Afghanistan: no good options left
Posted on Thursday 25 October, 2007
Filed Under International
After almost 200 years as a plaything for the ambitions of the three strongest superpowers ever seen in history, attribution of blame for the hell that is Afghanistan today depends on the historical timeframe one chooses to deploy. But self-determination never even got a look in.
In the nineteenth century, the country became the focus of what Arthur Connolly called ‘the Great Game’ between the Russia and Britain for dominance in Central Asia.
More recently, the USSR first sponsored a puppet government and then, in 1979, invaded Afghanistan to prop it up. In response, the west threw arms at jihadists both domestic and external throughout the 1980s. The unsurprising end result is that the Taliban and Al Qa’eda ended up running the show.
After 9/11, the US – which had effectively put them in power in the first place – could no longer allow that situation to obtain. The result was the Operation Enduring Freedom invasion of 2001 and a second puppet government, this time aligned with Washington rather than Moscow.
Fighting with the Taliban continues, and Lord Ashdown – former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina – is in no doubt about the outcome. The Taliban is going to win, and the results could be world-historic:
“I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale.
“Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this [failure] to match this magnitude.”
That’s consciously Palmerstonian language, of course. The nations of Asia are not ‘ours’ to win or lose in the first place. I did not support the invasion. I cannot see how the continued presence of foreigmilitary n forces will resolve Afghanistan’s manifold contradictions; it can only exacerbate them.
But within his own frame of reference, Ashdown is probably right. The situation has full potential to proceed from the disaster it is now to whatever infernal degree comes next on the scale of catastrophy.
Sadly there is no hope of a progressive outcome from this mess. In a country that is chronologically in the twenty-first century rather than in any real sense of the twenty-first century, the working class is tiny and without any social weight.
Arguments from the likes of Workers’ Power – a small British orthodox Trotskyist outfit – that ‘the working class organisations could create a militia, if they only had the will’ would ring of black humour and deliberate satire, if it was not for the certainty that these people never write in anything but deadly earnest.
I suppose there is a purely formal sense in which the soon to be victorious Taliban could be described as a ‘national liberation movement’. They lead a military fightback against armies of occupation.
It’s just that nobody in the right minds would expect what is perhaps the most obscurantist trend within the entire camp of reactionary political Islamism to deliver much by way of liberation.
Sections of the ultra-left will doubtless cheer them on. They will chatter excitedly about the ‘bloody nose’ the Taliban’s triumph will supposedly dish out to imperialism, and disregard the executions of homosexuals and the Afghan women who get acid thrown in their faces for the temerity of trying to offer girls an education that will come about as a result.
The Marxist left loves nothing more than to come up with ‘the correct line’ on everything, everywhere in the world. It’s in our political DNA. But just sometimes it is as well to admit that we do not have a preferred option. Afghanistan is a case in point. We don’t know for sure what will happen; but we do know it will be bad.
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11 Responses to “Afghanistan: no good options left”
I agree 101%, Dave. What a horrible situation, and what a truly horrible prospect for Afghani progressives and women, a Taliban victory would be. We third-campists don’t have a clear-cut answer on this one: but I for one have nothing but hatred and contempt for *anyone* who says *anything* that could *remotely* be construed as being even vaguely soft on the Taliban.
I think Ashdown is being far too pessimistic, especially about the chances of Pakistan itself falling into the “hands” of extremists. Even if the “Taliban” were to triumph in Afghanistan, itself highly unlikely, the jihadists/militants in Warizistan are incapable of furthering their gains outside of the region, both due to the power of the Pakistani military and the strength of civil society in the country. They might put up Musharraf, but they won’t put up with the likes of Mullah Omar.
Well the obvious thing that has to be said is to demand an immediate end to the imperialist occupation of Afghanistan.
The problem there is that you will undoubtedly be denounced by people like Jim Denham for saying things that can *remotely* be construed as being even vaguely soft on the Taliban.
Dave, interesting post. I am interested in that Soviet sponsored govt, but before the Soviet invasion.
Did it briefly try to do progressive things in the breathing space before yet more invasions? I seem to remember reading somewhere it did. Or perhaps it didn’t. Anybody got more info?
Benjamin,
I have written a bit about the left government in Afghanistan here:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?cat=142
Dave is largely correct, there is no progressive outcome possible.
BUt that doesn’t mean we should accpet Jim Denham’s stupidity. In Denham’s world the Taliban were the achritects of the disastrous situation for progressives and women in Afghanistan, whereas in fact the mujahideen were fighting over Afghanistan for seven years of warlordism and plunder before the Taliban started to restore some stability. After the Russians left Kkabal was destroyed in fighting between warlords, and tens of thousands were killed in that one city alone.
Of course the mujahideen were supported in their war against the Russians by many left group in Britain. I canot remember where Sociaist organiser stood, but given their Stalinophbia, they probabably did back the mujahideen, correct me if I am wrong.
I remember reading an account on the web site of the revolutional Womens movement od Afghanistan, no freiinds of the Taliban, who pointed out that wien were a lot safer in taliban ruled areas. the had to wear the Burka to leave te house, but before the Taliban if they left the house they had a high chance of being raped and killed.
And from what I can see – these seem to be the possible outcomes, some stability and law and order under the appalling misogynist Taliban, or no stability and unbridled anarchy under warlordism.
Actually I think the Taliban are the much less likely victors now, as they never managed to fully consolidate their rule before, Iran is implacably opposed to them, and they are no longer openly sponsored by the pakistani state (if at all). Also the peasantry don’e want the taliban back, as the taliban banned their opium crops.
So the likely outcome is anarchy and warlordism, run by people even more venal that the taliban.
Presumably Jim Denham however will be pelased, becasue they aren’t the taliban.
Arguments from the likes of Workers’ Power – a small British orthodox Trotskyist outfit – that ‘the working class organisations could create a militia, if they only had the will’ would ring of black humour and deliberate satire, if it was not for the certainty that these people never write in anything but deadly earnest.
I think the Afghan working class did create a militia, but it turned out to be the opposite of what they want.
Surely there is almost no Afghan working class.
Hmmm. And how middle class are the Taliban?
I think NATO troops have prevented the Taliban re-establishing themselves in Afghanistan, and absent a coercive presence the Pashtun population doesn’t seem interested in rising up on their behalf. The problem is that you’ve now got an emerging Talibanistan plus al Qaeda base in the FATA areas in Pakistan, the Pakistan army taking heavy losses trying to suppress it and NATO talking about ramping up its presence on the border. That’s the next war to look out for, though as Dave says I don’t think there’s a particular left position on this.
Dead right Eddie. Though if a good leftie like you ever fell into the hands of the Talib, only the first of those two words would apply.
Re Benjamin’s question: About six or seven years back I met an Afghani woman who was completing a PhD at Manchester Uni on human cell structure. She told me that she did her first degree in Moscow. I said to her that had she been a few years younger she wouldn’t have had these opportunities. She agreed with me.
What is sick is that the imperialists’ sponsoring of the Afghan Islamic guerrillas destroyed about the only regime in Kabul in many decades that was attempting to bring the country at least somewhat into the modern era. I remember seeing official British government press packs praising the Mujahuddin as if they were the wartime French resistance. So when I hear any of the imperialist apologists talking about women’s rights in Afghanistan, or other aspects of modernisation, in relation to their war against the Taliban, I get angry.
A few months ago, I reckoned that within a couple of years a coalition would be cobbled up that included the Taliban. Then Des Browne stated that the Taliban would have to be considered for inclusion in any future Kabul government. The imperialists don’t have any principled opposition to the Taliban. In any case, they back the various warlords who are only slightly different in their forms of repression and gangsterism from the Taliban. It’s a question of finding some sort of agreement amenable to the warlords and the Taliban.
I think that Ashdown is being alarmist. I agree with ‘scepticisle’ here; Pakistan is politically a basket-case and could face political breakdown, but the frummers won’t be able to extend their influence much from the tribal areas. They could however cause problems, not least because of their close connections with elements of the intelligence services, I think that either they or intelligence agents sympathetic with them were responsible for nearly blowing away Bhutto the other day.
Thanks for the info, much appreciated.