Afghanistan and the wages of inaction

The wages of inaction can be disastrous. It is almost a month that the prime minister chaired the first meeting of the Cabinet Committee on National Security (CCNS). Afghanistan was one of the three issues – the other two were national and internal security – that engaged the attention of the civilian and military leadership. But since then there has been no visible initiative for promoting the Afghan peace process. The government, it seems, has put its faith in the mysterious dispensations of providence in order to stave off the consequences of a full-blown civil war in Afghanistan.

The countdown for the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan has begun. The ill-equipped, badly trained, unmotivated, and ethnically imbalanced Afghan National Army (ANA) will be exclusively responsible for security by the end of the year. The expectation that it will be able to perform this function is a masterpiece of grotesque self-deception. There have been defections from the ANA galore and the attrition rate could reach as high 40 percent by the autumn of 2014.

A chillingly realistic appraisal, which should have set alarm bells ringing in Islamabad, is the latest American National Intelligence Estimate which predicts that in three years the Taliban and its terrorist affiliates will be dominant in Afghanistan. The ghastly prophesy of unrelenting conflict is clearly written on the wall. Without the presence of a small US-Nato contingent, the bloodletting will be prolonged and none of the Afghan groups will be able triumph militarily.

This, according to analysts, is as inevitable as the lengthening shadows of the sunset that are all too soon overpowered by the encroaching darkness of the night. The imperative, therefore, is forward movement on the much advertised ‘Afghan-led-and-owned’ peace process. This is the single issue that should have been brainstormed time and again by the CCNS and a plan worked out to douse the flames of a potential Afghan civil war, the fallout of which will be on Pakistan.

A similar security environment dominated the region from 1996 to 2001 when the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan. The conflict was stoked by regional countries and is likely to happen again. Such an eventuality can be pre-empted if thought is given now to the possible imposition of an arms embargo should there be a complete internal collapse in Afghanistan. This is what Pakistan had proposed in the late 1990s, but the UN played a devious role.

In February 1998, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy on Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, circulated a paper on the issue among the UN ambassadors of the Six plus Two group (Afghanistan’s six immediate neighbours plus the US and Russia). But the document’s main focus was on highlighting the difficulties and exorbitant cost of enforcing an embargo.

Pakistan’s response was that its proposal was neither as difficult to implement nor as expensive as it had been made out to be. There was no other alternative if the UN really wanted to reduce, if not altogether eliminate, the level and intensity of the fighting which was being abetted by foreign interference. All that was required was a mechanism for monitoring weapons shipments to Afghanistan.

Brahimi was reminded that UN monitors had performed reasonably well in the nine-month period that the Geneva Accords on Afghanistan were being implemented in 1988-89. Benon Sevan, who resigned from the UN in 2005, over the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, was the overall in-charge and fulfilled his responsibilities from Islamabad with remarkable efficiency. The primary focus then was to oversee the withdrawal of Soviet forces and investigate the violation of the armistice. The number of personnel was not large and the task was successfully completed.

Pakistan’s stance was that the primary responsibility of the monitors, who would neither be peacekeepers nor peacemakers, would merely be to report the flow of weapons and munitions to Afghanistan. An embargo was certainly possible though, given the rugged terrain of landlocked Afghanistan, its implementation had to be broad, preventive and observatory in nature. A one hundred percent embargo was neither possible nor required because large quantities of weapons supplies could only be sent through a limited number of routes and through the dirt tracks that were used for illegal crossings and the narcotics trade.

The UN paper, which was obviously not intended as a serious proposal dwelt unnecessarily upon the use of satellite imagery, remote-controlled pilotless vehicles (drones), electronic sensors and signals intelligence (sigint). It was made clear to Brahimi that, in the context of Afghanistan, such sophisticated devices were not needed. Effective monitoring could best be achieved by physical means.

Brahimi’s proposals deliberately played down the main sources of weapons transfers to Afghanistan. Mere lip service was done, probably at the behest of Russia, to the flow of weapons from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to the Northern Alliance in formulations such as “supplies to Afghanistan could hypothetically be arranged from southern Tajikistan.” The factual position was that the airfield in Kulyab, Tajikistan, had virtually been leased out to the Northern Alliance whereas Tashkent and Tirmiz had become major supply terminals from Uzbekistan.

If there was any doubt about the countries which were responsible for fuelling the Afghan conflict, it was removed by the Russian foreign office spokesman’s statement on the occasion of Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharazi’s visit to Moscow on April 4-5, 2002 that “Russia and Iran have heavily contributed to the fight against the extremist Taliban.”

The UN document went into various options ranging from monitoring at the level of 3,000 tons of supplies per month which would “bite” but would be prohibitively expensive, to transfers of heavy weapons and supplies of between 10,000 to 50,000 tons per month. Our opinion was that the latter was more doable and could be implemented by monitors from the neighbouring countries who would be stationed at the main entry points under the supervision of the UN or by international teams mandated to oversee the work of the local monitors. Both implementation mechanisms were cost-effective and required only a small international staff.

We did a detailed study on the issue that was sent to Brahimi. Our finding was that there were approximately 362 ground supply routes to Afghanistan. The terrain along these routes varied from mountainous to dry plains as in Pakistan, Iran and Turkmenistan and river crossings as in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The monitoring of all ground routes was, therefore, difficult and we felt that a more practical course would be to have mobile monitoring teams based, if possible, in the major Afghan cities near the entry and exit points. It was primarily these points that had to be monitored. This would substantially reduce though not altogether eliminate the supply of weapons.

The main entry points for the countries bordering Afghanistan (China was not included in our assessment because it only has a 76 kilometre border with Afghanistan) were: (i) Peshawar-Torkham-Kabul and Quetta-Chaman-Kandahar for Pakistan; (ii) Meshed-Islam Qila-Herat and Zahidan-Zabul-Zaranj (Nimroz) for Iran; (iii) Ashgabat-Mary-Khushka/Torghundi for Turkmenistan; (iv) Guzar-Shirabad-Tirmiz-Hairatan for Uzbekistan, and; (v) Dushanbe-Kurgan-Sher Khan Bander plus Dushanbe-Darwaz-Faizabad for Tajikistan.

In addition, because a substantial amount of military supplies was being airlifted, our recommendation was that monitors should be stationed in eleven specified airfields, if the ground situation in Afghanistan permitted. Furthermore, as weapons were also being ferried across the Amu Darya, we proposed the placement of monitors at Dali-Shor and Pakhar-Moskovskiy in Tajikistan.

The total cost of the operation for a two-year period worked out to no more than $28 million. This inexpensive and easy-to-implement plan was ignored by Brahimi and the flow of weapons to Afghanistan increased. The international community routinely reiterated the need for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan but did nothing to end or reduce the intensification of the fighting which only an arms embargo could have ensured.

The hitherto non-existent peace process is unlikely to get off the ground and without a small international military presence the regime in Kabul will probably collapse. Afghanistan would then be on course for a protracted and merciless conflict. An arms embargo may become necessary. Pakistan’s paper on the subject, which is available at the Foreign Office, should be updated and deliberated at the CCNS. The alternative is unparalleled violence even by Afghan standards.

The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly.

Email: iftimurshed@gmail.com