Endgame in Afghanistan

Impressive as the Taliban’s relentless march has been after their emergence in 1994, they are still some way from consolidating themselves. And they are very far from proving that they represent all ethnic groups in the country, as Pakistan’s Foreign Minister concludes on the basis of nothing more than the latest military excursions.

True, disarray and rebellions in the camp of the once formidable Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostam, have forced him to retreat and this represents a major setback to the forces opposed to the Taliban. But little authentic information is available about the condition and intentions of the two opponents who still remain in the field, the forces of Ahmed Shah Masood, the Tajik commander who was supporting President Burhanuddin Rabbani, and the Hezb-e-Wahdat, a Shia faction.

A wait-and-see policy is the only sensible option for the rest of the world. The post-Cold War period has yielded more than one example of severe internal and external complications caused by premature efforts to legitimise one warring faction against another. The Taliban regime has warned Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan against any kind of interference; Russia, in turn, has warned against carrying the civil war into the territories of the Central Asian states. These are pointers to the potential for trouble on a wider scale, which even a small accident can trigger, unless restraint is observed on all sides.

Apart from everything else, the nature of the present outfit in Kabul is such that international recognition ought not to be so freely bestowed on it as to be interpreted as endorsement of its oppressive social policies. No one can afford to be blind to the fact that religious fundamentalism is taking Afghanistan backwards and is likely to have an unfavourable impact in the neighbourhood as well.

The political stability Afghanistan desperately needs can only grow out of a broad-based government representing ethnic and religious interests as well as modernising elements in its society. The Taliban’s leaders who, given their training in a theology school, have demonstrated a surprising amount of political savvy, have not yet shown they understand the importance of reconciliation and the art of governance in the modern age. Perhaps, when the current round of battles is over they intend to turn their attention to such crucial matters. But if Afghanistan’s factions are not brought together under some form of a truly representative government, civil war looks like going on and on.