A common enemy

[RAENORTH]

As we left our continuing romp though the history of Afghanistan, we had seen the death of the "Iron Amir", Abdur Raḥman, in 1901. From his bloody reign, we see the continuation of the tribal rivalry, the oppression of the Ghilzai by a Durrani ruler from the "new" capital of Kabul, bolstered by Tajik and other northern tribes. We also see the enforced resettlement of Ghilzai Pashtuns north of the Hindu Kush, areas which have now become foci of Taliban activity, and we also saw the active intervention of the British which not only supported this despot, but honoured him with the insignia of the highest grade of the Order of the Star of India. The British thus became part of the problem.

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[therewaslight]

Well done. Logical and fascinating reading - almost makes you think you can predict the future. Certainly now makes claims that "Afghanistan is too complex to understand" a load of bullshit.

Of course, an analysis such as yours is not easy and before you did it Afghanistan was too complex to understand. Nethertheless I fear Afghanistan will always be too complex to understand to a bureaucrat trained to view multicultural society as the natural end-point of human destiny.


You are right to fear war from a pull out - but the current Afghanistan constitution is not tailored to promote peace. It's on a road that leads to coups and counter coups, and "civil war" (a misnomer because the ethnicities are not all competing to control all of Afghanistan, I think they would be happy with their own ethnic-dominated regions).

Conflict occurs between the ethnicities (not "civilians") because there is only one seat of power for all the different groups. If you have multiple seats of power, you can employ three times the number of government staff and buy off all those people who would otherwise rise up and revolt.

[Daffersd]

An excellent overview once more, again I knew most of this, I do not disagree with the tribal and ethnic reasons for conflict in Afghanistan, which is why I suggested that we split Afghanistan between the northern alliance and the Pashtun where the Taliban seems to be mostly entwined with Pashtun nationalism, as far as I am concerned conflict is the natural order of things there. The only difference is the question of reach as proved by 9/11, the issue of how to deal with a country or area that enable Al Queda will not go away unless they realise that it is NOT in their interest to assist Al Queda, but it needs an attitude of a bloody big stick and a certain number of carrots to get there...

In terms of how quickly the country degenerated into war, one must understand that once any ruler is defined as un-Islamic their end is certain, the fundaementalists then have a field day and off we go. Same thing happened in Iran...

The Young Afghans and the Jihad against the British is very similar to events in Saudi Arabia when the Saudi King had a clear out of the Islamic hot heads, in Afghanistan it was to take on the British, note that he then became un-Islamic, because he needed to turn the people away from the control of the tribal Islamic hot heads.

The natural order of control in terms of the strategy, people gain something and then they do not want to lose it, dealing with the Pashtun will become more of a let them have most of what they want, but then threaten to take it away or damage it if they allow Al Queda to do anything. Having the Northern alliance always there waiting as a threat helps, but it really depends whether the Pashtuns wish to dominate the other tribes, certainly as the vanguard of Islamic extremists they will, but if the hot heads were removed, who knows? Certainly there will be a large segment of Taliban who are into the global Caliphate concept and they are dangerous.

Rumsfeld as far as I am concerned realised all this, sadly other agendas screwed it up, like the Euro peace and love fanatics...

[dhboater]

A very interesting and enjoyable read.I only hope that some of our Politicians will read it.

[RAENORTH]

An excellent overview once more, again I knew most of this, I do not disagree with the tribal and ethnic reasons for conflict in Afghanistan, which is why I suggested that we split Afghanistan between the northern alliance and the Pashtun where the Taliban seems to be mostly entwined with Pashtun nationalism, as far as I am concerned conflict is the natural order of things there.

The trouble is, you could not stop there. Balochistan would not accept Pashtun rule, and then there are the Hazaras, who seem to be butchered by both the northern and the southern tribes. What would become of them?

[therewaslight]

Another idea I had was to turn Afghanistan/Pakistan into one "country" with a constitution similar to that of the 1971 United Arab Emirates. Give Sind, Balochistan, Pashtun regions, Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks and Punjabis their own regional governments but just have one army, controlled by Islamabad.

Part of the problem in the India/Pakistan conflict is Pakistan is weak which allows India to destablise and prevents resolution of the Kashmir issue. India, being the larger, richer, stronger state, would be able to cope with a "United Asia Emirates" more though because it will be anything but united. Hence the devolved UAE type constitution.

[Daffersd]

The trouble is, you could not stop there. Balochistan would not accept Pashtun rule, and then there are the Hazaras, who seem to be butchered by both the northern and the southern tribes. What would become of them?

This is the issue, you start to meddle by having a moral foriegn policy instead of one that is in the best interests of western or UK national defence, the Hazaras are Shia, so that becomes an issue in the Shia / Sunni conflict and will bring Iran into the conflict, or give them something else to focus on..., before I realised what Islam was I was a multi-culturist, but then I realised that it needs two to tango, so a part of me thinks that they should be helped, but another part of me see them as Islamics and part of the fault line within Islam which is a good thing. Balochistan would be an issue, I think it would have to be under the Pashtuns because of where they are, sad but that is the way it is, the natural gas will of course make it an important region, again turn their focus inwards.

therewaslight, you are ignoring the Islam / Hindu fault line within India itself in terms of India's own strength, but in terms of a UAE setup it has merit and is an interesting idea, but we will need to take the sting out of the fanatics somehow to make that work and of course the Pashtuns will need to accept that they will not be overlords as such... I cannot see that they will accept the army as being controlled by Islamabad, because they are more secular, again we need to take te sting out of the extremists somehow to stop them being defined as un-Islamic...

[therewaslight]

in terms of a UAE setup it has merit and is an interesting idea, but we will need to take the sting out of the fanatics somehow to make that work and of course the Pashtuns will need to accept that they will not be overlords as such...

Don't need to "accept" anything. Just leave them alone.

I cannot see that they will accept the army as being controlled by Islamabad, because they are more secular, again we need to take te sting out of the extremists somehow to stop them being defined as un-Islamic...

Pashtuns don't seek control of the Pakistani army... they just want to shoot people, because it's fun.

[Daffersd]

Still concerned about that large group of Al Queda influenced Taliban that are likely to join the effort to create a Caliph and attack the West, need to thin them out a bit and having them wasted in trying to storm the northern mountains makes me happy... As for the nukes I guess that is why you wanted to the main army under Islamabad? Anyway if we had a cold realpolitik type leader who knew when to use a big stick this would be the perfect approach, our lot only understand how to drop large carrots and wave a large stick around their own butts!!!!

[Brian E]

I think the current mistake in Afghanistan is to try to form a unified government. It would have been better to have adopted the approach used in colonial India, to support the local tribal chiefs (Princes) and leave them to keep order on their patch. In general terms, we left them to run theirstate in their own way with oursupport when ncessary, and they in turn did broadly what we wanted, else we kicked them out. OK, not democracy, but it largely kept the peace.

[RAENORTH]

I think the current mistake in Afghanistan is to try to form a unified government. It would have been better to have adopted the approach used in colonial India, to support the local tribal chiefs (Princes) and leave them to keep order on their patch. In general terms, we left them to run theirstate in their own way with oursupport when ncessary, and they in turn did broadly what we wanted, else we kicked them out. OK, not democracy, but it largely kept the peace.

What seems to emerge from Afghan history is that unless there is either a common enemy or a strong, repressive central government, the ethnic groups go to war with each other and there is massive bloodletting. Normal metrics of governance do not seem to apply to Afghanistan.

[therewaslight]

They - Pashtun, Hazara and Tajik, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrgyz and Balochi don't even share a common language (Pashto, Dari both, Uzbek, Turkmen, Kyrgyz and Balochi).

Afghanistan as conceived as a state is a fiction of the Western mind. It never is, was or will be a state... just crumbs from the tables of the giants that surround it.

[permanentexpat]

Inter alia, Daffersd, whose admirable encyclopaedic knowledge doesn't extend to reigning in an astonishing arrogance, writes:

......which is why I suggested that we split Afghanistan between the northern alliance and the Pashtun.....

We?...We??? From whence come these delusions that it is 'our' country to do with what we please?...or even a recalcitrant colony?
It is this type of thinking which must be only too well known among the disparate natives in the region & which compounds our problems there.
We...should get out.

[Daffersd]

We?...We??? From whence come these delusions that it is 'our' country to do with what we please?...or even a recalcitrant colony?
It is this type of thinking which must be only too well known among the disparate natives in the region & which compounds our problems there.
We...should get out.Inter alia, Daffersd, whose admirable encyclopaedic knowledge doesn't extend to reigning in an astonishing arrogance, writes:

......which is why I suggested that we split Afghanistan between the northern alliance and the Pashtun.....

We?...We??? From whence come these delusions that it is 'our' country to do with what we please?...or even a recalcitrant colony?
It is this type of thinking which must be only too well known among the disparate natives in the region & which compounds our problems there.
We...should get out.

I quite understand your point of view, what I was saying is that while there is a group of people who want to play holy war against us then it is in our national self interest to make sure that they cannot, other than that I would leave them to their own devices, you could say that this is the same arrogance as them defining how we live, personally I would seperate us from them completely if I could, but you cannot ignore the lessons of 9/11, if they have any intention to attack us then we must make sure that they see it as a major mistake resulting in massive retaliation, only then can we leave them alone. I take the Byzantium point of view on these people.

[cause4concern]

An excellent overview once more, again I knew most of this, I do not disagree with the tribal and ethnic reasons for conflict in Afghanistan, which is why I suggested that we split Afghanistan between the northern alliance and the Pashtun where the Taliban seems to be mostly entwined with Pashtun nationalism, as far as I am concerned conflict is the natural order of things there.

The trouble is, you could not stop there. Balochistan would not accept Pashtun rule, and then there are the Hazaras, who seem to be butchered by both the northern and the southern tribes. What would become of them?

And further more, the pipeline running through both these proposed separatist nations (it runs, north to south.... not exactly) would require separate negotiations for handling charges. Currently half the Afghan budget is from the rental of the pipeline. Perhaps evidence for the 'free Baluchistan' as a red herring. for the pipeline also passes Quetta (regional capital) in Baluchistan, Pakistan. All these separate countries would require fees for transit of Gas, makes sense to deal with one central administration...

Although, the requirement of certain co-operation could infact facilitate a break up and end the regional power struggle if everyone is getting a slice of the action; but who knows...

A hostile and independent Baliuchistan (in fact in southern Afghanistan, the separatists are reported to have local Pashtun backing...) would create a barrier to any revival of a pipeline through Iran, Pakistan and into India from the Gulf fields... but then with Quetta part of Balochi territory (assuming secession) Pakistan would be out of the loop...