Separating Symptoms from Sources: The Ghost of Greater Afghanistan

On a strategic level, this artificial border tore the tribal Pashtuns in half. Moreover, with the expansion of great power interests and the resulting conflicts, the line eventually evolved into a politicized border region, housing religious fundamentalists and secular terrorist groups alike.

In light of recent events in Afghanistan, it is probable that deeper roots of friction are at work along wobbly ethnic, historical, and tribal fault lines. In truth, this friction and the momentum it spurs apes Afghanistan's sacred history. Hence, even on Afghanistan's overly speedy quest toward a democracy envisioned by Western rulers, this unremitting cycle of shifting tribal loyalties and regional clintela-based alignments generally continues unabated. In hindsight, these various factions were quite helpful in jettisoning the Taliban from power. But, in the following vacuum, such tribal systems are clear agents of decentralization when recuperation and centralization is what are needed.

On a functional level, Afghanistan cannot be subjectively examined under the Western conception of either a state or a nation. The country simply does not operate in any sense of either definition at this time. Both a limited security apparatus and stalled international support have done little to cultivate ancient divisions based on ethnic and religious elements. In regard to the U.S. war on terror and domestic efforts employed pursuant to nation building, these divisions continue to maintain and harass internal efforts and strengthen critiques of U.S. policy.

Moreover, the very nature of the resilient warlord system finds a continued modus operandi uncannily similar to the support networks that operated throughout the Soviet occupation. Thus, in the very same historical pattern that kept change's progress locked in reverse throughout the last three decades, Afghanistan continues to resemble a discombobulated chessboard based on a thesis of revolving alignments and agendas and intrastate power politics.

In this confusing quest for progress, desperately needed foreign investment -- not merely subsidized aid from Non-Governmental Organizations -- remains a critical and consistent requirement for Afghanistan's future. Hence, if such aid is not forthcoming, present conditions in Afghanistan will continue to represent the combination of factors that inhibit foreign investment and frustrate efficient fiscal and monetary policies.

In this regard, the recent violence toward the Pakistani embassy more accurately represents a symptom, rather than a cause of the contention that lies beneath the political borders of Central and South Asia. On the ground, this pent up powder keg of human frustration directed toward Pakistan may additionally represent a growing friction between ethnic groups, specifically the Pashtuns and their northern Tajik and Uzbek contemporaries. Throughout the years, this trend has consistently represented a plethora of security issues that places the United States in an unenvied predicament historically occupied by the Persians, Sikhs, Soviets, and British. Moreover, the near war between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the liberated incarnation of Pashtunistan in 1961 exerts itself as a pre-9/11 reminder that ethical conflict remains a historically accurate characteristic that has long fueled regional contention.

In the modern global context, while lacking any serious consideration for a true security presence and cemented systems of checks and balances, the historical marriage of internal conflict and external support continues to reign as a deadlocked default option. Consequently, the necessities that compromise economic restructuring and a foreign investment that fails to circumvent regional warlords will continue to exist as standard operating procedure.

In sum, although the Taliban are no longer part of the spectrum of threats, Afghanistan continues to remain a country hopelessly tangled in a relentless war against itself. Despite the early Pyrrhic efforts of Ahmad Shad Durrani, Afghanistan evolved as a nation forged by the security interests and defense mechanisms of other powers. Thusly, this birth contributed little value to the concept or generational transfusion of nationalism.

Today, the country remains infected with competing interstate factions, with external support bases, which continue to politically and militarily retain their holds on power. In due course, the consequences of these trajectories may ultimately undermine both the conduit of Afghani nationalism, thus denying her people both a plausible foundation of infrastructure and the federalization to support it. Finally, in terms of Afghanistan, the United States faces a challenge that befell many world powers before it: Defining the formula that simultaneously balances the often incorrectly perceived means of "colonialism" with the often unnoticed means of national security

It is in this challenge that the Bush administration must pivot while concurrently and successfully selling this policy vision to both proponents and critics alike.