It could never be convincingly conquered by
any of the big powers. Britain at the height of its power had a considerable
presence in Afghanistan, but hey never could administer it say, like say India.
Afghanistan was always ruled by clans. These clans guarded
their independence and their fiefdoms fiercely to say the least. None of the invading
powers could convince the clans that their rule was better than what the
domestic groups administered. The clans had their own private armies who were
fiercely loyal to the leadership but often were bought by money.
Money was made by taxing people and selling agricultural
produce. Drugs were also traded to supplement the income. In fact, most of the
invaders were fought off by raising money this way.
After the British came the Russians. They too floundered in
this country. The cold war was at its height.
Afghanistan has a lot of mineral resources which is part of
the reason why the powers that be tried to invade it in the past. However, if
the clan chiefs knew this fact, they probably were not interested. Exploiting
the resources meant bringing in technology which only the big powers could
provide. It was inevitable the powers would try to dictate the terms to the
local chiefs. The chiefs did not want to relinquish their power. So, no foreign
powers could ever enter Afghanistan.
When the Russians came into Afghanistan the American
establishment typical of the cold war mentality, feared that country would
become communist. As the Americans could not directly intervene in Afghanistan,
a political via media was found. Pakistan was to act as a conduit for American
help to the freedom fighters. This was the Taliban. The Americans wanted
Afghanistan to be turned into the Russian Vietnam.
However, things seldom go according to plan, especially in
clandestine campaigns. The Americans succeeded in ousting the Russians from
Afghanistan but the Taliban and the Al Qaeda were left without an enemy. A
political vacuum which nobody was willing to fill, not even the Americans. The
result was chaos. Now the local commanders had money and weapons provided by
the Americans through the Pakistanis.
Matters would not have come to a head if Saddam Hussain
would not have invaded Kuwait. But he did and set a chain of events which would
culminate in the US going into Afghanistan again. As American army poured into
Saudi Arabia in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, one of their proteges
did not like it, to say the least. This protégé was none other than Osama Bin
Laden, He did not like the Americans stomping on the holy land of the Muslims.
Bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian had fought against the Russians in Afghanistan with
American help. Now he turned against the Americans. His revenge was 9/11.
The Americans came back to hunt for the September 11
perpetrators. The Pakistanis were supposed to help them. The Al Qaeda and Taliban were hunted and made
ineffective. However, the top Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership were now friends
of the Pakistanis. Pakistan’s position was akin to ‘hunt with the hounds and
hide with the hare’ as most of the Taliban leadership took refuge in Pakistan
(where Bin Laden was later killed in a secret military operation). Some say
that Bin Laden was given away by the Pakistanis to satisfy the American thirst
for revenge.
Bin Laden had become a powerless exile by the time he was
killed. The mantle had already fallen on his next-in-line, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Zarqawi wanted his own organization to fight
the Americans in Iraq after Saddam Hussain’s death. He founded the ISIS or the
Islamic State which Bin Laden had opposed earlier. So now the Al Qaeda had
morphed into the Islamic State. The ISIS is mainly concentrated in the Iraq –
Syria area, but American withdrawal from Afghanistan leaves the door wide open
for them to spread their tentacles in this area and could make the American
campaign in Iraq redundant.
The US withdrawal leaves the Afghan people in a bigger mess
than they were in before the Russian invasion. With the ISIS in Syria and Iraq
and the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the whole of West Asian
neighborhood could reap a grim harvest in the coming years.
