Lord Palmerson once said
that nothing is eternal in international politics except
national interests. In the international political system
comprising an unbalanced division of developed, developing
and underdeveloped countries there is a shift in 20 to
25 years under the new world order with a change in loyalties
and priorities between states redefining the nature of
their relationship, particularly between a core and periphery(ies).
The dominant power(s) defines the rules of the international
system and makes its repercussions for small powers in
redefining its foreign policy. In the process, an old
good ally without all its past record may be branded under
the new order established by major power(s) as foe and
nuisance.
Similarly, the ongoing war against the terrorist/Al Qaeda,
now posing as a homegrown threat at the cost of deepening
crisis of penetration for Pakistan and its surroundings,
can be better explained under the contexts of the change
in loyalties and priorities between the core/periphery
relationship where dominant power(s) defined the rules
in Afghanistan to serve their interests.
The branding of the force is the ultimate result of the
changing loyalties and preferences in the international
system for the pursuit of interests (national, regional
and international) by big powers, particularly the US.
The forces now justified as terrorist/Al Qaeda are the
ultimate result of the Afghan revolution and counterrevolution
through the prolonged Low Intensity Conflict which America
having recognized as crucial in mobilizing pressure on
the Soviets was supported militarily, politically, financially
and clandestinely by Pakistan where a military regime
without a legitimacy and popular support needed American
backing no matter whatever consequences it would face
in the future. The Americans were ready to serve their
interests by supporting the resistance as Holy War under
the low-intensity conflict, as Klare and Kornbluh argued
in 1988: essential American alliance with any right-winged
movement resisting Marxist Leninist governments by promising
all sorts of support for the concerned insurgency movement.
The counterrevolutionaries, shortly called freedom-fighters,
were soon defined as Mujahideen by the Western media.
The word Mujahideen was for the first time officially
cited on American Senate floor in 1980 by Alexander Haig,
nominated the Secretary of State by the newly elected
President Ronald Reagan. His first speech to the Foreign
Relations Committee of Senate in September 1980 defined
the resistance as true spirit of resistance and freedom
fighting. “They are fighting for a just cause They
need our support.” His successor, George Shultz
was even vocal in his praise of Mujahideen. Upon his first
visit to Islamabad in November 1982 he praised the newly
emerging resistance as “the embodiment of religion
and pride as holy warriors fighting for a cause with a
mixture of bravado, courage and faith”. It was soon
after that that the Reagan Administration envisaged a
total package of $ 1.2 billion military aid to Afghan
resistance through Pakistan by supplying Soviet made AK-47
Kalashnikovs and RPG-7 anti-tank guns, originally supplied
to Egypt by the Soviet Union in the heyday of Egyptian
relationship with the USSR under Nasser.
A number of visits Shultz made during his tenor of office
from 1982 to 1989 contained his support for the resistance
leaders, many of whom he met in Islamabad, including Osama
bin Laden whom anyone hardly knew. At the 27th Party Congress
held in February 1986 when Mikhail Gorbachev was addressing
the Afghan conflict as the Bleeding Wound, President Reagan
and his like minded allied leaders termed the situation
as bearing fruit of a mass movement to reverse aggression
for sovereignty.
The US support for Zia ul Haq regime, which like any military
dictator suffered from the crisis of legitimacy, was subject
to the provision of bases, logistics and training support
for which huge funds were provided by the US and its western
alliance. A grown-up dollar diplomacy groomed a resistance
movement the bases of which were located not far from
the Afghan borders inside FATA. Out of the leading seven
camps run by the army led Inter Service Intelligence (ISI)
six were in NWFP within the 200 kilometers radius. They
included Afghan refugees, asylum seekers, later on joined
by many Arabs who believed in the participation of Jihad
for a holy cause, and Pakistani nationalists having joined
their ranks for worldly or heavenly gains. There were
a total of seven camps, six in NWFP and one in Balochistan.
The important ones in NWFP were close to the Waziristan
agencies, today the brutal scene of war between the terrorists
and the Pakistani forces. The facts are supported by Diego
Cordovez and Selig Harrison in their co-authored research
by saying, “motivated by nationalism and religious
fervor, the Islamic warriors were unaware that they were
fighting the Soviet Army on behalf of Uncle Sam. While
there were contacts at the upper levels of the intelligence
hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre had no contacts
with Washington or the CIA.”
The Mujahideen were the great freedom fighters and Islamic
warriors until the Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan
under the Geneva Accords signed on 14 April 1988 . The
statements about their courage and bravery made once,
were no more. The American media started branding them
power lusty and divided as in the war-torn country their
interests were over. It was actually the time when American
interference was needed diplomatically and strategically
to regroup the resistance groups but they abandoned Afghanistan
without a solution – and the situation worsened
by the vacuum caused by the sudden accidental death of
Zia ul Haq.
The situation in Afghanistan actually deteriorated after
the Soviet withdrawal which strengthened the warlords
and increased unruliness. The Americans were directly
accountable for that as they abandoned their support for
the situation once their interests were served. The grooming
of the warlords and heroin traffickers by the Americans
is seen, as in 1995 the example of the former CIA director
of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan. This was in pursuit
of US’s interests to beat the Soviets in a foreign
land.
Taliban were the ultimate result of the long Afghan resistance
launched in the name of Jihad with greater military and
financial support and the worsening law and order situation
in the wake of the Geneva Accords. The emergence of Taliban
was patronized and supported by the Pakistan largely due
to the fact that a stable government in Afghanistan of
its choice was essential for the security of its western
borders. Having captured Kandahar in 1994 the Taliban
advanced gradually and by 1997 had taken control of 90
percent area of Afghanistan including Kabul.
The 9/11 reversed the situation for Taliban as well as
Pakistan. The major challenge for Pakistan after September
11 was the predicament of war against terrorism/Taliban.
In the interim period after the military operations, the
US agenda became more complicated bringing new challenges
with the following options for Pakistan: by spinning on
its head discard the Taliban, discard Islamic Jihad, discard
Islamic fundamentalists, and became an accomplice in an
American military intervention in Afghanistan or else
face the consequences. President Bush had made it clear
that those who fail to join hands with them against terrorism
were then against them.
The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon transformed US policy in Southeast
Asia. As the United States embarked on a long-term, comprehensive
campaign to counter global terrorism, Pakistan once again
assumed the position of a frontline state, just as neighboring
Afghanistan became the target of a new US hot war in Asia.
US indifference to the turmoil within Afghanistan evolved
into a policy of active intervention, and past differences
with Pakistan were overlooked in an effort to develop
a military partnership in the war on terrorism. These
changes in US policy in Southeast Asia could bear long-term
implications for American security. Pakistan had no choice
but to join America’s war. Otherwise it would have
been indicted along with the Taliban. But it was absolutely
unnecessary for India to have offered unconditional support
to the Bush administration’s war in Afghanistan.
The bloody war in Afghanistan and resistance factor of
which Taliban were the product was actually groomed and
supported by the huge financial and logistics support
by the US and its allies as the embodiment of freedom
fighters and Mujahideen were the worst enemies and terrorists,
once their interests were served in Afghanistan. They
were now Al Qaeda and roots of all crimes against humanity.
Had the cold war prolonged and international structure
not changed in favour of America as the unilateral empire,
there might not have been any thing like Al Qaeda.
