@@ Afghanistan & Durand line @@
Arash
July 25, 2003
SEPARATING SYMPTOMS FROM SOURCES: THE GHOST OF GREATER AFGHANISTAN
Jonathan Feiser
The "Durand Line", ratified in 1893 by Sir Mortimer Durand, established the
geopolitical architecture that sought to stabilize a clear security risk to
British interests: the Pashtun tribes of the Indian Frontier.
At the time, the Durand Line represented the border between Afghanistan and
British India, and then later became the boundary between Afghanistan and
Pakistan following the partition of 1947.
Today, the United States finds itself in a similar position to that of the
British Empire before it: faced with a situation in which military expansion
is necessary to establish national security.
In this light, the geopolitical as well as the symbolic value of the Durand
Line is not lost on the United States.
On a strategic level, this artificial border tore the tribal Pashtuns in
half.
Moreover, with the expansion of great power interests and the resulting
conflicts, the line eventually evolved into a politicized border region,
housing religious fundamentalists and secular terrorist groups alike.
In light of recent events in Afghanistan, it is probable that deeper roots
of friction are at work along wobbly ethnic, historical, and tribal fault
lines.
In truth, this friction and the momentum it spurs apes Afghanistan's sacred
history.
Hence, even on Afghanistan's overly speedy quest toward a democracy
envisioned by Western rulers, this unremitting cycle of shifting tribal
loyalties and regional clintela-based alignments generally continues
unabated.
In hindsight, these various factions were quite helpful in jettisoning the
Taliban from power. But, in the following vacuum, such tribal systems are
clear agents of decentralization when recuperation and centralization is
what are needed.
On a functional level, Afghanistan cannot be subjectively examined under the
Western conception of either a state or a nation. The country simply does
not operate in any sense of either definition at this time.
Both a limited security apparatus and stalled international support have
done little to cultivate ancient divisions based on ethnic and religious
elements. In regard to the U.S. war on terror and domestic efforts employed
pursuant to nation building, these divisions continue to maintain and harass
internal efforts and strengthen critiques of U.S. policy.
Moreover, the very nature of the resilient warlord system finds a continued
modus operandi uncannily similar to the support networks that operated
throughout the Soviet occupation. Thus, in the very same historical pattern
that kept change's progress locked in reverse throughout the last three
decades, Afghanistan continues to resemble a discombobulated chessboard
based on a thesis of revolving alignments and agendas and intrastate power
politics.
In this confusing quest for progress, desperately needed foreign
investment -- not merely subsidized aid from Non-Governmental
Organizations -- remains a critical and consistent requirement for
Afghanistan's future.
Hence, if such aid is not forthcoming, present conditions in Afghanistan
will continue to represent the combination of factors that inhibit foreign
investment and frustrate efficient fiscal and monetary policies.
In this regard, the recent violence toward the Pakistani embassy more
accurately represents a symptom, rather than a cause of the contention that
lies beneath the political borders of Central and South Asia.
On the ground, this pent up powder keg of human frustration directed toward
Pakistan may additionally represent a growing friction between ethnic
groups, specifically the Pashtuns and their northern Tajik and Uzbek
contemporaries.
Throughout the years, this trend has consistently represented a plethora of
security issues that places the United States in an unenvied predicament
historically occupied by the Persians, Sikhs, Soviets, and British.
Moreover, the near war between Pakistan and Afghanistan over the liberated
incarnation of "Pashtunistan" in 1961 exerts itself as a pre-9/11 reminder
that ethical conflict remains a historically accurate characteristic that
has long fueled regional contention.
In the modern global context, while lacking any serious consideration for a
true security presence and cemented systems of checks and balances, the
historical marriage of internal conflict and external support continues to
reign as a deadlocked default option. Consequently, the necessities that
compromise economic restructuring and a foreign investment that fails to
circumvent regional warlords will continue to exist as standard operating
procedure.
In sum, although the Taliban are no longer part of the spectrum of threats,
Afghanistan continues to remain a country hopelessly tangled in a relentless
war against itself.
Despite the early Pyrrhic efforts of "Ahmad Shad Durrani", Afghanistan
evolved as a nation forged by the security interests and defense mechanisms
of other powers. Thusly, this birth contributed little value to the concept
or generational transfusion of nationalism.
Today, the country remains infected with competing interstate factions, with
external support bases, which continue to politically and militarily retain
their holds on power.
In due course, the consequences of these trajectories may ultimately
undermine both the conduit of Afghani nationalism, thus denying her people
both a plausible foundation of infrastructure and the federalization to
support it.
Finally, in terms of Afghanistan, the United States faces a challenge that
befell many world powers before it: Defining the formula that simultaneously
balances the often incorrectly perceived means of "colonialism" with the
often unnoticed means of national security
It is in this challenge that the Bush administration must pivot while
concurrently and successfully selling this policy vision to both proponents
and critics alike.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/pp072503.shtml