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“Should the United States simply relegate Afghanistan, and South Asia in gen- eral, to the outer fringes of its concerns once bin Laden and his acolytes in the Al Qaeda terror network have been either prosecuted or destroyed, Afghanistan could again become a fertile arena for the genesis of other militant Islamist organizations intent on wreaking havoc on the Western world.”

Putting South Asia Back Together Again

SUMIT GANGULY Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/100/650/410/389778/curh_100_650_410.pdf by guest on 05 November 2020

hortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, acolytes in the Al Qaeda terror network have been the first war of the twenty-first century erupted either prosecuted or destroyed, Afghanistan could Sas the United States began the aerial bombard- again become a fertile arena for the genesis of other ment of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The locus militant Islamist organizations intent on wreaking of this new war surprised many: most discussion havoc on the Western world. Such willful amnesia and predictions of United States military action over about Afghanistan and the concomitant demise of the past decade envisioned a war in East Asia—with policy attention would ill serve American interests. China over Taiwan, or with North Korea—or in the What should the United States do to lessen the Middle East. Instead, the countries of South Asia are chances that its current actions will simply lay now the focus of the world’s attention. another minefield to be negotiated 10 years further The military action that has been undertaken to down the road? Part of the answer to that question unearth the roots of terrorism in South Asia comes can be found in looking back at the reasons why fraught with geopolitical dangers. Pakistan has Afghanistan, and the region as a whole, became a placed itself in an extremely tenuous position—as haven for malign forces. a Muslim country supporting a war against another Muslim country, as a military dictatorship without AFGHANISTAN’S RUPTURED HISTORY domestic or international legitimacy, and as home Afghan society suffered considerably in the last to a plethora of Islamist groups that have been few decades of the twentieth century. Its recent spate implicated in terrorist acts in South Asia and of conflict and despair started in 1973 with the over- beyond. India, which has long been complaining to throw of King Mohammed Zahir Shah by his ambi- the international community about the terrorist tious cousin, Mohammed Daoud. A series of coups strikes it has endured for the past dozen years, is and countercoups followed until the Soviet Union being asked to exercise restraint in the face of con- invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in an tinuing provocations. Muslim states spanning half attempt to prevent what had become a socialist- the globe, from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, face ris- oriented regime on its borders from collapsing. It ing tides of internal dissent. Some of this dissent is was also an attempt to prevent the percolation of a closely linked to longtime American support for brand of radical Islam into the Soviet Central Asian quasi-authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. The republics, where Islamist disaffection with Moscow path that the United States has laid out for itself—to was already brewing. vanquish terrorism and the regimes that support or The regime of Babrak Karmal that the Soviet enable it—is armed with its own risks. army installed quickly became the focus of Should the United States simply relegate Afghan- widespread international opposition. The Soviet istan, and South Asia in general, to the outer fringes invasion was overwhelmingly condemned in the of its concerns once Osama bin Laden and his United Nations. The United States, under the lead- ership of its newly inaugurated president, Ronald SUMIT GANGULY is a professor of Asian studies and government Reagan, whose initial years in power were marked at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of the forthcoming Conflict Unending: Indo-Pakistani Tensions by demonization of the Soviet Union, embarked on since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press). a campaign to curb Soviet expansionism on a global

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basis and made Afghanistan one of its principal bat- In the end, Najibullah was ousted not by the ISI’s tlegrounds in that campaign. To this end, it elicited favorite, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had demon- the support of the Pakistani military dictatorship of strated far greater skill in proselytization than in President Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq in supplying and battle tactics, but by the forces of the ethnically training the mujahideen, the various groups fight- Tajik leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. After Najibul- ing the Soviet invaders. lah’s fall, Pakistan attempted to broker a power- Reagan’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter, had ostra- sharing arrangement among the various insurgent cized Zia’s regime because of its abysmal human groups, who were still divided along lines of ideol- rights record and its feckless pursuit of nuclear ogy, tribal loyalty, and personality. Massoud and his weapons. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan political mentor, Burhanuddin Rabbani, however, the United States government overlooked the Zia proved incapable of reaching any viable accommo- regime’s significant democratic deficit and its head- dation with the other mujahideen organizations. long pursuit of nuclear weapons. It also acquiesced Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/100/650/410/389778/curh_100_650_410.pdf by guest on 05 November 2020 to the extortionate demands of the Pakistani army’s ENTER THE TALIBAN counterintelligence organization, the Inter-Services As civil war and unrest continued to shred the Intelligence agency (ISI). This shadowy organiza- remnants of Afghan society, another, far more tion, unaccountable to any entity but the highest vicious group was forming in the refugee camps in echelons of the Pakistani military and the dictator Pakistan. This new force was composed of young himself, obtained control over the aid pipeline to men who had grown up in the camps during the the Afghan mujahideen. Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, detached from General Zia, meanwhile, was intent on bolster- the normal ties of kith and kin and imbued with ing his own domestic legitimacy by courting the radical Islamic fervor in the madrassas (Islamic Muslim clergy within Pakistan. As a result, and with schools) that Saudi financiers had set up in the the tacit acceptance of the Central Intelligence refugee camps. Left to themselves, these young men Agency, Zia’s minions in the ISI directed a dispro- might have joined one of the many mujahideen portionate amount of the American assistance to groups fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, or the most religiously zealous mujahideen organiza- they might have become members of one of the tion in Afghanistan—the Hizb-i-Islami—even various insurgent groups that the ISI was also nur- though this group was not at the forefront of the turing to spread terror in the Indian-controlled military confrontations with the Soviet army. Armed portion of the disputed state of Jammu and Kash- with Pakistani-supplied American weaponry and mir, where an indigenously based insurgency had Saudi money, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of erupted in 1989. the Hizb-i-Islami, and his followers were given free But these taliban (students) from the madrassas rein in the Afghan refugee camps that had been were singled out by the Harvard-educated prime formed in western Pakistan. There Hekmatyar’s minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto (who had been forces began to indoctrinate many young, hapless elected after Zia died in 1988 in a plane crash), and Afghan men, both to fight against the infidels who her interior minister, Naserullah Babar, a former had come to occupy their country and to adhere to military officer, and were carefully organized into a a particularly harsh and unyielding form of Islam. viable fighting force. Bhutto hoped to use this group The American-aided war against the Soviet occu- of religious zealots as a pliant entity to serve Pak- pation was slow but eventually successful. After 10 istan’s strategic interests in Afghanistan. Bhutto and years of fighting, the Soviet government, now led by Babar, along with significant segments of the Pak- Mikhail Gorbachev, finally decided to withdraw from istani strategic community, believed these fighters Afghanistan. As Soviet troops left, they replaced Kar- could bring to power a regime dependent on and mal with Mohammed Najibullah, a Pashtun (one of grateful to Pakistan, thereby giving Pakistan “strate- the country’s largest ethnic groups), who had been gic depth” in the event of yet another conflict with the head of KHAD, Afghanistan’s dreaded intelligence its long-standing adversary, India. and espionage organization. Within months, the var- Even after the fall of Bhutto’s government, suc- ious mujahideen groups were challenging the cessive Pakistani regimes continued the policies she Najibullah regime and fighting among themselves in had initiated, and in 1996 the Taliban successfully a wasteful civil war. Thanks to the significant mili- overthrew the Rabbani regime. Afghanistan’s battle- tary and organizational resources at Najibullah’s com- weary population initially greeted the Taliban as lib- mand, he managed to cling to power until 1992. erators who could bring some stability to their Dec 01 Issue FINAL 11/9/01 5:48 PM Page 412

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beleaguered land. As with most things in Afghani- THE INDIAN CONNECTION stan, their joy did not last long. As the Taliban consolidated its hold over Afghan- Almost immediately, the Taliban ruthlessly elim- istan, they played host not only to bin Laden and Al inated nearly all sources of opposition. Massoud’s Qaeda but also to a variety of other ISI-supported forces, reeling from the organization, zeal, and Pak- groups that were intent on carrying their jihad into istani-supplied firepower of the Taliban, were the Indian-controlled portions of Jammu and Kash- forced to take refuge in the Panjshir Valley in mir. These groups, comprising Afghans, Arabs, Pak- northern Afghanistan. Within the territories of istanis, and disaffected Kashmiris, contributed to a Afghanistan that they came to control, the Taliban reign of terror and mayhem throughout the Kashmir promptly moved to impose their strictures on the Valley during the last decade of the twentieth cen- population. Their views and practices were utterly tury. The Indian security forces resorted to harsh obscurantist. Their misogyny seemed to know no counterinsurgency tactics in attempts to defeat them. bounds, and they evinced an extraordinary intol- Often the native Kashmiri population found itself Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/100/650/410/389778/curh_100_650_410.pdf by guest on 05 November 2020 erance toward other religious groups and other caught in the crossfire between the brutal tactics of Islamic sects. Violators of their decrees were met the insurgents and the repressive methods of the with draconian punishment. Indian forces. Despite the continuing alienation of Kashmir’s AMERICA’S ROLE population from the Indian state, toward the end of The Taliban had found support not only from the 1990s the insurgency started to wane. The local their original sponsors, the Saudis and the Pakista- population, while unhappy with India, had devel- nis, but also from the United States. The United oped a deep distaste for the Islamic zealots who had States tacitly supported the Taliban because they turned the initial uprising into a ruthless protection appeared to have brought a degree of stability to racket with religious overtones. Afghanistan. The American policy was also encour- Meanwhile, Indian national leaders repeatedly aged by the lobbying of some powerful American asked the United States to take notice of Pakistan’s oil companies that were actively seeking to build a deep involvement with the various insurgent orga- gas pipeline across Afghanistan from the Central nizations, all of which were headquartered in Pak- Asian states to Pakistan. Only when steady reports istan. They also tried to persuade the international of the Taliban’s retrograde practices toward women community to recognize these organizations’ funda- caught the attention of American feminist and mental character as purveyors of terror. Despite the human rights groups did the United States start to viciousness of their attacks on civilian populations waver in its support for the Taliban. in Kashmir and elsewhere in India, the insurgents Soon the United States would have other reasons have until now escaped the disapprobation of the to be ill disposed toward the Taliban. In 1996 international community and have not been labeled Osama bin Laden, the son of a Saudi construction as terrorist organizations by the United States. magnate, moved to Afghanistan after he had been Against this backdrop, a set of related events ousted from Saudi Arabia and then Sudan for his rocked the subcontinent. In May 1998, India car- terrorist activities. The Taliban welcomed him to ried out five nuclear tests. Not surprisingly, and Afghanistan because he shared their deep distrust despite American blandishments and offers of eco- of the United States, adhered to the same austere nomic assistance, Pakistan carried out its own set version of Islam they practiced, and benefited them of tests within two weeks. The tests refocused inter- with his financial largesse. national attention on the Kashmir dispute; key Bin Laden’s hatred for the United States stemmed nations, particularly the United States, sounded the from a variety of sources. Like many radical Arabs, dual tocsins of nuclear proliferation and the danger he was unalterably opposed to American support of renewed conflict between India and Pakistan. for Israel. He also believed that the presence of The volatility of the Kashmir dispute, which had United States troops had defiled the soil of Islam’s precipitated two earlier wars between India and sacred land, Saudi Arabia, and he was opposed to Pakistan (in 1947–1948 and 1965), now raised American support for what he believed was a cor- worldwide concern about the prospect of nuclear rupt Saudi monarchy. Two years after his arrival in war in the region. In an effort to assuage these con- Afghanistan, bin Laden and his radical Islamic orga- cerns, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India nization, Al Qaeda, were implicated in the bomb- met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan ings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. in February 1999. Their meeting led to a set of Dec 01 Issue FINAL 11/9/01 5:48 PM Page 413

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agreements designed to reduce Indo-Pakistani ten- in turn, will continue as long as Pakistan maintains sions, especially in the nuclear realm. its support of the various guerrillas fighting in The gains of the Lahore summit evaporated in Kashmir and India remains unable to grant the the thin air of the Himalayas when in late April Kashmiris in its jurisdiction a fair political dispen- 1999, units of the Pakistani Northern Light Infantry, sation. Yet, the American “war on terrorism,” if along with Pakistani and Afghan irregulars, scaled properly fashioned, could provide the means for heights of over 14,000 feet to breach the Line of bringing an end to this conflict. Control (LoC), the de facto international border in Of course, the United States cannot confine its Kashmir. The Indian forces, who had been lulled strategic goals to simply defeating bin Laden and his into a state of complacency in the aftermath of the associates, for that would leave untouched the milieu February 1999 summit, were unprepared for the in which the various terrorist and insurgent groups well-organized, Pakistan-sponsored infiltration, formed and developed. Unless the social, political, which took place in the heights above Kargil and at and economic conditions that spawned Al Qaeda and Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/100/650/410/389778/curh_100_650_410.pdf by guest on 05 November 2020 two other points along the LoC. After overcoming other associated groups are addressed, the United the initial shock, the Indian troops retaliated with States and its allies in Western Europe and elsewhere considerable vigor. Nevertheless, it took them will continue to be targeted by Islamist terrorists. To nearly two and a half months to dislodge all the forestall such outcomes the United States, in concert intruders from the mountain redoubts. with the relevant United Nations agencies, will have Although the Indians resorted to the use of air- to restore some semblance of state authority to power before launching the final infantry assaults Afghanistan. The United States has provided varying on the well-entrenched degrees of support to Pakistani positions, they the reconstruction of did not move to hori- The United States should urge the military regime war-torn societies in zontal escalation as they of General Pervez Musharraf to spell out a viable both Cambodia and had done in previous strategy for returning Pakistan to civilian rule. East Timor; these conflict—especially in examples should be 1965—to relieve pres- the models for a sure in the Kashmir sector. Nor did the Indian forces program of state building in Afghanistan, where cross the LoC in attempts to destroy Pakistani and more vital and immediate United States interests insurgent bases. The Indian unwillingness to expand are implicated. the scope and the intensity of the conflict can be Forging such a strategy will first entail a long- attributed to a clear-cut recognition that Pakistan was term and expansive American commitment to the now a nuclear-weapons state. Indian decision mak- region. This will require devoting both material and ers could not afford to provoke Pakistani anxieties in human resources to the reconstruction of Afghani- a fashion that could lead to nuclear escalation. stan. It will also involve helping the United Nations Even though India did not lose any territory in and other regional actors, especially Pakistan and the Kargil war, the sense of injured innocence that India, promote a broad-based post-Taliban regime pervaded New Delhi undermined any prospect of in Afghanistan. Such a regime would have to com- Indo-Pakistani rapprochement. Worse still, Pak- prise members of all of the country’s major ethnic istani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was overthrown groups—Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. To in a military coup in October 1999, in part because prevent a return to the warlordism that consumed of the fallout of the Kargil defeat. Although General Afghanistan after the fall of Najibullah, and to mon- Pervez Musharraf, the military dictator who took itor a program of disarming on the part of ethnic power after the coup, publicly called for renewed and private militias, a UN peacekeeping force will talks with India, he actually created more permis- have to remain in the country for a number of sive conditions for the mujahideen to carry out years. The most difficult part of the process may be their war against India in Kashmir. As the insur- to find a political leader behind which all Afghans gency in Kashmir proceeded apace, Indo-Pakistani can coalesce and who will also be accepted by Pak- relations declined precipitously. istan, India, and Russia. As this time, the only pos- sible such leader appears to be the aged exiled king, INTERSECTING INTERESTS Zahir Shah, already in his late 80s. Indo-Pakistani relations will remain strained as Because the participation of Pakistan and India long as the Kashmir conflict persists. That conflict, will be crucial to this effort, the United States must Dec 01 Issue FINAL 11/9/01 5:48 PM Page 414

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play an active role in ameliorating Indo-Pakistani these groups do pose a long-term threat to the inter- relations. To enlist Pakistan’s wavering support for nal stability and governance of Pakistan. the prosecution of its war aims against bin Laden More than a decade of support to these insur- and his hosts in Afghanistan, the United States has gent groups, not to mention three wars with India lifted a panoply of sanctions that it had imposed on over Kashmir, have not brought Pakistan any Pakistan in the aftermath of the nuclear tests and closer to its goal of tearing Kashmir away from the the military coup in 1999. It has also offered to Indian union. The time has arrived to dispense help alleviate Pakistan’s dire economic plight with this futile quest and accept the inevitable: the through the deferral of various loan payments and status quo in Kashmir should be permanently the provision of new resources from the Interna- frozen and the hopes of merging all Kashmir into tional Monetary Fund. Discussions are now under Pakistan abandoned. way to also provide modest military assistance to To be politically viable, this strategy must have Pakistan’s armed forces. another critical component. No Pakistani leadership Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/currenthistory/article-pdf/100/650/410/389778/curh_100_650_410.pdf by guest on 05 November 2020 As a consequence, the United States now has will be able to end the activities of these groups considerable leverage over the Pakistani politico- unless it can exact some concessions from India on military elite. Washington must not squander this the Kashmir front. Again, the United States can and opportunity to push for a reorientation of Pakistan’s should play an important role here. Washington has domestic and external priorities as well as a reshap- recently started to dramatically improve its relations ing of some of Pakistan’s internal institutional with New Delhi. The acrimony and distrust that arrangements. It is especially important that the long characterized Indo-American relations now United States urge the military regime of General seems to be at least on hold, if not entirely at an end. Pervez Musharraf to spell out a viable strategy for Careful American diplomacy can induce India to returning Pakistan to civilian rule. To facilitate this undertake certain vital steps to restore normalcy in transfer of power, the United States should direct its portion of Kashmir. Specifically, the United States some of its assistance to the strengthening of civil should prod India to reestablish Kashmir’s auton- society and civic institutions in Pakistan. Such omy—guaranteed by the Indian constitution but actions and strategies are hardly without precedent often compromised by the Indian government. To in United States–Pakistan relations. win the “hearts and minds” of ordinary Kashmiris, More specifically, the United States must India should also steadily reduce its military and unequivocally press Pakistan to terminate its sup- paramilitary presence within Kashmir as Pakistani- port of the various insurgent groups operating from sponsored support for the terrorists draws to a close. Pakistani territory. The vast majority of these It must also honestly address widespread allegations groups have directed their wrath against India. of human rights abuses on the part of its security Their ideological inclinations and political procliv- forces. Finally, as some semblance of political order ities are such that they pose a danger well beyond is restored in Kashmir, India will need to a make a their current activities in Kashmir, however. When concerted attempt to promote economic develop- the Kashmir insurgency eventually ends, whether ment in the state to create new employment oppor- through military suppression or negotiation, these tunities. Such efforts will assuage many grievances groups will begin to look for other targets, as long of a generation that has known little except violence as they still have succor, support, and sanctuaries. and upheaval. None of these tasks will be easy or Once their anti-Indian spleen has been vented there swift. However, the alternative to the pursuit of these is little reason to believe that they would not direct ameliorative measures means the continuation of a their attention to Israel, the United States, or the degrading, sanguinary, and risk-laden strategy in Western world in general. Consequently, although Kashmir and the continuing prospect of wider polit- the Pakistani military may be loath to admit it, ical upheavals in the region and beyond. ■