The people of the mountain tribes hold the key to ending the nine-year war.
A major international recent conference in Kabul underscored new workable plans for Afghanistan that would enable the Afghan government to take greater ownership of the war and and help facilitate a gradual withdrawal of Western forces from the country.
It will now be the task of the new commander of the US and NATO forces General David Petraeus in Afghanistan to lead Western forces and help the Afghans to achieve a lasting success in the most tortured nation.
General Petraeus showed a dazzling adroit political strategy in Iraq when he pulled back the tumultuous country from the brink of a collapse in 2007 and 2008. By placing a high premium on a new political path to victory, he turned the Iraqi Sunni population -- the backbone of the insurgency -- against al-Qaida and other anti-Western extremist militants.
Petraeus took his prescription for success from the Iraqi history and social dynamism. Perhaps the books by Lawrence of Arabia he kept on his bedside-table helped achieve the wonders. Early in the twentieth-century, Lawrence devised a successful policy of supporting the Arab tribesmen against the occupying Ottomans in exchange for independence. He was soon able to mobilise thousands of Arab tribesmen against the Ottomans.
Under a program called Iraqi Awakening Movement, he successfully mobilised 100,000 Sunni tribal combat forces. This prompted the Iraqi local forces to take over their own security and allow for a phased withdrawal of American forces from the country.
Although Afghanistan as a country is different from Iraq, the best course for this country will also be a vigorous political strategy. Besides, Lawrence of Arabia, Petaeus will need to read Kipling whose fiction and poetry was greatly focused on Afghanistan's dominant Pashtun tribes. Both writers emphasised that the Afghan affairs would always remain to be solved solely with the mountainous Afghan tribesmen.
Like Iraqi Sunnis, the Pashtun tribes make up the backbone of the insurgency and they are increasingly feeling politically isolated and under-represented in the Kabul government. According to the media reports, Pashtuns make up only 30 percent of the Afghan national army and power ministries such as, defence, interior, intelligence and foreign are dominated from bottom-up by non-Pashtun ethnic minorities.
Karzai and many of his cabinet members are Pashtuns, but the majority of Pashtuns in the south and east of the country see Karzai as a masquerade for the warlords of the Northern Alliance, who co-operated with the US-led forces in ousting the Taliban from power in 2001.
Even the former US Commander General MacChrystal signalled this when he was quoted in the Rolling Stone magazine, "the Pashtun area (of Afghanistan) is slipping out of the hands of ISAF and NATO, and everybody knows it".
However, the Taliban and even al-Qaida continue to manipulate this strong anger among the Pashtun population for their own political objectives. They more often than not identify themselves as the only military and political forces fighting for the Pashtun cause and reinstating their traditional status.
The ousted General MacChrystal was too complacent about this burning issue. He liked to appear by Karzi's side in public and ignored the corruption and rising kleptomania in his government. Since early June 2009, when he took command in Afghanistan, his military efforts that often remained without political components have also resulted in the stalemate.
The much-hyped Marjah Battle in February 2010 was his real test case in which his "government in a box" policy failed to put in place a viable governing body in this small district. The government in Marjah soon turned into a matter of day and night shift, instead. The Taliban overtakes the nightshift of the governing. The situation in Marjah and surrounding areas still remain grim and explosive.
Nearly a decade into the war in Afghanistan there is clear evidence that beating militarily an indigenous ultra-religious insurgency rooted deeply in a conservative society is futile. In addition, more than 75 percent of Afghanistan is covered by high mountains. This makes Afghanistan geographically a heaven for guerrilla warfare. The mountainous Afghan tribes always have fought and defeated every single foreign force. It is not accidental that Fredrick Engels said that war against foreign forces is a relief and an unalloyed excitement for the war some Pashtun tribes.
It is therefore crucial to play clever politics in Afghanistan now and General Petraeus is hopefully the man of the moment. Reaching out to the bearded Afghan tribesmen and negotiation with the possibly moderate sections of the insurgency could reshape the entire war-theatre in Afghanistan.
This will necessitate Pakistan ending an underhand way of dealing with Afghanistan, closing al-Qaida terrorists and Taliban centres within its soil and stopping its territory from being a launching pad against neighbouring Afghanistan and beyond. It seems unlikely that Pakistan would stop hedging its bets though.
The West has little time to bring the Great Game in Afghanistan back on track. If Petraeus drifts with the tide and continue wasting tax-money on building illusory projects and illegitimate Karzai's administration, the US and its NATO allies will be heading for a strategic failure in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's fate has never been decided in the streets of Kabul nor outside the country. The Afghan destiny has always been determined by the the tribes of the hills in Afghanistan. Kipling used the hill as a metaphor for a magic location where big things are going to happen in Afghanistan. When Mahbub Ali, a red-bearded Pashtun horse-dealer, a mentor to the eponymous, sends him in Kim to the hills to learn, he cries out: "Go up the hill and ask: Here begins the Great Game."
Dr Ehsan Azari Stanizai is an Adjunct Fellow with the Writing & Society Research Group, UWS.
With the passing of everyday, it is becoming clear to the International community that Pashtuns are part of the problem. Moreover, their tribal social struture and lack of respect for international norms is one of the reasons why Afghanistan is in this status-quo.
Tajiks and other non-Pashtuns are have had enough. They are staring to think about alternative, division, federalism or similar system seems not too far away.
Zaman Hakim
Everyone in this world promotes their country's interest except the "prideful" Pashtoons who, out of sheer ignorance, kill themselves for others' interest.
Should this situation continues, division would be the only way forward, it has been since 1992.
regards,
Zaman Hakim
Please do not mislead people. it is very important that the international communities are in Afghanistan and they know about the reality of Afghanistan society. Pashtoons are part of other Afghanistanies citizens and make the 30% population of the country, but they are living in treble system , they are against civilisation and democracy. as you mentioned they are fighting for justice it is absolutely biased opinion comes from your feeling. ministry of defence, foreign minister, education minister, Afghanistan Chancellor, finance minister, minister of economy, parliamentary minister, intelligence service chive executive, national Bank chive exacutive and their deputies are pashtoons, which is unfair for the rest of Afghanistan population. Tajiks, Hazara's and Uzbeks fought against Al-Qaeda and Taliban and the are the majority in A
You cannot discredit an iternationally renowned schlar with a clear conscience who writes the truth about Afghanistan,
He never promote Pashtun nationnslism as some slaves say here. He love Afghanistan and he is a patriot. Even a cow loves its shade. But there are some who don't like Afghanistan. This is their business, but theynever can claim that they ae Afghans.
One would ask the logical question of why is it that Non-pashtun areas are restive and do not cause issues for the international and NATO forces? The answer is simple; Non-Pashtun areas do not house Alqida save-heavens!They do not share common values with Alqida.
It is vital for the US and International forces to understand the real fabric of conflict in Afghanistan, without understanding this clearly, they deem to fail miserably. The International community needs to support revive intra Afghan militery force such as the Norther Alliance, which would be most capable and effecitve in stopping both Alqida and the Taliban. It was the Tajiks and Uzbeks who manage to force Taliban out of Kabul.unfortunetly, In the post Taliban era which followed, Pashtun politicians and "technocrates", such Karzi and Khalilzad provided ill advice to US. As a result, Tajik and Uzbek dominated Northern Alliance was elimiated comoletely as a militery force - today we see the consquences of those ill decisions taken by US, given by people like Karzi and other Pashtun leaders.
regards,
Zaman Hakim
2. There was a window of opportunity for an orderly partition or, failing that, a more meaningful dialog between the warring factions. That opportunity is now gone. Biden had proposed something like that and was laughed at.
3. Patraeus is strong on miltary and political science. He is weak on history and anthropology. He is not going to change in a few months or even years what has become engrained in Afganistan during centuries.
4. What we need to do is to play a bad hand well in Afganistan. Obama is a poker player. What we need is a bridge player. What we don't need is a crap shooter.
There are no roads to these villages, only rocky dried out river basins in the bottom of canyons where the Americans have to drive at 3 miles per hour over the rocks just to avoid getting stuck. The entire time they are in this basin, they are exposed and subjected to enemy fire from positions in the hills.
Such an attack is featured in this video.
http://define.com/?item=22
It looks like it's a very lost cause.
We need to retreat and let the Taliban resume their tyranny while we regroup and restructure the international banking system so that poverty can be eliminated and the citizens of Afghanistan can have the slightest hope of entering into modernity. The essay on this page discusses a way to eliminate poverty worldwide. Of course, that can only be done by creating a global consensus that we need to work together to abandon for-profit banking.
Or we can just leave and accept that there is a part of the world we can't change.
At the risk of sound condescending, I am reminded of the old saying oft repeated by alcoholics, that goes something like this: "Lord, please give me the strength to change the things I can change, the patience to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference."
نو فروشانیم و این بازار ماست
In the olden days, when all the power of Afghanistan was in the hands of Pashtun tribal leaders... it made sense for key problems and discussions to be carried out in the southern mountains.
However, today power is in the hands of one of the most culturally civilized people of the world, so it is WRONG for political discussions to be carried out in the mountains.
Today, key issues should be debated democratically among the civilized people of Afghanistan, not by conservative, backward-thinking tribal leaders.
You have your finger on the pluse. I agree with you 100%.
New strategy for new times. Afghanistan is not entirly a tribal society.
regards
The Wall Street Journal article, of Sept 12, headlined "Efforts to Recruit Pashtuns in Afghan South Falter" says: "Overall, Pashtuns account for 43% of the Afghan army" but efforts to recruit more from Taliban-dominated areas of the southeast is failing despite US offer of incentives. Some 80% of international money is also going to the southeast, which hold a lion share in the government. The only prominent non-Pashtoon figure in this government is the minister of interior, while most other prominent posts are occupied by the Pashtoons.
While the Pashtoons make up some 37% of the entire population, what are the injustices that have alienated them? Absolutely none. Taliban are ideologically linked to al-Qaeda and this will remain so.
The Pashtoon elites blackmailed the "blind West" for nine years with such arguments. But now, the West has come to its senses. The solution seems to lie in Robert Blackwill's call for a partition of the country - any other solution is waste of money and resources. Leave the Pashtoons to live the way they wish. If their educated elites cannot change, what are the chances for their Taliban brothers?
The non-Pashtoons, increasingly fed up with Pashtoon sense of entitlement and supremacy, are also calling for the partition of the country as away to rid themselves of Pashtoon bullying and hegemony.
The reason the Pashtoon Taliban have become so powerful is that that they enjoy full support from Al-Qaeda, Pakistani quarters, Iran and many wealthy Arabs. On the contrary, NATO/US have badly weakened thier natural allies, the non-Pashtoons, to appease Pakistan and the Pashtoons.
The People of the northwest have effectively become or been made irrelevent in this war whereas the burdern of the war now mainly lay on US forces' shoulders. The non-Pashoons will own this this war, with minimum NATOsupport, if partition happens. With this, no longer there will be panic in the West over casualties or soaring costs.
Presiden Karzai yesteray said Afghanistan had not changed in 130 years!! Why is that? Because Pashtoons have been sheding blood all these years - not shedding light.
This linkage of Pashtun insurgency with Afghan nationalism is one of the reasons, I believe, that Taliban has been able to "surge" out of areas where Pashtuns are dominant into northern and western Afghanistan, such as Konduz and Badghis. Afghans (all of them, not just the Pashtun) are hyper aware of their history of resisting foreigners, and proud of same, and I believe it's easy for northern Afghans to identify with the Taliban as the latest reincarnation of the Afghan spirit of resistance to foreign domination. The more foreign troops in the country, the more the Taliban script is shown to be true.
By allying with the likes of Ahmed Wali Karzai, we long ago ceded this nationalist space to the Taliban, and that makes this war ultimately unwinnable and futile. Petraeus might be able to buy off some Taliban, but can he ever get rid of Wali Karzai?
If you really think Taliban are fighting an 'Afghan cause' one would wonder why were they fighting Massoud's forces??? He was the most nationalist leaders Afghanistan has ever seen in the last century. So,it is wrong to suggest that Taliban has a nationalistic cuase.