Afghanistan: history's crossroads
The US' war on terrorism is not just that - Afghanistan is also a crucial access
to the Central Asian oil reserves, concludes Varghese K George, considering
the country's strategic position and its consequently violent history
New Delhi, September 22
The echo of soldiers marching through the rough terrain of Afghanistan is a sight and sound familiar to the land. From the beginning of the recorded history, virtually no invader has left Afghanistan untouched. These expeditions were never to capture Afghanistan itself - Afghanistan had nothing that attracted invaders to it. It was the gateway for those wanted to plunder the rich Indian subcontinent: this strategic location made the country the theatre of many wars that changed the course of this region's history.
As a historian of Afghanistan writes, "The list of people and conquerors who have touched or influenced Afghan history reads like a roster of nearly every aggressive force that has been set loose in Asia over the past 4,000 years."
Even today, Western countries have strategic and economic interests in controlling Afghanistan. It is the only access to Central Asia, the calculated oil reserves of which will be largely required in the immediate future, given the fact that the West Asian oil wells are fast drying up. The battle that the US will fight on this terrain will not be aimed solely at eliminating "Islamic fundamentalism" but also to ultimately gain access to the oil fields of Central Asia.
Historically, Afghan was a gateway to India. For those who looked with lustful eyes on India's riches, Afghanistan was the entry point for their exploits. Once the British established their empire in the subcontinent, they also wanted control over Afghanistan to prevent the entry of others to the subcontinent. But no invader could, and in many cases did not want to, hold on to the barren mountains of Afghanistan. Scythians, Persians, Greek, Seljuk, Tartar and the Mongols plundered India through the Afghan door. After each wave of fresh invasion subsided, the Afghan territory remained with the Afghans.
At the beginning of the 16th century BC, the first great migration of Aryans swept across the rough terrains of Afghanistan, from their homeland in Central Asia, to the Indian plains. More than 2,400 years ago, Alexander the Great led his army up the valley of the Helmland, crossing the mighty range of the Hindukush into Central Asia. Two years later, he crossed these mountains again to win over Punjab. Mahamud of Ghazni made something like 17 expeditions into India through Afghanistan. Timur the Tartar also walked this way into India, ransacked Delhi and then turned to Central Asia. Babar, a descendant of Timur, overran India and founded the Mughal dynasty - that was in the 16th century BC. Babur's grave is in Kabul.
From this period, Babar's successors were faced with the necessity of maintaining Afghanistan as a buffer state against attacks from the Shahs of Persia to the West, and from the Uzbek rulers of Bukhara to the North. During Mughal times, Kabul and Kandahar were recognised as the keys to India, which they wanted to hold on to. The British, who followed the Mughals as rulers of India, maintained the same policy - to gain and maintain control over the Khyber Pass, a 53-km passage through the Hindukush mountains.
Even the name Hindukush has an Indian connection. Mediaeval traveller Ibn Battuta wrote in A D 1334, "The mountain is called Hindukush, since slave boys and girls who are brought from India die there in large numbers, as a result of the extreme cold." But there is at least one more theory about the origin of the name Hindukush. Soldiers of Alexander the Great termed these mountain ranges Indian Caucasus, and Hindukush is possibly a later corruption of this.
The British fought three wars with the Afghans between 1938 and 1919, all ending in disasters of varying magnitudes. Between 1838 and January 1842, they held on to Kabul. However, intensifying resistance forced them to leave. Assured of a safe passage, the British commander led about 700 Britons - soldiers, wives and children - 3,800 Indian troops, and more than 12,000 camp followers from the city. A trek through the snow- mountains to Peshawar was one to death for them. Only one man - a doctor - survived that journey to tell the tale! Once the British realised that conquering Afghanistan by force was difficult, they tried to set it up as a buffer state by granting extensive military and economic aid to its tribal rulers. In this, they were, to a large extent, successful.
After the end of the colonial period, Afghanistan was the theatre for a proxy war between the world's superpowers. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and others supplied and trained the anti-Soviet mujahideen forces. It is interesting to note that then American president Ronald Reagan was using the same idioms as Bush does today. For the US, the fight against the Soviets was one against the "evil empire". Their allies of those days are those they identify as "evil" today - the Taliban, including Osama bin Laden.
The Soviets left in 1989, and the Americans washed their hands off, but the war did not end. Various mujahideen forces began fighting among themselves for control of the country.
However, once the Central Asian oil reserves began to be seen as the possible substitute for the depleting Middle Eastern wells, Western attention in this region intensified again. American and Saudi oil firms wanted assured access to Central Asian reserves of oil and natural gas through Afghanistan. The Saudis and Americans thought Taliban would be the best bet to achieve this objective. They calculated that the Afghan State could be made economically viable from taxes that could come out of oil pipeline projects passing through the country. The state would be merely required to spread oil largesse among the tribes, and thus buy their loyalties, as is the case with all Gulf countries.
The Taliban, however, overturned these plans with its ingenious methods. In 1995, Unocal, a California based oil company, had signed a protocol with the Turkmenistan government to explore the prospects of constructing an oil pipeline to Pakistan through Afghan territory. The company described the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 1996 as "positive". But the Taliban refused to oblige the company, dashing the hopes of US corporates.
The first war of the 21st century will be as much to gain control of this strategic region, as it is to weed out "evil". But history doesn't favour the Americans - Afghan has remained bloody, but they have hardly lost a war. And they have fought to failure two of the biggest powers of their respective times - the British and the Soviets.
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