The challenge of Afghanistan's House of Warlords

SOME countries need to be seen from the air. On the flight from Kabul to Herat, mountains stretch away on every side. In the midday heat, they are molten yellow before turning ochre in the late afternoon and purple with the twilight. It is a rock landscape of great geological antiquity, in which humanity seems a recent and transient presence. This is not only due to the aesthetic unworthiness of the human race in the midst of such primeval grandeur. The high places of Afghanistan are as inhospitable as they are beautiful.

In the few valley bottoms, there is greenery. On the mountainsides, there appears to be hardly enough vegetation to nourish a scrawny goat. Yet men have lived there and invaders have attempted to subjugate them - to which the awestruck observer in the aircraft cockpit can only respond "how" and "why". Those hows and whys have shaped the Afghan’s history.

This is a country for social Darwinism. Here, the survival of the fittest is not a biological theory. It is the first law of existence. Afghan Darwinism has produced a wiry, fighting race: men capable of great endurance, as strong in will as in body. It is as if the fierce fight for life has bred impatience with constraint, insistence on freedom. If Afghans can hold off the challenge of nature, why should they fear anything from men?

Nature has imposed a further curse upon the country. The bleak land is ideal for one crop: the poppy. According to UN estimates, the farm-gate value of Afghanistan’s poppy crop in 2003 was about $1 billion (£560 million). The middlemen and refiners made about another $1.5 billion before the stuff left the country. That is half Afghanistan’s GDP and provides around three-quarters of the world’s supply of heroin.

The Taleban almost destroyed the heroin trade, but westerners could hardly emulate their brutal use of Sharia law. This also helped minimise their popular support: one reason the invasion went so smoothly. We were told about the province of Ghor. Three years ago, it was one of the most poverty-stricken regions on earth, dependent on food aid. Now, Ghor is so awash with money that there is a problem with inflation. The reason: once the Taleban were thrown out, the poppy harvest resumed.

There is a further complication. Afghanistan is deeply divided along tribal lines. Some of the principal groupings: Pashtun (Pathan) in the south, Uzbeks and Tadjiks in the north, straddle international boundaries. None of these tribes is willing to accept rule from Kabul. They are much more likely to think of Kabul as a possible source of loot.

The tribes throw up warlords, who win their followers’ allegiance by a combination of hereditary claim, and prowess in battle. They are best compared to Scottish clan chiefs in the middle ages. Over the millennia, conflict and blood feuds have been endemic. If Afghanistan had a national motto, it ought to be "bellum omnium contra omnes": the war of all against all. The warlords still exercise great power and territorial control. Their tribes have little taste for stability: still less, for foreign rule.

Thus successive imperialists have discovered, from Alexander the Great via the British Raj to the Soviet Union. There are passes through the mountains and plateaux on which cities have been built, including Herat and Kabul. With sufficient force, they can be captured.

Then the conqueror realises that he has marched into a trap. The foes up in the rocks are only waiting for the opportunity to hurl down the mountain’s wrath upon him and terminate his brief rule in blood and bones.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
An’ the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle an’ blow out your brains,
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Afghan women had more fun in Kipling’s day than they do now. Outside the cities, with the possible exception of the Afghan donkey, the Afghan female is one of the most maltreated beasts of burden in the world.

When the US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in the late autumn of 2001, there seemed no reason to believe that Kipling was obsolete. "Operation Enduring Freedom" was the mission’s title, but the Afghans had their version of enduring freedom which owed nothing to foreigners. It was necessary to overthrow the Taleban and prevent al-Qaeda using the country as a training camp. But it was surely fatuous to believe that the Afghans would accept our notions of freedom. So instead of indulging fantasies about freedom, we should have bribed friendly warlords to do most of the fighting for us, stayed close to the big cities, and made sure that the helicopters were braced for a quick exit. Then wait for a propitious moment before declaring a victory and clearing out. That used to be my assessment of Afghanistan.

Then, a few weeks ago, I met General Jim Jones, the American who is Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Saceur). Rarely has there been such harmony between a man’s role and his physique.

A former commandant of the marine corps, Gen Jones is 6ft 5in in his crew cut with a face that appears to have been carved in granite. Jim Jones makes John Wayne look like a ladies’ hairdresser.

But that impression could mislead. A thinking soldier as well as a fighting one, he spent his first few years in Paris and speaks excellent French. The granite features frequently sparkle with laughter. Very senior British officers hold him in the highest esteem. This is a mensch.

Where Afghanistan is concerned, he is also an optimist. He invited me to come with him and see why. As Saceur, he is responsible for ISAF - the International Security Assistance Force - which has over 6,400 men drawn from 34 nationalities, the bulk of them in NATO. Some of the responsibilities formally exercised by Enduring Freedom have been taken over by ISAF, principally around Kabul. It liaises closely with aid agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are promoting Afghan development. As the name suggests, ISAF is meant to mark the transition between peace-making and peace-keeping. General Jones has said that it ought to think of itself as an NGO in uniform.

There are hopeful signs. President Hamid Karzai and his ministers not only talk of economic development and free trade; they seem to mean it. One-stop shops for opening businesses with foreigners allowed 100 per cent ownership; minimal import duties on capital goods; low taxes; on hearing all this, some American businessmen whom Gen Jones had also brought with him moved from scepticism to caution. While none of them was about to invest his pension fund in Afghanistan, none of them felt that the trip was a waste of time. Dr Karzai was also eloquent on the need to curtail the poppy crop, even if he did not how to achieve this. He is also keen to hold an election, currently scheduled for late September; 4.2 million voters are already registered. But he will need more NATO troops to ensure it can take place. Gen Jones would be delighted to help, if the NATO nations would supply the men.

There are suggestions that the West, and Dr Karzai, are benefiting from war weariness. In the 30 years up to Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan had suffered from constant warfare. It may be that even Afghans eventually tire of killing and being killed. In the south and south-east, there is still trouble, with al-Qaeda guerrillas emerging from their havens across the porous border with Pakistan. But even if his critics insist that he is not president of Afghanistan but only mayor of Kabul, there is a sense that Dr Karzai and ISAF have a certain amount of precarious momentum. This is giving them the chance to build up the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the police force. Both are still tiny; the army under 10,000 men, the police under 20,000. But the aim is to increase the armies’ size to 70,000 by 2010. The ANA’s recruits are natural fighters, but they have a lot to learn about discipline.

Gen Jones was keen to encourage the ANA. As he told the men of ISAF: "We are here to work ourselves out of a job." For the foreseeable future, however, ISAF will have a role and its odd assortment of forces from 34 nations is less than ideal. No small force has ever been so diverse.

There was no time to visit the British ISAF contingent and easily the most impressive troops that we did encounter were the French. Some of them abseiled down the side of a building like monkeys. They no doubt eat cheese. But surrender was not on their agenda. These were Gaullists, not Vichyites.

It may have helped that their CO was Colonel Jerome Lockhart, of Scots-American descent. A few French Legionnaires were attached to their battalion, including a British NCO who was politely unwilling to talk about himself. When men join the Legion, it is never clear what they are running away from, or towards. But they are first-class soldiers.

We then moved to Herat, to see a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in action. The half a dozen PRTs come under Enduring Freedom, though their role has much more in common with ISAF. Judging by what we saw, their performance was disappointing. A PRT consists of around 120 men, some of them involved in security duties while others are promoting local projects, often liaising with NGOs. PRT commanders have a budget of $500,000 to $1 million a month for aid work and building projects. In Afghanistan, that is a lot of money.

The danger is that without a strategy, it will dribble away, and there were too few signs of strategy: too many of risk aversion. In Herat, we passed a football pitch. One visiting English officer groaned. "Still in mourning?" I enquired. "No, it’s not that. If we were here, we’d be playing soccer with the locals. That’s what ought to be happening." One senior US visitor asked a PRT commander how he spent his day. The question seemed to bewilder the poor chap, who gave a stumbling reply. The inference was clear; the days spent him.

Running a PRT ought to be an exciting challenge for an able officer. Ideally, the PRT’s troops ought to get out of helmets and half-tracks, into berets and soft-skin vehicles. The risks are self-evident, but anyone who wants a risk-free option should forget about Afghanistan altogether. If we stay in the country, we will have to fight the battle for hearts and minds. It is the only one we have a chance of winning.

The optimistic scenario is as follows: Mr Karzai wins his election but does not attempt to impose strong central authority. Instead, he invites the warlords into government, by establishing an Afghan equivalent of the House of Lords; the House of Warlords as it were. He merely controls the army, the police, foreign policy - and foreign aid receipts. That would give him the power of the purse; if he can satisfy enough men’s avarice for gold, they may be less inclined to plan the plunder of Kabul.

Will this work? Given that there is no alternative, we may as well try. As for the heroin problem, it is certainly clear what can be done to solve that. Nothing. The West will have to try to solve its drug problem without Afghan help.

There are obvious dangers for a country largely controlled by warlords and awash with weaponry and heroin. Yet if the West were to write off Afghanistan, there would be nothing to prevent the re-emergence of al-Qaeda, or its successors. This is a country ideally designed to be a fortress of anarchy and terrorism. We have spent almost two and a half years putting that right, at considerable expense. It would be foolish to abandon the effort now. We should give Jim Jones the modest resources he needs to implement his optimistic strategy.

In my view this is a realistic assessment of the situation. A more optimistic view is dangerous because it drives expectations at home which cannot be met and ultimately gives the left an opening, which it has exploited with gusto in Iraq, to scream "quagmire." Our war is a war against terrorism. It is not a war to make the Arab world safe for democracy or the mid-east a place which is safe for Israel. If the war against Arab/Islalmist terrorism is to be won it will be won by Arabs killing the terrorists because they see it in their interests. It matters not whether those Muslims who serve our ends in this war are warlords or Jeffersonian democrats or whether they love or hate Israel it matters only that they act in support of the national security of the United States.

After Germany's surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Churchill was chided for his remarks supporting the latter. He replied, "If Hitler had invaded Hell, I would at least make a friendly reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." Churchill never lost sight of his war aim. He never got diverted from his policy, "You ask what is our policy? It is to wage war."

We would be in better shape approaching this election if we had articulated more modest war aims in Irak and presented nation building to the American people as a desirable bonus but not a test of victory. Our war aim should not be to mimic Woodrow Wilson or play guardian angel to Israel. Our aim should be to survive a generational asymmetrical war against terrorism with our democracy intact and without nuclear, biological or chemical catastrophy at home.

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