The war in Afghanistan is over but the postwar peace will be lost unless the United States changes its policy and takes a strong lead in rebuilding the country, a best-selling author on the region said here Monday.
Only America has the clout to lead the world in the reconstruction and stabilization of Afghanistan and its neighbors, said Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani author of “Taliban.” But it is squandering this opportunity by focusing solely on military issues, he said, risking the region’s descent back into chaos and Islamic militancy.
The Pentagon must loosen its grip on America’s Afghanistan policy and let the State Department and other non-military arms of the government take over, Rashid said in an interview and in speeches to the National Strategy Forum and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations.
“While the war was on, the Pentagon had to take the lead,” he said. “But the war is not on now. This is a mopping-up process. Now you need a much higher profile by the State Department [and other] nation-building parts of your government.
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“I don’t think Americans appreciate right now the kind of clout they have in the region,” he said. “You have enormous economic, political and military clout. You Americans don’t have to do [everything]. But Americans have to give the nod to this. Americans have to lead.”
As an example, Rashid cited one success: the reopening of Afghan schools and the return of 1.5 million Afghan children–boys and girls–to classrooms after 23 years of war.
“Who took the initiative on this?” he asked. “Americans. Everybody else fell into line because [First Lady] Laura Bush wanted to do education. . . . It only happens because Americans were involved.
“So the onus is on your side to make things work,” he said. “I only wish you will give a nod like this to other things, like immunization.”
Commitment is important
Rashid emphasized that the U.S. has to stay involved, but large expenditures of money or people are not necessary. Commitment is more important, he said.
“Nobody believes the United States will stay, nobody,” he said. “The U.S. has the reputation of arriving, staying 15 minutes, carrying out its agenda and then leaving.
“If you want to send a message to an angry Muslim world that you are not selfish, that you don’t do your thing and get out, you need a commitment to Afghanistan on the ground for at least 12 months,” he said. “It is going to have a very positive impact in the Muslim world if you are seen as doing good in a Muslim country for an extended period of time.”
Rashid said a reconstruction policy should involve an international peacekeeping force operating outside Kabul, aid to schools, agricultural support to give soldiers incentives to go back to their farms, and road construction.
There is a deadline for visible progress, he said. A national assembly, the loya jirga, is to meet in three months to form a transitional government, and the American-backed regime must be credible for that assembly to succeed.
“The loya jirga will be a make-or-break situation,” he said. “It has to be successful. If you fail the loya jirga, the credibility of the political process will fail.”
New book on fundamentalism
Rashid’s first book focused on Afghanistan and the Taliban. It rose to the best-seller lists after Sept. 11, and he has become a leading commentator on Islamic fundamentalism. His latest book, “Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia,” warns of the growth of fundamentalism in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and other former Soviet republics because of the failure of post-Soviet governments there to provide even minimal political and economic reform.
Again, Rashid said, the U.S. is courting disaster by focusing only on military alliances with these countries while using none of its influence to push the regimes toward reforms.
“People there see the American presence as a military presence, with no pressure from the Americans to reform,” he said. “It is very important that mistakes made by the United States in Afghanistan in 1990, after the departure of the Soviet Union, not be repeated in Central Asia.”