Iraq and Afghanistan

The American Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, has a long an interesting career for such a young man. He is a Pashtun from Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan. After high school he studied at the American University in Beirut and then on to the University of Chicago. He began his academic career working with Zbigniew Brezezinski at Columbia. He then started working off and on in the State Department and the Rand Institute. He was a player in the government’s involvement in the Afghan resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s. Apparently his ideology became increasing military oriented and he became affiliated with neocons such as Wolfowitz. He began this President’s term in the National Security Council, but soon was a special representative concerned with Afghan affairs. Along the way he is said to have supported the idea of working more closely with the Taliban, perhaps because of his work for a pipeline company that was contemplating a route from Turkistan through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. After our later victory in Afghanistan, he oversaw putting together the conference of Afghan leaders in Berlin and later the Loya Jirga that appointed Karzai to lead the new government. As Ambassador he is extremely active. He is said to have been working to get other candidates to withdraw in favor of Karzai, and to be the main person responsible for the retirement of Ismael Khan as the governor of Herat. Many Afghans refer to him as their new Viceroy.

Having invited Khalilzad to a conference once, I remember him as a gracious, polite, and engaging person well suited to the kind of job he has now. Certainly, if he is a viceroy, he is a most Afghani viceroy (although in our brief acquaintance he wanted to be referred to as an American and not an Afghanistani). But what is not so good is the fact that as he throws his new weight around, it is the weight of the United States. It makes sense from the American point of view that he would want to get rid of Ismael Khan, a person known for his anti-American and anti-UN sympathies and his Iranian support. However, Ismael Khan was also known as one of the best liked and most courageous of the “warlords”. Herat was considered to be the best run and most reconstructed of the regional cities. Unfortunately, American troops were both directly and indirectly involved in his “retirement”. This does not seem in the long run to be the way to make friends for either Americans or the Karzai government. It would also appear that retiring governors that have been able to administer their areas with some effectiveness before there is an Afghan army and administrative corps that can take their place is a foolish undertaking.

Today’s paper lays out the outline of a new strategy for putting down the resistance. Apparently it all started with the actions at Tal Afar near the Syrian border. Then it moved to the clearing of Samarra. Now the action is in the Balil Province south of Baghdad. The plan is to bring the twenty or thirty most serious problem areas (towns or cities) under Iraqi-Coalition control before the elections in January. What they hope to do in the process, beyond the obvious, is to change who directs the action, to take the initiative away from the insurgents. They have developed a set of measurements to monitor the rate at which the Iraqi government is able to take over and control these problem areas.

The thinking is that this activity and this plan have been devised at least in part to counter the Kerry claim that Bush does not “have a plan” for Iraq. One hopes that the war is not being planned and fought on the basis of what will play best back home. Nevertheless, if it took Kerry to get things turned around a little, one should not complain. One particular problem that the new approach hopes to address is making possible the security of those Iraqis who want to cooperate with Allawi and the Americans. Because of the job situation, there have been many people seeking work, even under desperate conditions. But without security the well could dry up — the people could just stay home.

Meanwhile, the insurgent attacks go on, particularly in Baghdad. The latest attacks near and even within the “Green Zone” are apparently meant to prove to the citizens and the foreigners working in the country that there is and can be no “safe area”. Ayatollah Sistani wants the United Nations to take a larger part in the election process. Yet it is not going to do it as long as the security situation remains as it is, particularly in Baghdad. This leads one to wonder why the concentration in the new security effort is not on Baghdad itself, an area with about a fourth of the country’s population. If this city were as safe as say Kabul, the international community, investors, experts, and regular Iraqis would take heart and be a great deal more cooperative. One of the points often missed when Iraqis say “the Americans must leave” is that many Iraqis argue that the Americans have failed in their primary task, bringing security to Iraqis. As one articulate and well-educated Iraqi women told interviewers recently, “If they cannot do even this, let them leave and let us work out our problems among ourselves.”

It now appears that the insurgency in Iraq was actually planned before the war with some care by a division of Hussein’s intelligence service. Before the war started they had positioned weapons and munitions in hidden locations, in farms and so forth. At the beginning of the war Saddam told his people that if they held the Americans for a week he would carry on from there. His confidence was based on the idea that whatever happened, the Iraqis would never submit to an occupation force (there had been some evidence for this in Iraqi history). Apparently, Saddam was both confused and clever in his war preparations. he had convinced some of his officers and the Americans that if the attackers went beyond a certain line in their approach top Baghdad, that he would use chemical weapons. But he had also admitted to others before the war that he did not have any chemical weapons.

In any event, the insurgency has been surprisingly persistent and innovative. Although Saddam and the Baath had a plan, the insurgents actually represent at least four types of fighters. The first are simply the disaffected and the revenge seeking (“They killed my relative, I must get back at them”. ) The second is the Shi’a resistance, based on the idea of resisting the infidels OR on the idea of improving the position of a particular group of Shi’as after the Americans leave (Mahdi Army and al-Sadr). The third is the Jihadist or Mujahedin element, fighting the “crusaders” in the name of Islam. Some of these are outsiders such as Zarqawi, but remember the Ansar, routed in Kurdistan but settled elsewhere now, are extremist Kurds, not foreigners. Many Jihadists see themselves as linked to al-Qaida, at least spiritually. Whether there is more than that we do not know. They probably represent many groups large and small, with varying degrees of linkage to one another. Finally, there are the Saddam or Baath loyalists. Initially they had the most money and access to the most arms. They were certainly the best trained element. One can assume that they have tried to direct the effort. They may have coordinated their efforts to give the impression of a more united national movement. But actually, the insurgents are harder to defeat if they work separately, for with so many diverse groups the gathering of intelligence from captured individuals is much less fruitful than it would otherwise be. We think of this group as Sunni and most of their activity has been in the Sunni triangle (although one suspects they are also in Basra and other urban centers outside the triangle). We must remember that some Baath leaders were actually Shi’as, such as Allawi himself before he fell out with Saddam. These were secular people for whom sectarian allegiances were useful but not essential.

Kristof is on a campaign in the Times to bring the attention of the world to the serious oppression of women in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. This is a serious problem, although my judgment and experience suggests that it is hardly confined to the Muslim world. (I found some of the most oppressed seeming women in Nepal.) However, the fact that Afghanistan has not turned quickly into an arena of freedom for women should surprise no one. King Amanullah tried to improve their lot in the twenties and he was ejected. Movement in this direction started again during the democratic opening in the 1960s. It was revived by the communists both before and after Soviet intervention. It is my suggestion that democratizing Afghanistan at this point has to be done without putting on the agenda a major change in the position of women. The position of women is already much better in Iran and across the border in the Soviet successor states. Many Afghans are aware of how women live in these countries and in the West. The more contact there is of East and West in Afghanistan, the more the position of women will improve.

Women tend to be relatively free in the Islamic world after or during the time of authoritarian, modernizing, westernizing leadership. It was Ataturk in Turkey and Reza Shah in Iran that made critical improvements in the position of women. In Iraq, women under the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein achieved a degree of freedom rare in Arab countries. We can still see the remnants of modernized class in which this occurred in the better off parts of Baghdad and in the emigré community. But if and when true democracy is restored in Iraq, we will see the position of women decline once again — at least for a while. The task of western-sponsored democratization should be to lay the groundwork for popular rule, establish the principles of free media and free discussion. We should also help privately in the organization of women's groups, and should, of course, support female education at all ages. But we will defeat our purpose if we push too hard, if we seem intent on invalidating local customs, replacing their way of life with ours. Democracy should be seen as laying the basis for freedom, not an initial guarantor of freedom and equality for all. (Much the same should be our approach to economic reform. Democracy is a means by which a people can decide on what economic policies and forms they wish to have. It is not a precut formula that necessarily demands a particular economic system.)

Progress in the reconstruction of society, leave alone democratization, in Afghanistan suffers from the same indeterminacy as in Iraq. The primary difference is that both the Afghans and outside observers have more confidence that the Afghan leaders are calling most of the shots in Afghanistan than they do in Iraq. Most Afghans cannot view American an foreign forces as constituting an "occupation" in the same sense as Iraqis view our forces there to be an occupation. The fact that Kabul appears to be a much safer and more livable city today than Baghdad also gives a different complexion to the situation. However, it is still true that in much of the countryside the government is not in complete control, that the insurgency still has its safe areas and manages to infiltrate its operatives throughout the country. There is evidence that it has staying power. But evidently the government has staying power as well. Certain areas, such as the Uzbek fiefdom of General Dostum in the North, are out of control of Kabul, but are most unlikely to fall to the Taliban. These areas may be compared to the Kurdish areas of Iraq.

Judgments of success depend on who you believe and what seems important to you. If your measure is the extent to which women have gained freedom, the situation is not encouraging. In the major cities they are better off than they were. Certainly more girls are getting an education in much of the country than they did under the Taliban. But the extremely restrictive "tribal" way of life still dominates the countryside. The number of people who have registered to vote is astounding, and sometimes more than that (many people have managed to get several registration cards). But the hope for uncoerced voting in rural areas is fading. (Uncoerced voting generally comes at a later stage of democratic evolution in any event. We should never expect ideal Icelandic standards to a country such as Afghanistan.)

One of the best signs that the evolution of a stable system is proceeding is that the second presidential candidate, Yunis Qanooni, is attempting to get all the other opposition candidates to work together to force a runoff. It is also encouraging that while his message is anti-American and pro-Islamic, it is all very moderate. Essentially, his pitch is that the government has forgotten the Mojahedin, that it is labeling their leaders "warlords". His message "lets have more respect". Qanooni's movement has also been able to enlist support from a broad spectrum of ethnic groups, including the majority Pashtun (most of whom support their fellow ethnic Karzai).The moderation of both the government and the opposition bodes well for democracy and for American policy.

The attack on Samarra seems to have succeeded with very little loss (on our side anyhow). We are now engaged in a similar major clearing operation south of Baghdad in Balil Province. This reduction of enemy redoubts was supposed to be delayed for at least another month. But for some reason it has been speeded up. The suspicion is that in Samarra the defenders just faded away to fight another day. Some did I am sure. But the important question is whether the insurgents will be able to reconquer the city once the Americans leave. Perhaps there is a middle ground between “leave it to the Iraqis” and maintaining an American occupation that has not yet been found.

Oddly, at about the time that the latest attack was underway Prime Minister Allawi made a somber speech to Iraq’s National Assembly telling how bad the security situation actually was. He lamented the fact that the Iraqi security forces were not yet up to the challenge, being underequipped and undertrained. He added that they do not yet have the respect of the Iraqi people that they require. I guess that he thought it would be an error to paint the rosy picture at home that he did in Washington. After all, his audience experienced the violence on the streets every day.

The paper also reports statements by Paul Bremer, now safely back in the country and apparently anxious to argue that his failure to accomplish more in Iraq was due to the mistakes of the administration and not his mistakes. He claims, and it appears confirmed, that from the very first he argued for more troops, but that the administration insisted they had enough. The fact he is making this case now is not a hopeful sign for what he believes the situation is now.

Another Times report today focuses on the Japanese contingent, one of the coalition partners that are helping us according to the President. It seems that their contingent of 550 soldiers in the town of Samawa has not yet fired a shot. They were evidently put into the safest place that could be found to keep the folks back home happy. Meanwhile the local Iraqis are running out of patience. They had such inflated ideas of what the Japanese would do that the schools they did rehabilitate seem to count for nothing. The locals threaten that if the Japanese don’t do more they will turn against them.

In all this confusion of action and inaction, of ridiculous expectations and dashed hopes, the general impression is that no one knows what is really happening or will happen. On the one hand, the claim of looming and unavoidable disaster is overblown. But so is the claim that “we have it under control”. My hope remains that the size of the group that will benefit from the current attempt to establish “democracy” is so large that the insurgency will eventually fail. It seems likely that if the coalition forces left now, all hell would break lose. It also seems clear that the Iraqi replacement forces have a long way to go in spite of Allawi’s on again, off again bluster. Yet with every day we stay, the sense that we are simply an occupying force that does nothing for the country grows stronger.

Sunday’s paper brought yet another discussion of the intention of al-Sadr to renounce force, disarm his militia, endorse the election, and enter politics. Once again he has been making overtures on a number of fronts. Our friend Ahmad Chalabi is said to be encouraging the move. al-Sadr’s representative has been meeting with the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, Kurdish and Christian leaders. He wants to bring into his camp the smaller, disaffected, anti-American parties to form a new bloc. His conditions include the involvement of the United Nations and the absence of American or British interference in the elections. Supposedly, this initiative is again approved by Ayatollah Sistani. Many political leaders endorse the attempt, but are also skeptical.

Meanwhile, the Mahdi Army continues to operate effectively, at least in Baghdad. The degree of his control over the army has always been a question, although I suspect that this is a question that has been promoted by al-Sadr to improve his bargaining position. More serious may be the attitudes of the Mahdi Army individuals if asked to give up their weapons in an authenticate move. Reporters speaking to them on the street find they are as dedicated to killing Americans as ever. Even though they have lost untold numbers in Najaf and Baghdad in recent offensives, their morale appears to remain high.