Working With Warlords

Pop Quiz: Who is the leader of Afghanistan? If you said, “Hamid Karzai,” you are wrong. Although Karzai enjoys the title “chairman” and mingles with other heads of state, he is nothing more than the glorified mayor of Kabul. Even a few miles beyond the capital, Afghanistan is ruled by an assortment of war heroes, freedom fighters, thugs, rapists and war criminals euphemistically known as “warlords.”

It was their kind of lawlessness and banditry that afflicted Afghanistan during the few years between the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the Taliban takeover in 1996. The victorious Mujahideen had successfully repelled the Soviet occupation, but left to themselves, the various factions could not come together to form a government. What followed was a bloody descent into anarchy. Kabul—virtually the only part of Afghanistan left intact by the bitter jihad against the Soviets—was subsequently shelled to the ground by the “liberators.” Life in the capital city was made so miserable that the people actually welcomed a one-eyed mullah named Mohammed Omar when he rode into town with his band of bearded ruffians.

Now, with Mullah Omar and the Taliban gone, the same group of warlords—minus a few notable exceptions—are back to their old tricks. Do not be fooled by those pictures of Hamid Karzai posing with George Bush and Tony Blair. Everyone in Afghanistan knows that real power resides with people like Rashid Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek warlord who controls Mazar-i-Sharif; Ishmael Khan, ruler of Herat and recipient of Iranian tanks and money; and the exiled Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a religious fanatic who currently resides in Iran but who is rumored to be staging a comeback.

Hekmatyar and Dostum make Mullah Omar look like a Girl Scout. While he was prime minister of Afghanistan in a coalition government, Hekmatyar systematically shelled residential neighborhoods in Kabul. Dostum is well known in the region for torturing enemies, and journalists are already alleging that Dostum has been ethnically cleansing ethnic Pashtuns from his domain of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Unsavory characters as they are, the warlords have often served U.S. interests. But they are a slippery bunch. From the American perspective, the warlords fought bravely against the Soviets from 1979 to 1989 but then went astray following the Soviet defeat. From the American perspective, the warlords fought bravely against the Taliban, but now that the Taliban has been ostensibly defeated, it is unlikely that the warlords will turn in their tanks and rocket launchers for desk jobs.

The Bonn Agreement was supposed to establish an interim government representative of all of the diverse anti-Taliban groups in Afghanistan in order to appease all of the major warlords. However, shortly before international forces arrived in Kabul last winter, the largest faction in the “Northern Alliance”—the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-e-Islami party—took over and occupied the capital. In exchange for withdrawing their forces from Kabul, Jamiat-e-Islami received the choicest cabinet positions, including the foreign, interior and defense ministries.

I have nothing against Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, Interior Minister Younis Qanooni or Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim. These three young disciples of deceased Afghan hero Ahmed Shah Massood impressed Western diplomats at the Bonn Conference and are probably among the most reliable warlords. The problem is that the Tajiks’ preponderance in the government makes other warlords very unhappy. And an unhappy warlord is often an unfriendly warlord.

Most of the warlords have been on their best behavior. When our armed forces leave, however, it will be a completely different story. The Afghan government will have even less authority outside the capital. And it will be even more difficult for the United Nations and other relief organizations to provide aid.

The proper thing to do would be to remove the warlords from power. But that would require tremendous force. The Soviets had hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan, yet they were never able to gain full control of the country. Now that U.S. and Northern Alliance forces have dismantled al Qaeda’s Afghanistan operation, Washington is looking to pack up and leave, not expand the force. The remaining foreign soldiers, comprising an International Security Assistance Force led by Britain, is only 4,800 strong and its mandate is limited to Kabul. Both Karzai and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have repeatedly requested more troops, but Washington has consistently refused.

The Soviets lost more than 50,000 well-trained soldiers in Afghanistan. Getting rid of a warlord like Dostum or Khan might be even harder than defeating the Taliban. When U.S. forces fought the Taliban, they had the support of all the warlords because everybody despised Mullah Omar and Co. But these warlords have a knack for forging alliances—even among enemies, especially when foreigners try to impose their will on Afghanistan. Just ask the Russians.

The real trick will be to effectively discriminate between the good warlords and the bad ones, and provide assistance to leaders like Hamid Karzai, as well as the Tajik disciples of the late Ahmed Shah Massood. The U.S. must work with the new Afghan government to bring dependable chieftains, tribal elders and warlords under the umbrella of the state. It must then ensure that countries like Iran, Tajikistan and Pakistan cut off all aid to belligerent warlords like Dostum and Hekmatyar.

Afghanistan is more than just Kabul. The same cast of characters that ravaged Afghanistan in the post-Soviet, pre-Taliban days are still holding the guns. If the international community does not develop an effective strategy for dealing with these characters, then do not be surprised if Afghanistan lapses back into anarchy.

Nader R. Hasan ’02 is a government concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.