Page 2 of 2 A mad scramble over Afghanistan
By M K Bhadrakumar
the recent period several statements highly critical of the US-led war in
Afghanistan have appeared, attributed to the Iranian leadership. The latest
high-profile statement was the criticism by the chairman of the Expediency
Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, at a meeting with the visiting former UN
secretary general Kofi Annan, where he lamented that the "occupiers" who
created "insecurity" in Afghanistan and Pakistan were now "unable to rein it
in".
More ominously, Tehran has invited former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani,
who led the anti-Taliban coalition (Northern Alliance) in the 1990s to visit
Iran. Receiving him in Tehran on
Sunday, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, (Majlis) Ali Larijani, told
Rabbani, "The situation in Afghanistan is sorrowful and regrettable." He said
the presence of foreign forces is creating "insecurity" in the loss of innocent
lives and is causing rampant drug-trafficking.
In another statement in the Majlis two days earlier, Larijani condemned the US
attacks on the Pakistani tribal areas in Waziristan. This was the first time an
Iranian leader specifically took exception to the US military operations inside
Pakistani territory. He said Iran was concerned about the extent of the
devastation and the death toll in Waziristan and that the US had exceeded the
limits of the Geneva Convention in fighting terrorism. "Every single day,
civilians are falling victim to the US-led fight against terrorism," he said,
adding the US was "destroying" Waziristan under the "pretext of fighting
terrorism".
Most significantly, Tehran has broken its silence on the US-British-Saudi
efforts to negotiate reconciliation with the Taliban. This has come, curiously
enough, in the form of a statement by the powerful chairman of the Majlis
National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Broujerdi. Long-time
observers of the Afghan scene would recognize Broujerdi as the principal
designer and architect of the Northern Alliance and a key strategist of the
anti-Taliban resistance in the 1996-98 period.
Conceivably, Tehran has dropped a meaningful hint by fielding Broujerdi to
speak on the Western efforts to reconcile with the Taliban. Broujerdi firmly
repudiated the recent US propaganda that Tehran was mellowing toward the
Taliban. Talking to a visiting French parliamentary delegation led by Socialist
leader Jean-Louis Bianco on Sunday, Broujerdi underlined Tehran's continued
opposition to the Taliban. He sharply criticized the European countries for
adopting a conciliatory attitude towards the Taliban. He counseled them that
instead they ought to extend unequivocal support to the "popular government" in
Kabul led by Karzai.
Broujerdi pointed out that the West's attitude and approach toward the Taliban,
which is an extremist group, will "damage regional stability and security". He
said the root problem is the continued presence of foreign forces and a
settlement will be possible only with their withdrawal.
Broujerdi may have signaled that Iran will challenge and counter any Western
attempt to invite the Saudis to return to the Afghan chessboard and to co-opt
the Taliban so as to perpetuate the US and NATO military presence. We may
deduce that the scheduling of Rabbani's visit to Tehran is intended to signal
that Iran still has reserves of influence with the Northern Alliance groups,
despite the US estimation that these anti-Taliban groups have been scattered or
bought over by Western intelligence.
Rabbani seems to have risen to the occasion. He also lent his voice condemning
the continued presence of foreign forces on Afghan soil. "At first, they
[Western forces] entered Afghanistan with the slogan that they would establish
security and fight terrorism and drugs, but now Afghans are witnessing an
escalation of terrorism and an increased production of narcotics," the
inscrutable mujahideen leader told Larijani.
What was perplexing was Rabbani's remark, "The only solution to the Afghan
crisis lies in the creation of unity among all national and jihadi [read
mujahideen] forces in the country and the establishment of national
reconciliation among all tribes without ethnic, tribal and religious
prejudice." This was also the proclaimed political platform of the Northern
Alliance. To be sure, Iran will oppose any ploy by US and British intelligence
to resurrect the paradigm of the 1990s to put the Taliban in power so as to
"pacify" Afghanistan and to create a modicum of stability necessary for the
development of transportation routes for Caspian energy.
At a time when the fabulous Kashagan oil fields in Kazakhstan are expected to
come on stream in 2013, when Washington hopes to reverse the tide of
Russia-Turkmenistan energy cooperation, when volatility in the southern
Caucasus impedes the advancement of new trans-Caspian pipelines, then,
Afghanistan bounces back as the most realistic and viable evacuation route for
Caspian energy bypassing Russia and Iran - provided the ground situation could
be stabilized and security provided which investors and oil companies would
find reassuring.
Indian dilemma
Both Russia and Iran will be keenly watching how India, which was a soul mate
in the late 1990s staunchly supporting the anti-Taliban alliance, reacts to the
current US-British-Saudi move. Indian leaders never tired of underscoring that
there was nothing called "good Taliban" and "bad Taliban". That was up until a
year ago. However, there is bound to be uneasiness in both Moscow and Tehran as
to where exactly Delhi stands at the present juncture in the geopolitics of the
region.
One thing is clear: a US-sponsored oil/gas pipeline via Afghanistan suits
India, though that may undercut Russia and Iran in the energy sweepstakes.
From all accounts, discussions were going on between the security
establishments of India and the US for the past several months regarding an
Indian military involvement in Afghanistan. Washington has been pressing for a
major Indian role. A two-member Indian team, which visited Kabul in early
September, claimed they were on a mission sponsored by the government to make
an assessment of the layout for Indian military involvement. The team
apparently held discussions with top American diplomats and military officials
based in Kabul.
Evidently, Delhi was clueless regarding Saudi King Abdullah's secret mediation
with the Taliban. This intelligence failure had to happen. Indian diplomats
have been somewhat smug about the unprecedented influence they wielded with the
Kabul regime, and as happens in heady times, they began blandly assuming the
durability of the present Afghan setup.
They worked shoulder-to-shoulder with their US counterparts in Kabul and
American thinking inevitably began coloring Delhi's perceptions. It seems the
intellectual osmosis ultimately became one-sided. Under constant US
encouragement, the inebriating idea of a major military role in Afghanistan and
playing the "great game" crept into the Indian calculus. Delhi seems to have
incrementally lost touch with the Afghan bazaar and ground realities.
The US-British-Saudi plan to accommodate the Taliban in the power structure in
Kabul creates a dilemma for Indian policymakers. To do an about-turn and begin
to distinguish "good" Taliban is ridiculous. It will be seen as kow-towing to
the US and will be difficult to rationalize. The antipathy towards the Taliban
runs deep in the Indian mindset, since no matter the actual character of the
Taliban's "Islamism", a threat perception gained ground in Indian opinion
regarding "Islamic terror" from Afghanistan. The Indian establishment
unwittingly contributed to this by harping on the ubiquitous "foreign hand" in
terrorist activities in India. A rollback of the thesis will take time.
Furthermore, India views that the Taliban as an instrument of policy for
Pakistani intelligence and as detrimental to Indian regional security
interests. All in all, Delhi will feel greatly relieved if the US abandons its
plan to co-opt the "good" Taliban.
In the above scenario, both Tehran and Moscow will be looking forward to
foreign minister-level consultations with Delhi in the coming weeks. Indian
Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee is scheduled to visit Tehran in early
November. Again, in November, in the run-up to the year-end visit by President
Dmitriy Medvedev to India, Lavrov and Prime Minister Vadimir Putin will have
consultations in Delhi.
The geopolitical reality, however, is that all three countries have transformed
in recent years and their foreign policy priorities and orientations have also
changed. They relate today to US hegemony in Afghanistan from dissimilar
perspectives of national interests.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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