New York Times January 15, 2002
Putting an End to Warlord Government
By BARNETT R. RUBIN
I n defeating the Taliban, American policymakers have had to make hard
choices in the struggle to reconcile sometimes conflicting military
and political goals. Next week, when they meet in Tokyo, the United
States and other donor nations will face equally hard choices in
deciding how to help rebuild Afghanistan.
The difficulties of timing assaults on Taliban and Qaeda forces and
the unpredictable rhythms of military operations in the early months
of the war led the United States to arm anti-Taliban warlords well
before Afghans reached agreement on a successor regime. The
elimination of the Taliban regime made possible the establishment of a
new administration, but at the price of empowering some corrupt and
brutal figures.
The Bonn accords contain mechanisms for making the Afghan government
more representative. They call for a loya jirga to choose a new
government in six months, provide for the integration of armed groups
into national security forces and arrange for an international
stabilization-assistance force. They also aim to co-opt regional
warlords by giving them official roles. For example, Gen. Abdul Rashid
Dostum, whose forces helped secure the victory at Mazar-i-Sharif, is
now deputy defense minister.
The purpose of the accords is to establish a stable government, which
means ending direct supplies of money and arms to warlords. Yet the
United States has been supporting various anti-Taliban commanders who
are helping in the search for Mullah Muhammad Omar and Osama bin
Laden. In the battle for Kandahar the United States came close to
undermining Hamid Karzai, now head of the interim Kabul
administration, by arming his local rivals. The immediate operational
requirements of the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban have thus
worked against the goal of consolidating the interim administration's
authority.
The Afghan administration will not be able to establish that authority
unless financial and military aid to warlords ceases in favor of an
effort to build national security forces. The international
stabilization force may well need to extend its presence beyond Kabul
to provide security during the transition from warlord control.
In addition to controlling warlords, the new Afghan government will
also have to deal with the new problem of how to distribute and
coordinate billions of dollars of international aid. If international
agencies and donor countries controlling the aid are more interested
in taking credit and defending turf than in strengthening Afghan
institutions, they could exacerbate fragmentation and cynicism in
Afghan society. Armies of expatriates consultants, United Nations
bureaucrats, aid workers of every kind can drive up local prices. Such
projects tend to skim local talent, offering engineers and teachers
steady work as drivers or translators and keeping them from building
and teaching. Worst of all, competition among agencies and donors can
undermine reconstruction politically. As happened with humanitarian
aid in Somalia, reconstruction aid in Afghanistan could become simply
a new political currency to be fought over by warlords, who will play
one aid agency against another and all of them against the central
government.
The early signs on this front are not promising. At a meeting in
Brussels last month, the major donor countries brushed aside a
statement from Afghanistan's interim finance minister that the Afghans
would prefer a single reconstruction fund to coordinate planning. The
donors were cool to this request partly because of legitimate concerns
over how to manage a single fund, but also because they want to fly
the flag over their own projects. In Tokyo, donors must consult with
the Afghan authorities on how to design a coherent plan for
distributing aid, which will soon be as important to achieving
political stability in Afghanistan as controlling the warlords in the
post-Taliban government.
Barnett R. Rubin, author of "The Fragmentation of Afghanistan," is
director of studies at New York University's Center on International
Cooperation.
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