Iraq and Afghanistan

The area we now refer to as Afghanistan has seldom in its history been ruled as a unitary country. The people are diverse, transportation is difficult, and expectations of unity are weak. This has been illustrated once again by fighting around the city of Herat in the west, probably the most civilized and developed urban area in the country outside Kabul. This Tajik city has been ruled for many years, off and on, by Ismail Khan, one of the less deplorable of the country's war lords. As readers may remember, last March his son (who had the title of Minister for Civil Aviation in the central government) was killed by supporters of a neighboring warlord, with Khan's resulting counterattack condemned vigorously by Kabul. Now the warlords of three neighboring provinces, including the aforementioned, have made a coordinated attack on Khan's positions with artillery and tanks south of Herat. The attack was heavy enough to kill two "defense ministry commanders" (who, given the way titles are given here, were evidently actually commanders for Ismail Khan). The government has responded vigorously with a statement that such attacks are "illegal and a threat to public security". It was noted at the end of the Times article that the defense ministry said that "a battalion of the newly trained Afghan National Army is based in Herat and was on alert but for now remained in their barracks".

Such fighting back and forth happens periodically in the north between General Dostum and other warlords, and they among themselves. This is in addition to fights in the areas of the country that were former centers of Taliban power and are in a state of low level rebellion against much of the time. The country is gearing up for an election, but we should not expect that magically anything more than a semblance of a country will emerge. In the jockeying for power before the vote (which probably means ability to determine the vote) Karzai and other commanders (incidentally, mostly members of Karzai's cabinet) have developed new and cross-cutting alliances that seem to imply that whoever wins, the elected president's mandate will be less than overwhelming.

For the United States, the instability and weakness of Kabul is not nearly as serious as our troubles in Iraq. The difference is that without saying so our expectations in Afghanistan have always been at a lower level, as have those of Karzai. The forces that we have operating in the country have never been so large that leaving Afghanistan without the accomplishments that we had hoped will be seen as a disaster. If we can leave behind a responsible, fairly modern government in Kabul with some development and at least intermittent control over most of the rest of the country, we will have to be content. Unfortunately, accepting this reduced goal will not help control al-Qaida.