 |
|
AFGHAN LEADER: Hamid
Karzai |
FOUR foreign invasions of Afghanistan in less than 200 years: 1839,
1878, 1979 and 2001. The first two were British and unashamedly
imperialist. The third was Soviet and the invaders said they were there to
defend socialism and help Afghanistan become a modern, prosperous state.
The last was American, and the invaders said they were there to
bring democracy and help Afghanistan become a modern, prosperous state.
But all four invasions were doomed to fail (although the last still has
some time to run).
When Britain deployed 3,300 troops to Helmand
province early last month, then defence secretary John Reid said: We hope
we will leave Afghanistan without firing a single shot.
But six
British soldiers have been killed in combat since then, and the new
defence minister, Des Browne, announced on Monday that the British force
is being increased by 900 soldiers to cope with unexpected resistance.
The story is the same across southern Afghanistan. The Canadian
army has lost six soldiers killed in action in Kandahar province since
late April and may soon face the same choice between reinforcing its
troops or pulling them back because the American combat troops in the
vicinity are leaving at the end of this month. The US forces are pulling
out just in time.
A country that has been invaded four times in
less than two centuries is bound to know a couple of things about dealing
with foreign conquerors. The first thing Afghans have learned is never to
trust them, no matter how pure they say their intentions are. There are
probably no more xenophobic people in the world than the Afghans and they
have earned the right to be so. If there was ever a window of opportunity
for the current crop of invaders to convince Afghans that this time is
different, it closed some time ago.
The other thing Afghans know
is how to deal with invaders. They will always be richer and better armed,
so let them occupy the country. Dont try to hold the cities; fade back
into the mountains. Take a couple of years to regroup and set up your
supply lies (mostly across the border from Pakistan, this time), and then
start the guerilla war in earnest. Ambush, harass and bleed the foreigners
for as long as it takes. Eventually they will cut their losses and go
home.
It has worked every time, and it is going to work again. Des
Browne remarked plaintively last week that the very act of (British)
deployment into the south has energised opposition. But the reality is
that the rural areas of Helmand province, like most of the Pashto-speaking
provinces of the south and south-east, have been under the effective
control of the resistance for several years. The arrival of foreign troops
in these areas simply gives the insurgents targets to attack.
The
end-game is beginning even in Kabul. Hamid Karzai, the Wests chosen
leader for Afghanistan, is now starting to make deals with the forces that
will hold his life in their hands once the foreigners leave: the warlords
and drug barons. In April, he dropped many candidates who had been
approved by the coalition powers from a list of new provincial police
chiefs, and substituted the names of known gangsters and criminals who
work for the local warlords. He will also have to talk to the Taleban
before long.
The Taleban that Western troops are now fighting in
Afghanistan is more inclusive than the narrow band of fanatics who imposed
order on the country in 1996 after seven years of civil war. The current
Afghan resistance movement includes farmers trying to protect their
poppy-fields, nationalists furious at the foreign presence, young men who
just want to show that they are as brave as previous generations of
Afghans the usual grab-bag of motives that fuels any national resistance
movement.
Nor is the regime that will eventually emerge in Kabul
after the foreigners have gone home likely to resemble the old Taleban, a
Pakistani-backed and almost entirely Pashto-speaking organisation. The
foreign invasion overthrew the long domination of the Pashto-speakers in
Afghanistan (about 40% of the population), and it is most unlikely that
Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, and Turkmen will simply accept that domination
again. Their own warlords will have to have a share of the power, too, and
even Karzai might find a role.
Post-occupation Afghanistan would
certainly live under strict Islamic law, but there is no reason to believe
it would export Islamist revolution of the al-Qaeda brand. Even the old
Taleban regime never did that; it gave hospitality to Osama bin Laden and
his gang, but it almost certainly had no knowledge of his plans for 9/11
and on other issues it was often open to Western pressure. In 2001, for
example, it shut down the whole heroin industry in Afghanistan, simply by
shooting enough poppy-farmers to frighten the rest into obedience.
Afghanistan will not be left to its own devices until after the
people who ordered the invasion leave office: presumably next year for
Tony Blair, and January, 2009 for George W. Bush. There is time for lots
of killing yet. But Afghanistan stands a reasonable chance of sorting
itself out once the Western armies leave. |
