Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan assesses the U.S. Afghan policy, praises Collin Powell’s performance

Theodore L. Eliot, Jr., the former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and former Dean of the Fletcher School evaluated the U.S. Afghan policy and discussed how the U.S. is securing her interests in the ongoing post war reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Drawing on his observations as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 1973 to 78, Eliot gave a brief account of Afghan history and politics. He described the historical evolution of relations among Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras as the principal ethnic groups in the country since Afghanistan became a buffer state between the Russian and British empires in the 19th century. Tracing the roots of the dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan to the border drawn by the British between British India and Afghanistan in 1890s, Ambassador Eliot argued that the desire of the ruling Pashtuns in Afghanistan to seek a referendum for the Pashtuns inside Pakistan to determine whether they want merge with Afghanistan has since strained the relations between the two countries.

After World War II, the U.S. entered into alliance with Pakistan to contain the USSR, thus, declining the Afghan request for military assistance. The U.S. refusal in turn prompted Afghans to turn to the USSR for military assistance and equipment. Nonetheless, Ambassador Eliot asserted that by 1978 the U.S.-backed negotiations between the Afghanistan and Pakistan about the dispute over Pashtunistan had made real progress. But the Soviet leaders who disliked the prospects of reduced tension between Afghanistan and Pakistan and had already realized that Davood Khan—the then President of Afghanistan—opted for a more independent stance in domestic and foreign policy, backed a communist coup in April 1978 that ended the Pashtun tribal government. Afghans, viewing communism as anti-religious revolted against the communist government in Kabul. Fearing that the Afghan mujahedin would ultimately topple the communist regime, the Red Army invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. The ensuing war lasted more than a decade, claimed more than one million lives, and made Afghanistan plunge into the dark ages. In 1989, the Red Army left Afghanistan, but the communist regime lasted three more years. In 1992 the mujahedin entered Kabul.

The U.S. armed and trained the mujahedin through the Pakistani military intelligence service-the infamous ISI-throughout 1980s. However, Ambassador Eliot stressed, the U.S. had no alternative as the conduit of support for the mujahedin. The ISI in turn made sure that the weapons reached those mujahedin it could control. A Pashtun leadership in Kabul who was loyal to Pakistan would ensure that the issue of Pashtunistan would be resolved in favor of Pakistan. But Rabbani’s group who captured Kabul in 1992 consisted predominantly of Tajiks and Uzbeks not Pashtuns. So the Pakistani military decided to create their own military asset, the Taliban. Saudi money and Pakistani military training and support created a fighting force that took over almost all parts of Afghanistan by 1996. Although many U.S. observers initially hoped that the Taliban could be an acceptable solution to the Afghan crisis, such hopes rapidly waned when the Taliban hosted Osama Bin-Laden. Bin-Laden who had fought along with the mujahedin in Afghanistan in 1980s, returned to Afghanistan after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia and Sudan.

Ambassador Eliot praised the U.S. policy in Afghanistan after September 11 and said that he was amazed at the speed and efficiency that the U.S. forces showed in uprooting the Taliban and Al-Qaede. He also maintained that the current political and economic developments in Afghanistan such as the Loya Jarga and foreign aid are major steps towards achieving democracy and reconstructing Afghanistan. Yet he warned that Afghanistan suffers from major security problems. Domestically, Afghan warlords still rule much of the country with their private armies. Regionally, Afghanistan is surrounded by countries with poor records of democracy. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are ruled by dictators. Iran is a theocracy led by mullahs who publicly denounce democracy, and Pakistan is run by an Army General who is increasingly becoming dictatorial. Ambassador Eliot briefly answered a few questions about the U.S. policy in Afghanistan. He plainly rejected the idea that the U.S. backed the Taliban before September 11, and emphasized that the Taliban was simply a creation of Pakistan. On the recent remarks by Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to the former President Carter, about the American aid to the Afghans before the Soviet invasion, Eliot said that he did not know of any such initiative.