Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Intelligence Brief: Afghanistan

17 May 2005

As the spotlight on global politics has shifted temporarily to possible nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, and to Washington's crusade for worldwide market democracy, events in Afghanistan have thrown Washington back to unresolved problems stemming from the "war on terrorism."

Protests Spell Popular Resistance

Over the past month, as spring has set in, military resistance against the government of Hamid Karzai has spiked in Afghanistan, with armed clashes between U.S. occupation forces and a resurgent Taliban and the militia of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, prompting the Karzai administration to issue an amnesty offer to all insurgents, including Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Hekmatyar, against Washington's wishes.

That discontent with Karzai and his Western backers runs deeper in Afghan society than the "remnants" of the Taliban was made clear by unruly protests throughout the Pashtun-speaking east of the country, led by students angered by reports that operatives at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention camp had flushed a copy of the Quran down a toilet as part of their interrogation procedure.

In Jalalabad on May 11, rioters shouting "Death to America" stoned a U.S. convoy, attacked the buildings of United Nations agencies and stormed the Pakistani consulate. By May 12, the protests had spread to ten provinces, including the north of the country, where support for the Taliban is weak, and into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Civil disorder continued into May 13, with deaths and injuries mounting from the efforts of security forces to quell the riots and demonstrations.

The intensity and scope of the protests caught Washington by surprise, yet they should have been anticipated. The Newsweek report of Quran desecration, from which the magazine has backed off, was simply a trigger that released pent-up frustration with the Karzai government -- especially the slow pace of post-war reconstruction -- and hostility toward the U.S. military presence among wide segments of the Afghan population.

The Afghan government blamed "outsiders" for the disorder, but analysts disagreed. As the catch-all formula for resistance to unpopular governments and Western intervention throughout the Muslim world, Islamism is especially deeply rooted in Afghanistan, where the Taliban grew out of a student movement. The protests were too dispersed and improvised to have been centrally coordinated. Instead, they represented a new element of popular resistance, added to the persisting guerrilla insurgencies.

Always a decentralized state -- whatever its formal constitution -- Afghanistan contains many political forces that welcome weakness and instability in the Karzai government. In addition to the Taliban and Hekmatyar's supporters are the regional governors, warlords and opium traffickers that are bound together into local networks that link up loosely to pursue common aims. Islamism is the ideological glue that holds them together, providing an emotional basis for popular mobilization that rationalizes and provides a cover for more concrete interests -- religion, political power and economic gain work in tandem. [See: "Afghanistan's Transition: Decentralization or Civil War"]

The emergence of popular resistance to the Karzai government and the U.S. occupation portends serious difficulties ahead for Washington's plans to have the regime in Kabul achieve effective control over Afghanistan, including bringing regional authorities into cooperation with the central government, disarming the warlords and curbing the narcotics trade.

Entrenched opposition interests have created chronic instability in Afghanistan that has hobbled reconstruction. It is now likely that a vicious circle is setting in: popular discontent with the economy provides increased support for the opposition, which, in turn, encourages popular resistance under the banner of Islam, ratcheting up instability and further retarding reconstruction.

As Afghanistan enters a new phase of political turmoil, Washington might soon be faced with the difficult choice of pouring more military and economic resources into the country in order to prop up Karzai and avert a slide into fragmentation, or looking on as the slide gathers momentum, carrying with it the possibility of a rebirth of Islamist influence and, perhaps, dominance.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice responded to the disturbances with a statement that Washington does not countenance religious intimidation and a promise that there would be a thorough investigation of the reports and that appropriate disciplinary action would be taken if misconduct at Guantanamo was proven.

Rice's assurances are unlikely to sway any of the forces opposed to Karzai and Washington; the opposition will be emboldened to play the Islamist card, thwarting Washington's goal of a moderate centralized regime in Kabul.

Response in the Muslim World

The protests in Afghanistan have not only revealed the failures of nation building in that country; they were also a major setback for Washington's efforts at public diplomacy in the Muslim world.

By May 13, protests over the alleged Quran desecration had spread to Palestine and Indonesia, and the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference had publicly expressed their concern. On May 14, Yemen and the Arab League joined the denunciations, and demonstrations continued to proliferate, indicating the strength of popular anti-U.S. sentiment and the need of governments ruling large Muslim populations and the organizations linking those regimes to respond to that hostility.

The Bottom Line

Although Washington has been claiming that the uptick in military resistance in Afghanistan is a last-ditch effort by cornered die-hards, the protests in that country against alleged Quran desecration at Guantanamo reveal that deeper and persisting problems with reconstruction are growing more severe, threatening not only Washington's plans for Afghanistan, but also its already tarnished image in the Muslim world.

Report Drafted By:
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein



The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an independent organization that utilizes open source intelligence to provide conflict analysis services in the context of international relations. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of [e-mail]. All comments should be directed to [e-mail].



http://www.pinr.com/