Selling Out the Afghans

PE R SPECTIV E Selling Out the Afghans C. CHRISTINE FAIR A s presidential candidates, both Barack Obama and Donald Trump promised to end the forever war in Afghanistan. Whereas Obama failed, Trump believes he has succeeded. On February 29, 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed what Washington dubbed a peace deal. To get to this point, the United States sidelined the government in Kabul, which knew that Trump would sacrifice the Afghans to end the 19year war. The conflict has cost the United States more than $2 trillion and the lives of some 2,400 military personnel, as well as those of thousands of civilian contractors. This is in addition to the deaths of more than 1,200 NATO troops, over 64,000 Afghan armed forces personnel, and hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians. Although much is uncertain about this agreement, one thing is clear: it is meant to allow the Americans to withdraw with some semblance of dignity. But it will not bring peace to the Afghans, many of whom feel that they have been thrown under the bus—or worse, sold to Pakistan. Their concerns are justified. Before the ink had dried, the Taliban violated the promised cease-fire. ing Kargil War was the first conflict between the two countries since they conducted reciprocal nuclear tests in May 1998. Earlier, Musharraf had brought international sanctions down on Pakistan when he led a coup to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October 1999. Those sanctions added pain to a previously imposed set related to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program. At Washington’s request, Musharraf dispatched a delegation led by General Mahmud Ahmed, his intelligence chief, to meet the Taliban. Ahmed, a well-known Taliban sympathizer, was tasked with persuading the group to hand over Osama bin Laden in order to avoid US military intervention. Instead, Ahmed told the Taliban to wait out the storm. Musharraf ousted him, but the impatient Bush administration rejected another diplomatic effort and opted for war. The logistics would not be easy: Afghanistan is landlocked. Its two neighbors with access to deep warm-water seaports are Iran, a traditional US foe, and Pakistan, a US ally with a long history of double-crossing Washington. Although Iran was hostile to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and President Mohammad Khatami offered support to the United States, the Bush administration turned to Pakistan instead. The Americans sent in a small number of special operations troops to rendezvous with the Afghan anti-Taliban forces of the Northern Alliance. Two days before the September 11 attacks, al-Qaeda had assassinated the Northern Alliance leader, Ahmad Shah Masood. By killing Masood, bin Laden hoped to earn renewed support from the Taliban, which faced heavy pressure to give him up. Masood led the only remaining armed resistance to the Taliban and would be the most likely US combat ally in the country. As the Americans advanced from the north with the Northern Alliance, support for the Taliban melted away. The Taliban leaders and their alQaeda associates fled south and east into Pakistan’s Pashtun areas. Their escape was facilitated by a December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament conducted by a Taliban ally, the Pakistan- DOUBLE DEALING The war began on October 7, 2001, when the United States invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks. In the days that followed the attacks, Washington had reached out to General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s military dictator. This gave Musharraf an opportunity to rehabilitate both his personal image and that of his country, which had been harboring and deploying Islamist militants as tools of foreign policy since 1973. In 1999, Musharraf had become an international pariah by dispatching troops disguised as mujahideen fighters deep into the Indian-controlled part of the disputed region of Kashmir. The ensuC. CHRISTINE FAIR is an associate professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a Current History contributing editor. 152 Selling Out the Afghans • 153 backed and -based Islamist terrorist group Jaishof its length, the need to negotiate numerous bilate-Mohammad. As India mobilized for a potential eral agreements, and Russia’s refusal to allow the war, Pakistan moved its forces from the west— transit of lethal goods through its territory. So the where they were purportedly assisting the US-led surge made the United States more reliant on Pakiintervention in Afghanistan—to its eastern border. stan than ever. As a condition for aiding the Americans, Pakistan received tens of billions of dollars in Musharraf wanted reassurances that the Northern aid for ostensibly supporting the war effort while Alliance would not take Kabul. For years, India doing everything possible to undermine it. At the had been providing military and political support same time, Islamabad was pursuing battlefield to the Northern Alliance to counter the Taliban— nuclear weapons (unwittingly subsidized by US taxpayers), which would enable it to act with even which trained terrorists, at Pakistan’s behest, for greater impunity once Washington no longer reoperations in India. But given the small footprint quired its help. of the US special operations teams, Washington could not restrain its Afghan allies. From Musharraf’s point of view, the Americans had handed InSTAYING POWER dia the keys to Kabul. To paraphrase the popular television series Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agenHomeland, which often has a better grasp of Pakicy rehabilitated the Taliban and enabled them to stan than US officials do, the United States and the launch an insurgency in 2005. Scholars debate the Taliban were both strong enough that they could degree to which the Pakistani state aided and abetnot be defeated, but neither was strong enough to ted bin Laden. The Americans eventually located achieve an outright victory. While Trump has a pohim in his spartan redoubt in Abbottabad, a short litical watch ticking as the 2020 presidential elecdistance from the Pakistan Milition approaches, the Taliban— tary Academy, and killed him in backed by Pakistan’s staying a helicopter raid in May 2011. power—have unlimited time. There was never any The Pakistani government has Since the United States could option but to sue for never explained how bin Laden not impose its will militarily, peace on Pakistan’s terms. was able to reside there undethere was never any option but tected for years. to sue for peace on Pakistan’s All along, Washington reterms. fused to understand the yawning gap between US But it did not have to be this way. In January and Pakistani interests. The United States wanted 2020, the United States assassinated Iranian Maa stable Afghanistan that would no longer play jor General Qasem Soleimani, an act for which the host to terrorists; the Pakistanis sought exactly Trump administration offered an array of evolving the opposite. Pakistan was also discomfited by the justifications, from his alleged responsibility for US pursuit of closer relations with India. By 2005, thousands of US casualties to tendentious claims the Bush administration was offering New Delhi a that he was planning imminent attacks on US forcbomb-friendly nuclear agreement, viewing a welles in the region. By this logic, every ISI chief should armed India as the best partner in the region for have been a target: Pakistan has been responsible managing China’s rise. for the deaths of thousands of Americans as well By 2007, US and NATO losses were mounting as as tens of thousands of allied personnel and hunthey faced an increasingly competent Taliban. In dreds of thousands of Afghans. Yet even while the 2009, US generals recommended a surge of more United States has spent decades seeking to thwart forces into Afghanistan, arguing that this would Iran’s nuclear program, it has abetted Pakistan’s give them the necessary firepower to defeat the program since 1982, when the Reagan adminisTaliban and end the war on favorable terms. They tration reversed sanctions imposed by President disregarded a basic truth: they were losing the war Jimmy Carter in 1979. due to Pakistan’s support for its client, the Taliban. In the current season of Homeland, the scriptBut the United States was unable to put preswriters fictionalize the US-Taliban peace process with chilling accuracy. Unfortunately, they penned sure on Pakistan because it needed access to Pakia better deal than the real-life US negotiators, who stani territory and airspace to supply its forces. An hid key details in classified annexes and sought alternative northern distribution route through to undermine the civilian Afghan government— other countries was not a viable substitute because 154 • CURRENT HISTORY • April 2020 which understood that the deal would bring peace to the Americans but not to the Afghans, unless real constraints were placed on the Pakistanis. Throughout the summer of 2019, the Trump administration pressured Ghani to postpone or even cancel the September elections, as the Taliban wished. He refused. The elections went forward as planned, but only 19 percent of registered voters cast a ballot, according to the official results. Given the security environment, even this meager turnout was awe-inspiring. There is considerable evidence that the election results were manipulated. Ghani’s erstwhile partner in the previous national unity government, Abdullah Abdullah, believes he was cheated of a victory in 2014 and has refused to concede defeat again. Each man has declared himself the victor, and they held simultaneous inaugurations on March 9. This power struggle does not augur well for the country at a time when the Americans have made it clear that they are leaving. What the Afghans need now more than ever is unified, credible civilian governance. MONEY TROUBLE Everyone knows that the Taliban have no intention of seeking peace. But the biggest problem remains unspoken: money. Afghanistan entered the international system as a rentier state, patronized first by the British and then by the Russians. On February 15, 1989, the last Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. As long as Moscow continued paying the bills, President Mohammad Najibullah was able to withstand Pakistan’s efforts to oust him. But as soon the Soviet Union collapsed and the successor Russian state could no longer write those checks, his government fell to Pakistan-backed mujahideen forces. (And Najibullah was stronger and more competent than either Ghani or Abdullah.) The next patron, the United States, insisted on building the largest state ever seen in Afghanistan. Much of the funding for this behemoth flowed to US contractors, who pocketed lucrative fees. The late US envoy Richard Holbrooke once said in congressional testimony that 90 cents of every dollar spent in Afghanistan returned to the United States. While the questions of how many US troops will stay, for how long, and with what mission have drawn close attention, there has been virtually no discussion about the fiscal sustainability of the state. The Afghan government is almost entirely dependent on foreign aid. Without funding to pay for the national defense forces, it will fall. But with all the corruption in the US-built system, accurately calculating the cost of maintaining the state is nearly impossible. Reducing its size will be problematic as long as there is an active insurgency: many who are dismissed will simply join the insurgents, who have vast resources thanks to narcotics, timber, and gem trafficking, as well as ISI’s deep pockets. Trump has made it even less likely that Afghanistan can survive on its own. The Obama administration recognized that Iran would be critical to Afghanistan’s economic future. By negotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, it cleared the way for more investment in Chabahar, an Iranian deep-sea port built with Indian assistance. This would provide Afghanistan with an alternative to relying on Pakistani ports. In October 2018, I visited Zaranj in the Afghan province of Nimruz, on the border with Iran. The Indians have built an important road that links Zaranj to the city of Delaram and a major highway network, the Ring Road. These links allow goods to be carried from Chabahar to Zaranj and onward throughout Afghanistan. Despite inadequate infrastructure that kept trucks waiting in line for days to cross the border, the town was doing booming business when I was there. Yet Trump has done his best to eviscerate the JCPOA, just as he has done with each of Obama’s major accomplishments. Despite the reinstatement of sanctions on Iran, India has been allowed to continue limited development work in Chabahar under a waiver provision that permits investment if it advances Afghan reconstruction. But the waivers are not permanent and must be continually reissued, creating uncertainty. For Chabahar to serve as a genuine lifeline for Afghanistan, it needs more investment to become a viable deepsea transit hub. BACK TO THE FUTURE After Najibullah’s demise in 1992, Afghanistan fell prey to warring factions. Kabul was decimated by the dueling rockets of the mujahideen who were once hailed for liberating the Afghans from the Soviets. A return to this scenario is no longer implausible. Now the country has rival presidents and no obvious way to pay for the state, whoever runs it—not to mention a predatory neighbor that is more skillful at orchestrating chaos than the Americans have been at preventing it. Selling Out the Afghans • 155 Afghans have reason to worry—and they have more at stake than ever before. Most Afghans were born after the Taliban fell. Women and girls began to have new expectations and hopes. Although many Afghans are unhappy with the flawed democratic structure foisted on them by the Americans, there is no appetite among young people to give up on democracy—they want more of it. But the Taliban have been clear: they want uncontested power, they plan to do away with elections, and they intend to roll back the gains in the rights of women and children. After spending so much blood and treasure, both the United States and Afghanistan deserve a process that will bring peace to the country at last, rather than delivering it in pieces to Pakistan. Q