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March 15, 2005
Obsolete Afghani Warlords
David S. Cloud in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) describes how a once-feared warlord has been maneuvered into a bland bureaucratic job--courtesy of the US Afghanistan policy that has emphasized patience over quick results:
Today [Ismail Khan], the man once dubbed "the Lion of Herat" sits behind a near-empty desk in Kabul fingering amber worry beads and signing documents. He is the country's minister of power, but the only warmth in his shabby suite comes from a glowing space heater. His days as a mujaheddin commander are over, he says.
Mr. Khan has made the journey from feared warlord to bland bureaucrat thanks to the Bush administration's gradual, flexible strategy for reconstructing Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban government in 2001. Rather than trying to force radical change overnight, the U.S. has been patient. It has avoided confrontations with tribal elders and warlords -- letting them until recently keep their private militias and weapons and even paying the salaries of their fighters -- while building a credible central government in Kabul.
Cloud goes on to recount the "experts'" predictions that the US would fall victim to the same fate as the British and Soviets before them. But the Americans have been more successful than the Soviets right from the start, and even more importantly, the pace of progress is accelerating:
Instead, the U.S. has fared much better, especially in the past six months. Afghans' deep fatigue with war has helped but so has the slow U.S. approach. Warlords around the country are now peacefully ceding power to President Hamid Karzai's government, which won national elections last October. The U.S. has trained a multiethnic military that is taking over security around the country.
This approach differs quite clearly from the US strategy in Iraq. Leaving aside the complicated questions of the effectiveness of the Bush/Rumsfeld/Franks strategy to defeat Saddam, in Afghanistan
[e]xpectations were so low for actually rebuilding Afghanistan that the U.S. occupation here proceeded with little interference from Washington and on a multiyear time frame unacceptable in Iraq, where the U.S. occupation authorities initially had much grander plans.
"We call it salutary neglect," Col. David Lamm, the chief of staff to the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, says of the relative inattention Afghanistan has received from Washington. "It's been quite helpful."
The absence of outside pressure has allowed the Americans (and the U.N.) to more efficiently utilize one of their greatest assets: money. For example, all payments to local militias will cease in June; if the men agree to give up their arms and enroll in training programs for jobs such as farming or construction, they will continue to receive a small wage.
The effect has been dramatic: Over the past six months, many of the top militia leaders have begun stacking their weapons and giving way to the ANA -- and ordering their soldiers to do the same. Roughly half the estimated militias have now been demobilized, and the pace is accelerating, officials say. Gen. Rashid Dostum, a major ethnic Uzbek warlord from Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, and his main rival agreed to demobilize their forces late last year. Bringing another former rival into his government, Mr. Karzai this month named Mr. Dostum as his chief military adviser. [...]
"It's a defining moment," says Mr. [Peter] Babbington, the head of the U.N. program. "Early on in the Panjshir, they looked at us with deep suspicion, but they have realized that they have to come into the real world and not miss out on all the aid."
Qasimullah, a 32-year-old fighter who goes by just one name, recently signed up for retraining as a construction worker and has been told by the U.N. workers that he will receive training and an apprenticeship. "The time for fighting is over," he says.
It appears this is a common theme--the fighting is finished, it's time to move on (and not miss out on the aid money). Back to Ismail Khan, the ex-warlord-turned-bureaucrat:
Today the former commander spends his days signing purchase orders for new generators and puzzling over how to increase electricity production in a country where only an estimated 6% of the population has regular power. He has given up pursuing armed jihad, he says, for a different type of struggle.
"Jihad is not only war; it is not only fighting. Jihad means making life better for the country. There is no need to fight right now in Afghanistan," he says.
Whatever happened to the blizzard of stories about the brutal torture of British soldiers, and the numbing quagmire that mired the Soviets?
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