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Russia Losing its Strategic Grip in Afghanistan
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
By Ehsan Ahrari
Center for Defense Information

The United States, on its part, interprets the Iranian maneuvering as a manifestation of its predilection for the return of "warlordism" in Afghanistan, and sees it as being aimed at weakening the interim government. The unfortunate aspect of the US interpretation (or misinterpretation) of Iranian activism, inter alia, contributed to Bush's lumping of Iran (along with Iraq and North Korea) as an "axis of evil."

Location -- Source
The United States military campaign against the Taliban (Operation Enduring Freedom) was initially a blessing in disguise for Russia, for two main reasons.

First, given the heightened American concern regarding transnational terrorism, Russia concluded that it could solve its own "Chechen problem" in the name of fighting terrorism, and, in the process, might get away with using whatever level of force it deemed necessary.

Second, it was the US military action - in which the American Special Forces pinpointed the positions of the Taliban fighters so that the American air force could pound them - that led to the collapse of the Taliban's resilience.

Russia was indeed surprised with the pace of the dismantlement of Taliban rule. The awesome power of the American military was once again unambiguously proven.

As the interim government of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai started to take political control of various regions of Afghanistan, Moscow decided to send in its own medical force. As benign as this Russian presence in Afghanistan might have been from the Kremlin viewpoint, it raised a lot of eyebrows, and also brought back painful memories of the brutalities related to the decade of Soviet occupation of Afghanistan that ended in 1992.

But Moscow did not show any sensitivity to these sentiments. The Pashtuns siding with Karzai (himself a Pashtun) did not forget that the Russians fought with the Tajik and Uzbek-dominated Northern Alliance, which was largely equipped by Russian military wherewithal.
(More: Asia Times Online News Source)
2002 © Center for Defense Information.

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