REARVIEW MIRROR

By Elliot Epstein

President Obama’s difficulty in explaining to the American people the need to expand the Afghan War stems from the fact that the war is not about Afghanistan at all.
For nearly two centuries, wars in Afghanistan have been a function of geopolitics — great powers pursuing a strategy of keeping their enemies out of this sensitive region, which lies at the crossroads of Russia, China, India and the Middle East.

Though it’s not politic for a U.S. president, let alone a Nobel Prize winner, to say so, the current war is really a continuation of what British diplomats used to call the “Great Game.”
An exclusionary strategy, rather than a desire to possess or improve the lot of Afghanistan, has been the driving force behind every foreign intervention there, including the U.S. invasion of 2001.

Contrary to its public rhetoric, the United States has little intrinsic interest in lifting Afghanistan out of poverty or making it into a democracy. Though we have labored for eight years to establish a stable political regime and train a competent national army and police force, not to mention constructing numerous schools, hospitals and development projects, these are not acts of kindness but only tactical means to achieve a larger goal.

The goal is to create a government strong enough to deny Al-Qaida a base to train recruits, plan operations or launch missions against Americans, the U.S. homeland or Pakistan. Lately, safeguarding Pakistan has assumed increasing importance, since an Al-Qaida takeover of Pakistan would place nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatics who are not only our sworn enemies but implacable foes of more moderate Islamic rulers in the Gulf oil states.

Even the prospect of a restored Taliban government in Kabul could not justify continued U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, but for the fact that the Taliban has developed such a close bond with Al-Qaida.

The Taliban, a homegrown movement, was formed in 1994 to put an end to the civil war which had wracked Afghanistan for five years. Unlike Al-Qaida, the Taliban did not have worldwide aspirations. However, its leaders were willing to provide safe haven to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization after their expulsion from Sudan.

The U.S invasion was precipitated by our inability to persuade the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and expel Al-Qaida following the 9/11 attack, not our opposition to the regime’s brutish conduct towards its own citizens.

America’s efforts to keep Al-Qaida out of Afghanistan are reminiscent of the way other great powers have tried to prevent their enemies from gaining a foothold there. Each, in turn, has encountered similar problems.

The country is intensely tribal and xenophobic and has traditionally lacked a strong central government. In the absence of a foreign occupying force, indigenous factions tend to wage war against one another. In the presence of an occupier, they tend to unite in shifting coalitions to fight the foreigner. The country’s inaccessible, mountainous terrain lends itself to guerilla operations against an occupation force.

In 1839, a British imperial army, with fewer than 10,000 troops, seized control of Kabul, deposing its monarch and installing a puppet king. The British hadn’t really wanted to occupy Afghanistan. They had hoped instead to maintain the country as an independent ally to serve as a buffer for the northwest frontier of India, the jewel of the British imperial crown. But Britain feared its enemy, Czarist Russia, was plotting to forge an alliance with the reigning Afghan king as part of a southward expansion towards India, so it launched a pre-emptive strike.

Like later great powers, Britain found Afghanistan easier to swallow than to digest. A savage uprising by the Afghans in 1841-42 temporarily drove the British out of Afghanistan. About 12,000 soldiers, administrators and civilians were slaughtered, many after they had been provided a guarantee of safe passage. Violence against the British flared again in 1878-80 and 1919.

In 1979, the Soviet Russia invaded Afghanistan for similar reasons. That year a pro-Soviet Afghan regime was overthrown in an internal coup. The coup’s leader was viewed by Moscow as unreliable. It feared his harshly repressive tactics would strengthen anti-Soviet factions in the country and, worse, that he might be plotting to establish links with China, the U.S.S.R.’s enemy.

Soviet leaders had great misgivings about becoming militarily enmeshed in Afghanistan, but their desire to keep China out overrode that caution. In December 1979, therefore, they invaded with 100,000 troops to depose the existing regime and impose a more trustworthy one.

The invasion triggered a prolonged guerrilla resistance by Afghan rebels, known as “mujahedeen,” who were covertly armed and financed by the CIA and Saudi Arabia. As a result, the Soviet army became bogged down in Afghanistan for a decade, suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties and almost 15,000 deaths, finally withdrawing in humiliation in 1989.

The U.S. invasion of 2001 quickly routed Taliban and Al-Qaida resistance, but American troops and resources were soon diverted by the Iraq War, giving Taliban fighters a chance to regroup and return in 2006. They have now attained a significant foothold in as much as 75 percent of the country. Many Afghans have thrown in their lot in with the Taliban or are standing on the sidelines, waiting to see which side prevails.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai, though he looks statesmanlike in photo ops, heads a government which is clearly ineffective and corrupt. Without continued U.S. military presence, he would probably not last long. However, an American president who tries to prolong that presence will not last long either.

Unlike the British Empire of Victorian times or Soviet Russia in the 1970s, a U.S. leader has to be very sensitive to domestic public opinion in conducting a war. If the public turns against the war, he cannot withstand the political tide for long.

The 18-month deadline set by President Obama for drawing down American troops in Afghanistan is more a concession to a war-weary public than a realistic prediction of the time it would take to defeat the Taliban.

Over the next 18 months, the best that we hope for, aside from a miracle, is that the Karzai government succeeds in reaching some power-sharing arrangement with disaffected tribal groups and Taliban factions and that the Pakistanis make significant progress in their campaign to crush Al-Qaida within their borders.

The Great Game is drawing to a close, and we have don’t have many more moves left.

Elliott L. Epstein, a local attorney, is founder and board president of
Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community
College. He can be reached at epsteinelliott@yahoo.com