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STRATFOR.com
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THE INTERNET SOURCE FOR GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
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Conflict Will Follow Taliban's Fall
October 9, 2001
Summary
The United States has begun its military campaign in Afghanistan without first forging a post-Taliban regime. Although opposition forces will take advantage of U.S. air strikes to attempt to drive the Taliban from power, this will only usher in another round of fighting among the victors. Because the United States needs a friendly and stable regime in Kabul to facilitate its primary mission of rooting out Osama bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs, it will find itself drawn into an attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan. This is an intractable problem that could draw the United States into a lengthy, costly and ultimately doomed engagement in Afghanistan at the expense of its primary mission.
Analysis
The United States on Oct. 7 began an active military campaign against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The move was premature -- driven by the approach of Ramadan and winter -- and the United States had not yet locked down political support or deployed the forces necessary for sustained combat. But Washington could not afford to wait until next spring to begin operations.
As the first round of cruise missiles slammed into targets in Kandahar, the United States and Pakistan had yet to settle on a successor regime to the Taliban. The deep fractures remaining among the Afghan factions opposing the Taliban, as well as competition between the countries that sponsor them, will return to haunt the United States as it attempts to achieve its military goals in Afghanistan, and later as it attempts to disengage from that conflict.
Reports from Afghanistan indicate that opposition forces already are capitalizing on the U.S. strikes. Within an hour after the first air strikes, Northern Alliance troops based at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, began Katyusha rocket attacks against Taliban positions in the surrounding mountains. Northern Alliance officials and spokesmen in Tajikistan told reporters that they had received forewarning of the U.S. strikes and are acting in close coordination with the United States. Rahimullah, an official in the Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, said the Northern Alliance may coordinate with U.S. air strikes to attempt to move into Kabul, the Associated Press reported.
Other Afghans are apparently rebelling against the Taliban as well. Several local commanders have reportedly defected from the Taliban. And according to the Iranian news agency IRNA, fighting has erupted between residents of the western border town of Ziranj and Taliban forces in the wake of the U.S. strikes.
Although there may be signs of promise for the U.S. effort to topple the Taliban, there is little to suggest that a viable plan is in place to replace the regime. The United States and Pakistan remain divided over the preferred composition of a post-Taliban regime, Russia and Iran have their own ideas and the various Afghan factions are not necessarily inclined to cooperate with any externally imposed scheme.
The Taliban could be driven from power, but that will only mark the beginning of U.S. problems in Afghanistan. If the United States is to achieve its minimum stated goal of purging radical militants from Afghanistan, it will have to work with a post-Taliban regime. To do so, Washington will likely get dragged into trying to forge a stable Afghan government. Given the factors standing in the way of that mission, the United States may find itself bogged down in nation-building instead of militant-hunting.
(The Rest of the Story)
(c) 2001 Stratfor, Inc.
Dan
Conflict Will Follow Taliban's Fall . . .