Afghans Are Their Own Best Keepers

The destruction of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network and the destabilization of Afghanistan’s extremist Taliban regime will be difficult enough to achieve. Recently, though, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others have begun to hint at another objective: influencing the composition of a post-Taliban government.

There are reports that U.S. leaders have slowed the pace of the U.S. military campaign lest the Taliban collapse before an alternative regime is ready. Such a flirtation with nation-building is both unwise and unnecessary. One might hope that the U.S. had learned from the disastrous experiments in Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. Despite years of work and billions of dollars, the efforts failed big-time in all three cases.

Afghanistan is no more promising as a candidate for nation-building. For more than 20 years, it has been plagued by civil war. The fighting has created millions of refugees and destroyed what modest economy the country had. Afghanistan can hardly be called a nation at all. The three most prominent ethnic factions--the Pushtuns in the south and the Tajiks and Uzbeks in the north--barely tolerated each other during the best of times. Not surprisingly, they are on opposite sides in the current civil war. The Taliban draws the bulk of its support from the Pushtuns (the largest bloc) while the rival Northern Alliance gets most of its strength from the Tajiks and Uzbeks.

Washington apparently hopes for an effort under the auspices of the United Nations to form a broad coalition government to replace the Taliban. Reports have surfaced of negotiations to broaden the Northern Alliance by bringing in non-Taliban Pushtun political leaders. Some U.S. officials have dropped hints about enticing moderate Taliban factions to join such a coalition. The capstone to such a scheme is the proposal to invite Mohammad Zaher Shah, the Afghan king who was ousted in 1973, to return to the throne.

Such a plan is ill-conceived. First, the notion of moderates in the Taliban is absurd. The Taliban is the most bizarre, extreme movement in Islam. Even the most moderate members would be considered wild extremists in any other setting. Second, although the proposal to bring back the king has some appeal, he was an often erratic and difficult figure when he occupied the throne. At 87, he is not likely to be any easier to work with. Finally and most important, the long-standing antipathy among the Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and assorted other tribes is not going to end because of a U.S. or U.N. nation-building presence.

Although the U.S. should not stand in the way if Afghanistan’s neighbors and the U.N. want to conduct an experiment in nation-building, the U.S. should not be part of it. Indeed, U.S. participation might heighten fears in the Islamic world about American imperialism.

This is the ultimatum that Washington should give to any post-Taliban rulers: Refrain from supporting anti-American terrorists and the U.S. will not interfere in your country’s internal politics. Harbor terrorists and the U.S. will mete out the same treatment to you as it is now giving to the Taliban. It is a deal that any rational Afghan government would accept.

It is not necessary for the United States to step into the quicksand of nation-building in Afghanistan. The United States’ security does not require the existence of a stable, democratic government in Kabul. Such a regime is not likely to emerge in any case. America’s security requires only that whatever government controls any portion of Afghanistan not harbor and assist terrorists the way the Taliban has.