Eurasia Insight:
AFGHAN DIPLOMATS PRESS FOR BROADER AMERICAN SECURITY COMMITMENT
Camelia Entekhabi-Fard: 9/23/02

The United States and Afghanistan have not resolved the question of how to patrol Afghanistan’s provinces, nearly ten months after an American-led campaign ousted the Taliban militia from power. But this impasse is not totally blocking the evolution of Afghan diplomacy. The Afghan Embassy in Washington, DC hosted its first post-Taliban evening party on September 17. Nearly 150 well-off, educated Afghans gathered at the embassy to celebrate Afghan Independence Day. The event underscored how quickly the Afghan government has defined itself and how far it needs to go before the country becomes stable.

Abdullah Abdullah, the Foreign Minister and a veteran of the old anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, had traveled to Washington on September 15 to lobby for reconstruction aid and for help in expanding the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, around the Afghan countryside. He attended the reception, as did American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, members of Congress and officials from the White House. After spending a few days in New York for the General Assembly of the United Nations, Dr. Abdullah found party guests who seemed to understand the urgency of beefing up security around his country. On September 5, a would-be assassin in Kandahar nearly killed Afghan President Hamid Karzai and injured Kandahar governor Gul Agha Shirzai. This followed an unsuccessful car-bomb attack on Defense Minister Mohammed Qasim Fahim in Jalalabad in May and the assassination of Vice President Haji Abdul Qadir in front of his Kabul office in early July. " If the assassination [attempt] against President Karzai had been successful, we would have been in a situation of grave crisis for Afghanistan," said one of the guests at the party. "Right now, not just the [ethnic] Pashtuns but all Afghans believe Karzai is the best choice to lead the country in this critical moment."

Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun like most of the deposed Taliban leadership, has tried to squelch ethnic resentment toward his cabinet, most of whom are ethnic Tajiks affiliated with the former Northern Alliance. In the weeks after the attempt on his life, he met Afghan commanders and warlords in Kabul. Fahim also appeared at this meeting. According to an Afghan diplomat, Karzai told these commanders that they could reasonably hope for a stronger American commitment to maintaining stability in the country and fighting terrorist presence. Specifically, the diplomat said, Karzai and the commanders named Jalalabad and Kandahar as theatres of new operation and discussed ways of coordinating with American and other allies.

While Afghan diplomats hobnobbed with their American allies at the party, it remains unclear whether Afghan soldiers can march alongside troops from other countries. According to the diplomat who spoke of Karzai’s meeting, commanders received instructions to take greater care in hiring local people and militia members into legitimate forces. Today, sources say, most commanders use unorthodox criteria for selecting and promoting their forces. Clan and ethnic affiliation, or political loyalties, often outweigh expertise and professionalism. Some suspect that the man who tried to murder Karzai got a security job as a political favor. A high-ranking Afghan at the party said sarcastically that if an Afghan goes to the Kandahar governor’s office and professes devotion to former King Mohammed Zahir Shah, "that’s enough to get a job."

Karzai will need more than diplomacy to impose order on Afghan warlords, who are accustomed to working for themselves. Reportedly, Karzai has discussed the issue of warlords’ potential liability for human rights violations with some of his country’s more notorious strongmen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Deputy Defense Minister who controls the ethnic Uzbek militia around Mazar-i-Sharif, has withstood claims that his forces starved and left for dead some 2,000 Taliban prisoners in Shibarghan. In a prior interview with EurasiaNet, Dostum objected to the topic and denied having violated human rights. "I need an official letter signed by Karzai and [Afghan United Nations representative] Lakhdar Brahimi before I could release the prisoners to go anywhere they wished," he said. "If I release them and they make something like they did before, wouldn’t Mr. Karzai question me?" Whatever the Afghan government has mastered in the art of diplomacy, it has not yet proven that it can manage warlords or hold them up to international standards.

Afghanistan has also not built a viable modern infrastructure, and has not received the aid it would need to restore roads and factories. A road-building program could create jobs, promote trade and make it easier for international peacekeepers to patrol the countryside. "It seems like the first demand of this Afghan official delegation in the US is expanding the security force in Afghanistan," said Afghanistan scholar Barnett Rubin at the Afghan Embassy event. "Karzai has heard countless Afghans, both influential individuals and ordinary people who have all requested an expansion of ISAF. He has relayed this to the American officials. He is asking for ISAF in towns near Kabul right now," said Rubin, who runs the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

Without a rational security structure, Afghanistan’s government will have a hard time gaining legitimacy among its people, many of whom are refugees and most of whom are poor. On September 17 in Washington, Afghan emissaries pressed for help in keeping the peace and celebrated the progress they have made in defining their new state. "It is a remarkable night for us. We feel very proud. We are free and hopeful for a better future for our country," said Mahmood Karzai, the president’s older brother.

Editor’s Note: Camelia Entekhabi-Fard is a journalist specializing in Afghan and Iranian affairs.