Skip to comments.

Posted on 10/08/2001 3:05:10 PM PDT by wretchard

Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad
Director of Strategy and Doctrine Program
Project Air Force
The RAND Corporation

It's an honor to be here, particularly in light of the list of guests that will follow me in the coming weeks and months. I'm also grateful to the World Affairs Council for including an old picture of mine in the announcement. I thank Mary Morris, who is a good friend of mine, for that. I'm particularly pleased to see so many very, very good friends in the audience tonight. 

The issue of Afghanistan is an issue that is very close to my heart. Curtis did not mention that I was born in Afghanistan. For the period that I served in the State Department, I had the responsibility for advising the Secretary of State in the 1980s on the war in Afghanistan. In my judgement, in the 1980s we had a great success in Afghanistan, it was a significant foreign policy success for the United States. After the Soviet invasion in December of 1979 we blocked a Soviet victory in Afghanistan, over time we increased the cost of the Soviet occupation. Ultimately we pulled together the Afghans and the Americans in support of some regional trends. We forced the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan. Historians twenty or thirty or fifty years down the road, will make a judgement, a more authoritative judgement than I can, as to how much of a role Afghanistan played in the destruction of the Soviet empire. But in my judgement [while] that destruction was the result of Soviet difficulties, as it must have been, Afghanistan clearly contributed to the increase of those difficulties.

However, ten years after the Soviet withdrawal, Afghanistan, in my judgement, has become a significant problem for U. S. foreign policy. For the Afghans, their struggle against the Soviet Union was extraordinarily costly. Five percent of the population of Afghanistan, some one million people, were perhaps killed in the struggle against the Soviet Union. Some 25 percent of the Afghan population became either internal or external refugees. Afghanistan became the most mine-laden country in the world. And according to a recent Washington Post [article], Kabul is full of one-legged people. The Afghan tragedy was not over with the Soviet withdrawal and that victory that we jointly achieved. The war has continued in Afghanistan.

In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal we and the Russians significantly disengaged from the Afghan scene. This vacuum is being filled by regional powers, particularly Pakistan and Iran. And the Afghans who were fighting the Soviet Union turned against each other. This war continues and, at the present time, some 80 percent of Afghan territory is under the hands, or under the control, of the Taliban. As was mentioned, the Taliban are a primitive, radical, rigid group of warriors who are determined to establish their very particular version of an Islamic state. Twenty percent of Afghanistan now is under the control of the remnants largely of the movement that fought the Soviet Union during the 1980s. The Taliban have imposed some Draconian structures that we all know about on Afghanistan, in the areas that they control, particularly on the rights of women and girls to have an education, to work and to freely move about Afghan cities. In addition, the Taliban have limited the opportunities for education for everyone. The only education available for Afghan boys or girls is religious schools and home schooling. 

In addition, Afghanistan has come substantially under the control of Pakistan. Some 100,000 Pakistanis have over the past several years participated in the war on Afghanistan, not all at once but, if you add them together . . . some 100,000 Pakistanis have fought in the wars of Afghanistan. In addition Afghanistan has become the center . . . of Islamic extremist activity in the region and beyond. At the present time, several hundred Arab terrorists are based in Afghanistan. In addition, there are thousand of others -- whether from Pakistan or Central Asia, the Middle East or even China -- based in Afghanistan. The center of gravity of the terrorist movement emanating from the Islamic world has now shifted from the Middle East, which we used to focus on in the 1970s and '80s, now to the Afghanistan and Pakistan region. The Afghan situation continues to produce refugees. Some three million Afghans are still refugees in Pakistan and Iran and some new refugees have come in the past several years, some have come because they would like to have opportunities for education for their children, including girls. 

As I said before, the war goes on, the polarization that I talked about before continues, with the northern alliance being supported by Iran, Russia, India, and the Central Asian republics. The question is, in addition to terrorism, in addition to the violation of rights of the Afghans, the role of Pakistan, what other challenges does Afghanistan pose? I will highlight three others. One is that Afghanistan now has become the world's number one producer of opium. The narcotics production and trafficking is a main source of revenue throughout the world. Two, Afghanistan is impacting the stability of and the prospects for the newly-independent Central Asian states. Afghanistan was and is a possible corridor for the export of oil and gas from the Central Asian states down to Pakistan and to the world. A California company called Unocal was interested in exploring that option, but because of the war in Afghanistan, because of the instability that's there, those options, or that option at least, has not materialized. The absence of alternative options for the Central Asian states, and the fear that the Central Asians have of the potential spread of Islamic extremism -- as exemplified by the Taliban and the fact that I mentioned before that Afghanistan has become a central place for the training and spread of such movements-- Central Asia has become an arena where Russia is reasserting increasingly its influence and role. In addition, there is the danger that the Taliban is going to increase and spread to reach out of Afghanistan and spread to places like Pakistan. 

The reason I give you this background, some of which you may know already, is because I want to make some points of the key impressions and ideas that I want to leave with you tonight. In my judgement, at the very root of the current situation in Afghanistan--that is clearly very undesirable from the point of view of the Afghans and undesirable from the point of view of the world and, in particular, from the point of view of the United States--at the very root of the problem is that monumental struggle that I talked about between the Afghans and the Soviet Union and in which the United States played such a big and direct role. Why do I say that? Well, first the Afghan conflict has become increasingly sectarian. During the war against the Soviet Union, Afghans, in the name of Islam and Afghan nationalism, were brought together and they fought the Soviets. In the aftermath of the Soviet departure, ethnic relations have suffered, relations among various Afghan sects have suffered. Part of the reason for this is the policy that was followed during the struggle against the Soviet Union. The Soviets used the tactic of divide and rule by having ethnic militia and using those ethnic militia from one ethnic group against another. Two, because of the resistance against the Soviet Union, arms spread throughout Afghanistan and, as I said before, millions of refugees were produced. The combination of the two shifted the balance of power among ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The Afghans have had a hard time adjusting to the new equation for the reaching of an agreement and a new concord in terms of the relative power between various ethnic groups. 

The second issue is the . . . extremism in Afghanistan. This, too, in my view, is fundamentally the result of that monumental struggle. And there I believe that we have played a significant role, along with Pakistan . . . . Three things that I want to say with regard to that. One, as millions of Afghans became refugees, their education became an issue. Clearly, who was going to train those Afghan refugees, their children? The schools that became available were largely schools that were run by clerics, funded by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Those schools produced people that are now the Taliban. Had people-- had we, the United States-- also considered the possibility that Afghanistan might become free and that those kids were not getting the kind of education that we'd hope they'd learn in the United States, we might have done differently ourselves. 

The third thing is also part of the problem of this extremism that I mentioned before: The presence of foreigners, the presence of foreign volunteers that were encouraged in Afghanistan. Thousands upon thousands--perhaps as much as forty to sixty thousand--foreign volunteers came to fight in the war against the Soviet Union. We implicitly encouraged that as part of the strategy of increasing the cost of occupation to the Soviets by making this conflict, in part, an Islamic versus Soviet struggle. Some of those people who fought in that war are still now in Afghanistan, whether it's Bin Laden or other elements of his network. I think the reason, the fundamental reason for some of the errors, in spite of the overall success that I talked about at the beginning was an assumption that was reasonable at the time but turned out to be incorrect in that respect. Sometimes when we think we know what will ultimately happen, [that] can have a distorting effect on what we do, and the fundamental assumption of our policy was that the Soviet Union would ultimately prevail, that we would lose and they would win. And the whole purpose of the strategy was how to increase the cost of that victory to the Soviet Union so that they would be deterred from doing the same thing to more important countries like Iran or Pakistan. But it turned out that that wasn't to be. The Soviets were more fragile than we thought, the Afghans more resilient, our own ability to inflict cost and impact the Soviet Union much higher than we had initially anticipated. 

Another factor that I mentioned before is the issue of Pakistan; it also has something to do with this assumption and the impact that Pakistan was having on Afghanistan. As a result of the policy that we followed -- and that is a policy of assistance to the Afghans, militarily and politically-- we struck a deal with Pakistan because that was not unreasonable at that time. And [the deal] was that we would give them the arms, the Pakistanis, the wholesaling to the Pakistanis, and they would do the retailing, distributing it among the Afghans. The Pakistanis, for reasons of their own, decided that the Islamic party, rather than the Afghan nationalist party, would be the ones to receive the arms, their reasons being two. One, that the Islamic party would be more amenable to a cooperative relationship with Pakistan since, as some of you know, there was a territorial dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Pakistanis didn't trust the Afghan nationalists because of that. But to the Islamic culture, this national territorial dispute was not regarded to be as important, more under the idea of Islamic brotherhood and solidarity were perceived. Therefore, our lines on Pakistan reenforced this Islamic tendency and also increased the Pakistanis influence in Afghanistan. 

Now, of course, the situation is as it is, and I feel it's posing a significant challenge to America's interest and values. Number one, there still is the issue, from America's point of view, of terrorism. Number two is the possibility that extremism will spread from Afghanistan to others, and number three is the massive violations of human rights that are taking place. Number four is, in my judgement, the drugs and the ... that's taking place and the overall danger of Talibanization of other countries, in particular the impact on Central Asia. I think given this interests and given the history that I have described of our relationship, I think that we need to have a different policy than we have had with Afghanistan over the course of the past eight years. I think it was an error, in my judgement, that we disengaged as much as we did in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal. There is clearly a gap between our level of interest and the level of our involvement in Afghanistan that has existed in the course of the last eight years. Two, I think we have not only interests that are here-and-now issues, especially with regards to the new agenda that we talk about often in international system now, which is not so much big wars concerning the Soviets but the smaller threats, perhaps from terrorism or extremism. We have a responsibility. 

Part of the reason for why things are the way they are in Afghanistan is what we did ourselves. Some of the arms that are still being used in Afghanistan are the arms that we provided. We did the right thing, I am not saying that we shouldn't have done what we did in terms of providing arms, but we could have done it differently, and therefore we have a responsibility, we have some unfinished business in terms of what took place. And I think we have a moral obligation-- and I feel particularly strong about it myself, I am an Afghan myself, and someone who played a role in our government--and that is that Afghanistan may have taught us in the final phase of the Cold War, this monumental struggle that we and the Soviets got involved in, it was the last big battlefield of the Cold War and we did something very big together. I think given that we, as a result of the defeat of the Soviet Union, have become the world's preeminent power of the West, we've been triumphant. The pessimism that I think has ... the government of this state began to challenge our success in Afghanistan, among other successes ..., was in part due to the sacrifices of the type that I talked about. I think we in turn owe them, that we pay more attention. The question is what it is that we should do and what it is that we can do. 

First, I think the Afghan people, and I know them, are like any other people largely. They want peace, they want security, they want to have their children be able to go to school, they want to be able to feed their families and they want to be able to have medicine if their kids are sick. They are not interested in terrorism for the most part, they are not interested in being at war, like this Taliban.... they are not interested in declaring war on the United States. Saudi Arabia is a country that stood with them in their moment of greatest vulnerability. 

Our strategy in my view, our objective first of all ought to be to empower the Afghan people by focusing on a self-determination process that the Afghans must decide their own future. But we must mean that more than a slogan, and that means that we have to have a strategy that can get us from here to there. And that strategy must consist of, first, that we focus the UN peacemaking efforts on the process of self-determination of the Afghans. Some people are talking among the Afghans, about a grand Afghan assembly that can be representative of all the Afghans has to be convened. Our policy and strategy has to be focused on how to operationalize that objective. This can happen if the Afghans at war and the regional powers that support the various warring parties come to see this as the right thing to do. I think we ought to work from outside in, because it is the outsiders such as Pakistan, in particular, but also to some extent Iran, that have to be focused on. 

This is a good time to talk about the Pakistan dimension, in particular because the President is going to Pakistan in a couple of weeks, although he is going reluctantly, but some of the issues that I talked about tonight will be front and center in the discussion that he will have, or should have with the Pakistani leader. Pakistan must abandon its search for domination of Afghanistan. Afghanistan, in effect, the Taliban area, in my view, has become almost a de facto extension of the northwest frontier of Pakistan. As long as Pakistan is bent on hegemony in Afghanistan, there will be a regional reaction to it. Iran, India, Russia, and others will react to it. 

Afghanistan is at the crossroads of civilization, at the crossroads of different powers. The Soviet Union could not dominate it. I think in the long term Pakistan will not be able to dominate it. Rather than a zero-sum approach, we have to get Iran and Pakistan to think in non-zero-sum terms. I think we have to put on the table with Pakistan, with particular attention since Afghanistan has become very important for them not only in terms of their influence in Afghanistan but also in terms of their strategy in Kashmir which has taken a different course from India, that they would pay a very high price in terms of Western and U.S. support. Now we don't do much for them bilaterally, but we do a lot multilaterally. Those things would be on the table as well as what we are doing, in fact--that is, increased ties with India. I think unless we break or weaken the tie between Pakistan and the Taliban, as long as the Pakistanis tell elements of the Taliban not to cooperate with the idea of representative government through the convening of an assembly, they will not succeed. I think if Iran moves from its extremism towards increased pragmatism, Afghanistan can be a bridge. There will be a period of suspicion, and this will take time, but I think there is a lot that we do have in common, possibly with regards to Afghanistan. 

Lastly, I believe from watching Pakistan and then from Pakistan and Iran watching the warring factions, that we have to cut the sources of revenue to the ruling party, and in particular to the Taliban, and that means we have to in effect create a cordon sanitaire built around Afghanistan with regards to drug trafficking which is the biggest source of income. The war will not go on in the way it is if this source of revenues is not [available]. It will be a desirable thing to do in the its own right, because of the surge of drugs that are affecting the regional states and then are clearly beyond, but it is also a key factor in Afghanistan. 

My judgment is that we have said the right things on Afghanistan as a country, but we have not done the right things. We haven't had a serious strategy that is consistent with a reasonable set of objectives for us. I know our country quite well here. When we are serious about something we are very creative, we can be determined. Some people have underestimated us in the past and they have suffered for it. I think what is lacking here has been a willingness to develop the appropriate strategy for the [situation]. For reasons I mentioned before, for reasons of our interests, for reasons of our responsibility, for reasons of our moral obligation, I think it is imperative that we develop these strategies. 

Thank you very much.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.