Descent Into Chaos

by Ahmed Rashid

  The region of South and Central Asia will not see stability unless there is a new global compact among the leading players—the United States, the European Union, NATO, and the UN—to help this region resolve its problems, which range from settling the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan to funding a massive education and job-creation program in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan and along their borders with Central Asia. The international community has to approach this region holistically rather than in a piecemeal fashion, and it has to persuade its own populations to agree to a long-term commitment of troops and money. Much will depend on how the new U.S. president sees this region and what importance he or she gives it. Only belatedly has the Bush administration admitted its failures. “I would have to admit that it is really important to be able to help others build their nations,’’ U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice acknowledged to Congress in March 2008.40 For the first time, in the 2008-2009 budget, the administration designated nearly $250 million to create 350 diplomatic posts devoted to “nation building.’’

  The Pakistan army has to put to rest its notion of a centralized state based solely on defense against India and an expansionist, Islamist strategic military doctrine carried out at the expense of democracy. Musharraf deliberately raised the profile of jihadi groups to make himself more useful to the United States and to enhance his country’s strategic importance in Western eyes. No Pakistani leader can afford to take such a deadly gamble again, to play with the destiny of the nation, betray the people’s trust, and foster Islamic extremism that bites the hand that feeds it. Pakistan needs national reconciliation that brings an end to the demonization of politicians by the army; a new military culture that is taught to respect civilians, institutions, and neighbors; and reformed intelligence agencies that cease to interfere politically.41

  Members of the Afghan elite need to appreciate the opportunity to be born again as a nation, a chance they were given by foreign intervention in 2001 and international aid since then—even though the results and commitment of both have been at best halfhearted. The Afghans need to evolve a system of governance capable of delivering services to the people and relatively free of tribalism, sectarianism, and corruption. They need to tackle the drug problem themselves and show the world, first, that they are worthy of help and aid, and second, that they will assume responsibility for their nation in the quickest possible time. So far, President Karzai has taken his people only partially down that road. He has compromised too much with warlords, thieves, and brigands rather than collaborating with the mainstream Afghans who want to rebuild their nation. However, the international community has to do far better than it has done to defeat the Taliban and provide better coordination among the competing tasks of fighting, good governance, and reconstruction.

  Central Asia needs a political transformation before it can move forward. A generation of leaders will have to die or step down before real change can be expected. In the meantime, Central Asia, but especially Uzbekistan, is a powder keg, and the West will have to make itself more aware of the region so that it can contain the fallout from any explosion there. We have seen in this book that Islamic extremism will flourish in a political vacuum, in the most backward, deprived, and neglected places but also among people who are educated and politically conscious. Central Asia is the new frontier for al Qaeda, and at present there is nobody there effective enough to resist them. As long as Central Asian extremist groups continue to find sanctuary on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, they will remain a major threat to states in the region.

  Solutions do not come easily in such a world or in a region that was traumatized well before 9/11. But the peoples and regimes of this region have to understand that unless they themselves move their nations toward greater democracy, the chaos that presently surrounds them will, in time, overwhelm them. Pakistan has shown a new beginning in 2008, and Afghanistan still has the potential to do so. If we can better understand what has happened before, what has gone wrong, and what needs to go right, as this book attempts to do, then we can better face up to our collective future.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Abu Bakr Siddique, who helped me research this book. Born into a Pashtun tribal family, he is now an outstanding scholar, journalist, and expert on the history and sociology of the Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He has acted as my researcher, travel companion, interpreter, interviewer, and guide in some of the most difficult terrain imaginable. This book would not have been written without his invaluable assistance, support, and friendship.

  For nearly three decades all my work has owed a great deal to the ideas, inspiration, friendship, and humor shown by Barnett Rubin. We have become so close that I am not able to decipher whether some of the ideas in this book first originated with him or with me. This volume owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.

  I also have to thank the hundreds of fellow journalists, aid workers, UN officials, politicians, military and intelligence officers, diplomats, commanders, warlords, and scholars in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran, the United States, Britain, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands who have contributed to this book. I hope they will understand that they are too numerous to mention by name. However, I must pay tribute to Lakhdar Brahimi and Francesc Vendrell, the architects of the 2001 Bonn Agreement, to whom I owe a great deal. I could not have written this book without the support of other heads of the UN mission in Kabul—Jean Arnault, Chris Alexander, and Tom Koenigs.

  To Flip Brophy, my agent; Wendy Wolf, my editor; and to Liz Parker, Bruce Giffords, Noirin Lucas, Carla Bolte, and all the others at Viking Penguin who have worked so hard to bring this book out so quickly, after having waited so patiently for it to be completed, I owe enormous thanks and gratitude.

  Finally, this book could not have been written without the love and support of my wife, who nursed me back to health through two major illnesses so I could finish the manuscript.

  NOTES

  Introduction. Imperial Overreach and Nation Building

  1 Interview with Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, by the author, Oslo, June 27, 2007.

  2 Karen DeYoung, “World Bank Lists Failing States,” The Washington Post, September 15, 2006.

  3 I wrote extensively about the dangers that the presence posed by al Qaeda in Afghanistan early on. A seminal article was published in Foreign Affairs magazine in 1999. Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,” Foreign Affairs, December 1999.

  4 Niall Ferguson, “The Monarchy of George II,” Vanity Fair, September 2004.

  5 BBC, “Bush Triggers Row over Pakistan Coup,” November 5, 1999. Bush said, “The new Pakistani general, he’s just been elected—not elected, this guy took over office . . .” Bush gave an interview to Glamour magazine in which he confused the Taliban with a female pop group. The quote was recounted by the National Journal, May 4, 2002.

  6 Richard Haass, “Defining US Foreign Policy in a Post-Cold War World,” Speech to Foreign Policy Association, Washington, April 22, 2002.

  7 Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004. Irving Kristol, considered the neocon godfather, graciously defined a neocon as “a liberal mugged by reality.”

  8 “Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints,” wrote The New York Times. The administration has determined “never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.” Editorial, “The Real Agenda,” New York Times, July 16, 2006.

  9 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, New York: Basic Books, 2004.

  10 I have taken the liberty to draw from an article by Gabor Rona, legal adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Gabor Rona, “When Is a War Not a War?” The Financi
al Times, March 16, 2004.

  11 Bob Woodward and Vernon Loeb, “CIA’s Covert War with Bin Laden,” The Washington Post, September 14, 2001.

  12 In July 2005, the global war on terrorism was officially changed to “the struggle against violent extremism,” as the administration finally put the emphasis on longer-term initiatives. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers admitted that the struggle is “more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military.” See Alec Russell, “Don’t Mention War on Terror,” The Daily Telegraph, July 27, 2005.

  13 Ron Suskind, “Without a Doubt,” The New York Times, October 17, 2004.

  14 Condoleezza Rice, then national security advisor, was to say, “we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of al Qaeda members.” See Karen DeYoung, “US Evidence Still Unclear on Iraq Link to AQ,” International Herald Tribune, September 28, 2002.

  15 Paul Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy and the War in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs, March 2006.

  16 Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military, New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. This is one of the best books on the U.S. military’s expanding powers.

  17 Michael Abramowitz, “Bush to Request Billions for War,” The Washington Post, February 3, 2007.

  18 Richard Lugar, “Beating Terror,” The Washington Post, January 27, 2003.

  19 Walter Pincus, “Taking Defense’s Hand out of the State’s Pocket,” The Washington Post, July 9, 2007.

  20 Clyde Prestowitz, Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions, New York: Basic Books, 2003. SOF included army rangers, army special forces, Navy SEALS, Delta Force commandos, special mission units, special operations aviation units, and psychological operations units.

  21 Maureen Dowd, “Rummy Runs Rampant,” The New York Times, October 30, 2002.

  22 Musharraf told Zinni, “I want democracy in substance and not just labels . . . I don’t want you to think I did something that wasn’t motivated by the best intentions for Pakistan. ” Dana Priest, The Mission.

  23 Interview with Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN, Oslo, June 27, 2007. See also Council on Foreign Relations, “In the Wake of War: Improving U.S. Post-Conflict Capabilities,” Report of an Independent Task Force, July 2005.

  24 U.S. State Department, President Bush press conference, White House, October 11, 2001.

  25 Madeleine Albright, “Bridges, Bombs or Bluster,” Foreign Affairs, September- October 2003.

  26 Elisabeth Bumiller, “Freedom and Fear Are at War,” The New York Times, September 20, 2001.

  27 Reuters, " ’US made some decisions,’ says Rice,” reprinted in Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan, January 19, 2005, Rice answering questions at her confirmation hearings before becoming secretary of state.

  28 “The unwillingness to recognize a historical connection between the rise of anti-American terrorism and America’s involvement in the Middle East makes the formulation of an effective strategic response to terrorism that much more difficult,” wrote former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Choice.

  29 Associated Press, “Secret Board Says Muslims Don’t Hate US Freedoms,” Dawn, November 25, 2004. See also Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, Department of Defense, Washington, D.C., September 2004.

  30 The sums are from the Congressional Budget Office, August 2007.

  Chapter One. A Man with a Mission: The Unending Conflict in Afghanistan

  1 I was told by an impeccable source in the office of President Hamid Karzai, on March 31, 2003, that a former Taliban deputy intelligence minister, Asadollah Sadozai, who had recently been caught in Ghazni, admitted to helping kill the elder Karzai and said the murder had been planned in Karachi by a pro-Taliban Pakistani group that was advised by the ISI. Hamid Karzai never really forgave the Pakistanis for killing his father.

  2 I gave the speech upon receipt of the Nisar Osmani Award for Courage in Journalism, awarded by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on March 25, 2001. The entire speech was broadcast by the BBC and the Voice of America.

  3 Save for a brief interlude in 1929, when the capital, Kabul, was seized by the Tajik brigand Bacha Saqao.

  4 To verify many of these facts, I’ve carried out many interviews with Hamid Karzai since he became president of Afghanistan in 2001. I have also been greatly helped by Jon Lee Anderson, “The Man in the Palace,” The New Yorker, June 6, 2005, and Tolo TV, Kabul, interview with Karzai, August 12, 2005. See also Ahmed Rashid, “Profile of Hamid Karzai,” The Daily Telegraph, December 8, 2001.

  5 Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000. I have used my earlier book to give a brief history of Afghanistan and the Taliban movement.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Ahmed Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,” Foreign Affairs, December 1999.

  8 These estimates are drawn from interviews with Western intelligence officials, UN diplomats, and Afghans in the field. I and others wrote about the extensive deployment of foreigners under Pakistani officers. Anthony Davis of Jane’s Intelligence Review estimated in August that “foreign contingents now spearhead offensives and make up one fifth of a [total] Taliban force of 40,000.” Anthony Davis, “Foreign Fighters Step Up Activity in Afghan Civil War,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, August 1, 2001.

  9 See Ahmed Rashid, “US Weighs Up Options on bin Laden,” The Daily Telegraph, November 22, 2000.

  10 My last meeting with Masud was in Dushanbe on September 26, 2000. The most detailed book on the subject of the CIA’s relationship with Masud is Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

  11 Several books confirm meetings between Masud and the CIA. Gary Schroen was one of the CIA agents who went to see Masud and then led a team into the Panjsher Valley after 9/11. Gary Schroen, First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, New York: Ballantine Books, 2005. See also Steve Coll, Ghost Wars.

  12 There are many emotional accounts of Masud’s death, but the best by far is by Nasrine Gross, “Masud: An Afghan Life,” personal message received by e-mail.

  13 He had married Zeenat in Quetta in 1999. The daughter of an Afghan civil servant, she had trained as a gynecologist in Quetta, where she worked in a clinic and had been a doctor to the family when Karzai’s mother suggested to him that he marry her.

  Chapter Two. “The U.S. Will Act Like a Wounded Bear”: Pakistan’s Long Search for Its Soul

  1 Mehmood had visited Washington in April 2000, where he had been bluntly told by Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering that “you are in bed with those who threaten us.”

  2 Interviews with U.S. and Pakistani participants in the meeting, Washington, D.C., July 2004.

  3 In March, Musharraf had written a four-page letter in Pushtu to Mullah Omar, asking him not to blow up the statues. Mehmood had secretly visited Kandahar and personally read the letter to the illiterate Mullah Omar, but to no avail.

  4 The quotes are taken from interviews in 2001 and 2004 with Pakistani officials, who either were present at the meeting or had read the transcript. See also Bob Woodward, Bush at War, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

  5 Interview with Abdul Sattar in Islamabad, August 2004. He later wrote that Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States “should indicate a generally positive disposition and negotiate details later. Such a ‘Yes-but’ approach would allow Pakistan tactical flexibility. It could then also seek modification of US policy and its expectations of Pakistan.” See Abdul Sattar, Pakistan’s Foreign Policy, 1947-2005: A Concise History, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  6 Woodward, Bush at War. Woodward provides the list of demands, as does The 9 /11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the Uni
ted States, New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.

  7 The 9 /11 Commission Report.

  8 Interviews with senior military officers and civilian advisers to Musharraf, December 2001 and November 2004. See also Hassan Abbas, Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army, and America’s War on Terror, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2004, which also gives details about the corps commanders’ meeting.

  9 Interview with Pakistan Television, “Win-win Situation for Pakistan, says Musharraf, ” The Nation, Lahore, Pakistan, November 27, 2001.

  10 The 9 /11 Commission Report. See also Ahmed Rashid. “Hitting Kabul,” Far Eastern Economic Review, September 20, 2001.

  11 Ali Iftikar, “Powell defends US support to Pakistan,” The Nation, September 9, 2004. Powell was addressing students of Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C.

  12 Woodward, Bush at War.

  13 These particular allegations first appeared on al-Manar, the TV channel of the Lebanese Islamic party Hezbollah. They quickly spread around the Muslim world on Web sites and were then headlined in the Urdu press in Pakistan, which tends to promote surreal and sensational news about Israel, India, and the United States.

  14 The three layers of U.S. sanctions on Pakistan were as follows: In 1990 the U.S. president could not certify that Pakistan did not have a nuclear device in adherence with the Pressler Amendment, which stopped all military and economic aid. In May 1998, Pakistan’s nuclear tests triggered further sanctions under the Arms Export Control Act. The 1999 coup triggered sanctions under Section 508 of the same act, which forbade aid to a military regime.

  15 “Wrong Step Can Spell Disaster: Musharraf,” Dawn, September 19, 2004.

  16 “Text of President George W. Bush speech to the US Congress,” The Nation, September 21, 2001.