[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 15, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4381-S4382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AFGHANISTAN
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as the loya jirga process moves forward in
Afghanistan, all of us must realize that U.S. security depends on a
political solution in that far-away country that truly creates
functioning stability there. All of us know what the costs of an
unstable Afghanistan have been--those costs were delivered to us on
September 11.
A political solution in Afghanistan, in my opinion, cannot rely
solely on the Northern Alliance leaders who control many aspects of the
government today. While we have had numerous military successes in
Afghanistan, we must be as serious about our commitment to a truly
multi-ethnic political resolution to the country's current
ingovernability.
Last week, Dr. Marin Strmecki, a scholar on Afghanistan for the past
20 years, a fine intellectual who served on my staff many years ago,
wrote an excellent analysis in the National Review. I have much respect
for Dr. Strmecki's analysis and would urge my colleagues to read it. I
ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the National Review, May 20, 2002]
Winning, Truly, in Afghanistan
(By Marin J. Strmecki)
In late March, President Bush placed a call to Prime
Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy that led to the delay of
the departure from Rome of the former king of Afghanistan,
Zahir Shah. The king had wanted to return to his war-torn
country in the hope of reunifying it--but the U.S. had
credible information that there would be an attempt on his
life. The most dismaying aspect of this news was that the
ringleaders of the plan were members of the Northern
Alliance, an Afghan faction closely aligned with the U.S. and
propelled into Kabul by the U.S. rout of the Taliban.
This episode illustrates a growing danger: Despite having
won militarily in Afghanistan, the U.S. may still lose
politically. A complete victory would mean a pro-Western
government in Kabul, one that would mop up the remnants of
al-Qaeda and cooperate in the larger regional war. But if the
U.S. doesn't change its policies soon, radical Islamists
could end up in the driver's seat in Afghanistan.
The critical error came last fall, when U.S. officials
selected their principal Afghan allies. The Bush
administration opted against working with ``the Rome group,''
a faction of Western-oriented Afghans (including the former
king) who sought to recreate the country's moderate and
secular pre-1978 government. Though it had no forces in the
field, the Rome group could have rapidly mobilized
sympathetic commanders and fighters, particularly in Taliban
strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The U.S.
chose instead to ally itself with the Northern Alliance, a
faction supported by Iran and Russia and in control of about
10 percent of the country.
The Northern Alliance was a dubious choice. Two of its
principal leaders, Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul
Sayyaf, are major figures in the jihadist movement and were
close associates of Osama bin Laden in the 1980s. When
Rabbani served as president in the early 1990s, his
administration granted visas to the foreign elements of al-
Qaeda. Also, he and his party, Jamiat-i-Islami, sought to
seize dictatorial power, with his secret-police and interior
ministries, led by Qasim Fahim and Yunus Qanooni
respectively, killing thousands of members of other political
groups. Moreover, Rabbani's Tajik-led military forces carried
out atrocities against ethnic Pashtuns in many areas, abuses
that contributed greatly to the outbreak of the civil war out
of which the Taliban emerged.
Not surprisingly, when Northern Alliance forces rolled into
Kabul last fall, its leaders picked up where the Rabbani
government had left off. Rabbani himself reoccupied the
[[Page S4382]]
presidential palace and appointed ministers and governors,
all from his Islamist party. More troubling, the Northern
Alliance opened the doors to Russian and Iranian advisers and
intelligence operatives, who arrived in Kabul on a steady
stream of air transports. Fahim, now the defense minister,
garrisoned his forces in the capital and staffed the military
high command exclusively with his political cronies and
former Communist officers selected by his Russian allies.
Though international pressure forced the creation of a
coalition government in late December, all of the powerful
ministries--defense, interior, and foreign affairs--remained
in the hands of the Northern Alliance. Qanooni, again the
interior minister, and Fahim proceeded to use their power to
harass political opponents, with several senior officials
reportedly taking part in the assassination in January of a
cabinet minister associated with the Rome group.
The Northern Alliance's winner-take-all approach threatens
U.S. interests. First of all, the interim government has not
been much help to U.S. forces against al-Qaeda in the south
and east, where Pashtuns remember all too well the atrocities
of the Rabbani government and seek to hold the new government
at arm's length. Second, its Iranian allies have established
two Hezbollah-style clandestine networks, Sepah-e-Mohammed
and Sepah-e-Sahaba, to wage a campaign of Lebanon-style
attacks designed to bog down the U.S. or even force it to
withdraw. Third, Northern Alliance leaders have sought to
delay or subvert the scheduled June meeting of the national
assembly, or loya jirga, which is the key event in the
planned transition to a more representative government.
Fourth, if the dominance of the Northern Alliance persists,
the Pashtuns (40-45 percent of the population) could rise up
in a renewed civil war, and offer Pakistan's intelligence
service an opportunity to reestablish its pernicious practice
of supporting Taliban-style movements in Afghanistan.
The Bush administration must act carefully--but quickly.
First, the U.S. must assert itself as the dominant foreign
power in Afghanistan until the transition is completed (when
elections take place in about two years). Bush has made
excellent statements indicating that the U.S. will remain
engaged over the long haul. In practical terms, this means
that the U.S.--even as it moves on to other theaters--must
retain sufficient strike power in the region to cow the
Afghan factions. The U.S. also must check the roles of Russia
and Iran. Although Bush encouraged Russia's President Putin
to bolster the Northern Alliance as it fought to topple the
Taliban, he must now explain to Putin that stability can only
come from pluralism in an open political process--and that
Moscow needs to rein in its client. The U.S. must also insist
that the Afghan authorities cut off incoming flights from
Iran.
Second, the U.S. must signal a shift away from its
excessive reliance on the Northern Alliance. It should
emphasize the need to pluralize Afghan politics and to
distribute important cabinet seats more broadly: The stacking
of ministries with Northern Alliance Appointees--often
incompetent and in many cases illiterate--must not be allowed
to stand. The coalition should further insist that--with the
deployment of the International security assistance Force
(ISAF) in Kabul--Northern Alliance troops begin to be
redeployed back to their native provinces. At the same time,
the U.S. and its allies must try to level the playing field
for the loya jirga. Russia and Iran have provided vast
amounts of money to the Northern Alliance to buy political
support; the U.S. should assist pro-Western parties, just as
it did in Europe after World War II.
Third, the U.S. should insist that the loya jirga end the
current imbalance of power favoring the Northern Alliance. We
should also demand that every new minister be professionally
qualified for his position and that no minister have a
history of massive human-rights abuses. These criteria would
preclude reappointment of Qanooni and Fahim, who were deeply
involved in massacres in the early and mid 1990s. This step
is essential to opening a new chapter in Afghanistan's
troubled recent history.
Fourth, the U.S. should take the lead--but with the
smallest possible footprint--in solving the security problem
in Afghanistan. The ISAF should not be drawn into policing
Afghanistan. If its mission expands geographically, a larger
deployment--even one with as many as 20,000 additional
troops--would be spread so thinly as to be militarily
meaningless. The primary U.S. goal should be, rather, the
creation of professional, nonpolitical, and ethnically
balanced police and military services. This would require
playing an intrusive role in rebuilding Afghan security
services, similar to the one the U.S. played in El Salvador
in the 1980s. Qualified Afghan personnel are available, at
home and abroad, and many were not involved in factional
politics during the 1990s. Even before the defeat of the
Taliban, members of the Rome group had organized an
association of former officers of the Afghan armed forces
and police in anticipation of the need to rebuild the
government; the U.S. should use these professionals to
form core groups in each agency or service who would then
recruit and train their subordinates and line officers.
Because of its poverty, Afghanistan should have a military
limited to approximately 50,000 troops, though these forces
must have sufficient mobility to deploy rapidly anywhere in
the country. This limits the scope of the task of rebuilding
the armed forces, and the process could readily be completed
in two to three years. Only by creating such a professional
military force can the U.S. have a local ally sufficiently
able to hunt down remaining Taliban and al-Qaeda elements and
preclude their return after the U.S. moves on to other
theaters.
Fifth, the U.S. must be willing to fund the operations of
the Afghan government--and particularly its police and
military services--until its capacity to raise revenues has
been reestablished. Providing sufficient pay for troops is
crucial, because it enables the government to draw the best
personnel away from factional armies, such as those of the
Northern Alliance, and from regional warlords.
Together, these actions can, over time, secure a political
outcome commensurate with the victory won by American arms
last fall. But the adjustment in policy is badly needed. If
we stay on the present course, the most likely outcome is a
Northern Alliance-dominated government--a result that will
leave Islamists like Rabbani in power, extend Iranian and
Russian influence, and set the stage for renewed civil war
when Pakistan eventually reengages in Afghanistan's politics.
If the United States wisely recalibrates, it can establish a
moderate and pro-Western state in Afghanistan, an outcome
that will have a powerful and unmistakable demonstration
effect for those who seek positive political change in the
members of the Axis of Evil.
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