WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE TALIBAN? By Michael Rubin* Abstract: The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington refocused sustained American attention on Afghanistan for the first time since the Soviet invasion ended. The origin and rise of the Taliban became a subject of great interest. The U.S.-backed mujahidin from the era of the Soviet occupation and the Taliban, a movement developed a decade later, were fierce rivals. As such, the “blowback” argument—that Central Intelligence Agency policies of the 1980s are directly responsible for the rise of the Taliban—is inaccurate. It was Pakistan that backed radical Islamists to protect itself from Afghan nationalist claims on Pakistani territory, which Islamabad feared, might pull apart the country. Indeed, for independent Pakistan’s first three decades, nationalist “Pushtunistan” rhetoric from Afghanistan posed a direct threat to Pakistani territorial integrity. As the United States prepared for war subsequent transformation into a safe-haven against Afghanistan, some academics or for the world’s most destructive terror journalists argued that Usama bin Ladin’s al- network is a far more complex story, one Qa’ida group and Afghanistan’s Taliban that begins in the decades prior to the Soviet government were really creations of invasion of Afghanistan. American policy run amok. A pervasive myth exists that the United States was THE CURSE OF AFGHAN DIVERSITY complicit for allegedly training Usama bin Afghanistan’s shifting alliances and Ladin and the Taliban. For example, Jeffrey factions are intertwined with its diversity, Sommers, a professor in Georgia, has though ethnic, linguistic, or tribal variation repeatedly claimed that the Taliban had alone does not entirely explain these turned on “their previous benefactor.” internecine struggles. Afghanistan in its David Gibbs, a political science professor at modern form was shaped by the nineteenth- the University of Arizona, made similar century competition between the British, claims. Robert Fisk, widely-read Middle Russian, and Persian empires for supremacy East correspondent for The Independent, in the region. The 1907 Anglo-Russian wrote of “CIA camps in which the Convention that formally ended this “Great Americans once trained Mr. bin Ladin’s Game” finalized Afghanistan’s role as a fellow guerrillas.”(1) Associated Press writer buffer between the Russian Empire’s Mort Rosenblum declared that “Usama bin holdings in Central Asia, and the British Ladin…was the type of Soviet-hating Empire’s holdings in India. freedom fighter that U.S. officials applauded The resulting Kingdom of Afghanistan when the world looked a little different.”(2) was and remains ethnically, linguistically, In fact, neither bin Ladin nor Taliban and religiously diverse. Today, Pushtuns are spiritual leader Mullah Umar were direct the largest ethnic group within the country, products of the CIA. The roots of the but they represent only 38 percent of the Afghan civil war and the country’s population. An almost equal number of Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 2002) 1 Michael Rubin Pushtuns live across the border in Pakistan’s with the Isma’ili communities “just across Northwest Frontier Province. Ethnic Tajiks the river,” despite the watchful guard of the comprise one-quarter of the population. The Russian 201st brigade. Hazaras, who generally inhabit the center of Many countries thrive on diversity. the country, represent another 19 percent. However, in the context of both Afghanistan Other groups—such as the Aimaks, and the civil war, the fact that most Turkmen, Baluch, Uzbek, and others identifiable Afghan groups have co-linguists, comprise the rest.(3) co-ethnics, or co-religionists across national Linguistic divisions parallel, and in some boundaries became a catalyst for the nation’s cases, overlap ethnic divisions. In addition collapse, as well as a major determinant in to Dari (the Afghan dialect of Persian that is the coalition-building during both the years the lingua franca of half the population) and of Soviet occupation and post-liberation the Pushtun’s own Pashtu, approximately ten struggle. For example, the Pushtuns of percent of the population speaks Turkic Kandahar have traditionally looked eastward languages like Uzbek or Turkmen. Several toward their compatriots in Pakistan, while dozen more regional languages exist.(4) the Persian-speakers of Herat have looked Tribal divisions further compound the westward into Iran. Uzbeks in Mazar-i Afghan vortex. The Pushtuns are divided Sharif have more in common with their co- among the Durrani, Ghilzai, Waziri, linguists in Uzbekistan than they have with Khattak, Afridi, Mohmand, Yusufzai, their compatriots in Kandahar. Shinwari, and numerous smaller tribes. In As various Afghan constituencies looked turn, each of these tribes is divided into toward their patrons across Afghanistan’s subtribes. For example, the Durrani are frontiers for support, they created an divided into seven sub-groups: the Popalzai, incentive for Afghanistan’s neighbors to Barakzai, Alizai, Nurzai, Ishakzai, Achakzai, involve themselves in internal Afghan and Alikozai. These, in turn, are divided affairs. The blame cannot be placed only on into numerous clans.(5) Zahir Shah, ruler of outside interference in Afghanistan, though, Afghanistan between 1933 and 1973, for the Afghan government has a long belongs to the Muhammadzai clan of the though often forgotten history of interfering Barakzai subtribe of the Durrani tribe. Such with the ethnic minorities in surrounding clan, subtribal, and tribal divisions countries and especially Pakistan. contribute already intense rivalries and divisions. DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE Religious diversity further complicated Zahir Shah took the throne of internal Afghan politics and relations with Afghanistan in 1933 after the assassination neighbors. Once home to thriving Hindu, of his father, Nadir Shah. Zahir was not a Sikh, and Jewish communities as recently as strong leader, though. As Louis Dupree, the the mid-twentieth century, Afghanistan preeminent anthropologist of Afghanistan today is overwhelmingly Muslim. The vast observed, “King Mohammed Zahir Shah majority—84 percent—are Sunni Muslims. reigned but did not rule for twenty years.”(6) However, the Hazaras are Twelver Shi’i, and Instead, real power remained vested in his so have sixty million co-religionists in Iran. uncles who sought to break Afghanistan out In the northeastern Badakhshan region of of both its isolation and dependence on Afghanistan, there are many Isma’ili Shi’ia. either the Soviet Union or Great Britain. It When I traveled along the Tajik-Afghan was during this period that Afghanistan and frontier in 1997, numerous Tajik villagers the United States first exchanged told me they had regular clandestine contacts ambassadors. The Afghan government 2 Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 2002) Who is Responsible for the Taliban? awarded a San Francisco-based engineering was Daoud’s support for a Pushtun firm the rights to develop hydroelectric and nationalist movement in Pakistan that would irrigation projects in the Hilmand River have the greatest lasting repercussions. Valley. Slowly, Afghanistan began drifting toward the West, both politically and THE QUESTION OF GREATER economically. PUSHTUNISTAN In 1953, Zahir Shah’s first cousin, the 43- The root of the Pushtunistan problem year-old Muhammad Daoud Khan became begins in 1893. It was in that year that Sir prime minister. Daoud sought to root out Henry Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary graft in the huge Hilmand scheme, speed up of India, demarcated what became known as reforms, but he remained a firm opponent of the Durand line, setting the boundary the liberalization in Afghan society. Seeking between British India and Afghanistan, and to recalibrate Afghanistan’s neutrality, in the process dividing the Pushtun tribes Daoud sought closer relations with the into two countries. Soviet Union.(7) However, neutrality in the The status quo continued until 1947, Cold War was a fleeting phenomenon. when the British granted both India and Both the Soviet Union and the United Pakistan their independence. Afghanistan States increasingly plied Afghanistan with (and many Pushtuns in Pakistan) argued that economic and technical assistance. Daoud’s if Pakistan could be independent from India, government sought to buy arms, and then the Pushtun areas of Pakistan should approached the United States several times likewise have the option for independence as between 1953 and 1955. However he was an entity to be called “Pushtunistan,” or unable to come to an agreement with “land of the Pushtun.”(9) Once independent Washington, which tied arms sales to either of Pakistan, Pushtunistan would presumably membership in the anti-Communist Baghdad choose to unite with the Pushtun-dominated Pact or at least in a Mutual Security Pact.(8) Afghanistan, to form a “Greater The Soviet Union, though, was eager to Pushtunistan” (and also bolster the supply what the United States would not. In proportion of Pushtuns within Afghanistan). 1956, Afghanistan purchased $25 million in The Pushtunistan issue continued to tanks, airplanes, helicopters, and small arms simmer into the 1950s, with Afghanistan- from the Soviet bloc, while Soviet experts based Pushtuns crossing the Durand Line in helped construct or convert to military 1950 and 1951 in order to raise Pushtunistan specifications airfields in northern flags. Daoud, prime minister