WHY SHOULD THERE BE AN AFGHANISTAN?

Last week, we learned that Afghanistan is The Doormat of Empires.  Yet the ignorant myth of the mighty invincible Afghan keeps getting repeated – even by conservative writers who really ought to know better.

Washington Times columnist Jeff Kuhner is an example, who has proclaimed (6/24) that Petraeus is "doomed to fail," that "the jihadist iceberg is about to sink the American juggernaut," because: 

Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is the graveyard of empires – a nation whose rugged terrain and collection of disparate warlords and tribes is ideally suited for guerrilla warfare. The vaunted Soviet Red Army was crushed in the 1980s. Imperial Britain was defeated – not once, but twice – during the 19th century. The reason: They got dragged into protracted wars of attrition. Eventually, the fierce, primitive mountains, caves and fighters of Afghanistan wore down much superior forces, slowly bleeding them to death.

This is ridiculously not true.  Kuhner has obviously neither been to Afghanistan nor studied its actual history but is simply repeating memorized slogans.  Thus he asks, "Who lost Afghanistan?" as if this is preordained.  Let’s ask a different question instead:  "Why should there be an Afghanistan at all?"

Afghanistan is a problem, not a real country.  It is a pain in the world’s ass.  The solution to the problem is not a futile effort of "nation-building" – that effort is doomed to fail – it is nation-building’s opposite:  get rid of the problem by getting rid of the country.  It’s a salvage operation – carve the wreck up and parcel it out to its neighbors.

Which means we first have to look at the neighbors.  The problem of Afghanistan cannot be solved in isolation but within its geopolitical context.  Those neighbors are:  Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.  You can’t really count China’s tiny roadless border at the tip of the Wakhan Corridor.

Afghanistan has a 19^th century raison d’état – it was created quite specifically and for no other reason than to be a buffer state between the British Empire in India and the Russian Empire in Central Asia. 

That rationale shifted into a 20^th century context of the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union – but with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the rationale has in the 21^st century been rendered totally obsolete.

The world is a better place, clearly and objectively, because the Soviet Union no longer exists.  The world will be a better place if Afghanistan no longer exists.  Just as what ended the Cold War was the disintegration of the "Union" of Soviet Socialist Republics, so the War in Afghanistan will end with Afghanistan’s disintegration.

There will be new problems afterwards, of course – just as the end of the Soviet Union was not the end of history.  But let’s get rid of this problem now, this war now, this threat from Moslem crazies now.  How to do so begins with the Tajiks.

The Brits created Afghanistan in the 19^th century as a Pushtun Empire – Pushtuns ruling the other ethnic peoples in the country.  Indeed, "Afghan" is a Pushtun word, another name Pushtuns apply to themselves.  

Today, Pushtuns are way less than half of the population – 12.5 out of 30 million – yet they continue to dominate both the government and the Taliban.  The Taliban is essentially a Pushtun movement.

Ironically, the Afghan Mujahaddin who fought the Soviet Union in the 1980s were not.  The Muj – the ones that did most of the actual fighting – were Tajik.  The main Muj group was called Jamiat whose leaders, commanders, and fighters were Tajik – such as Burhunuddin Rabbani, Ahmad Shah Massoud, and Ismail Khan.

There were Pushtun Muj groups that fought well, like Harakat with commanders like Qari Baba Taj Mohammad – but the largest Pushtun Muj group were the Hezbis led by Gulbuddin Hekmaktyar, who did no fighting at all except against other Muj.  The CIA gave most of its money to Gulbuddin.

Tajiks are well over a quarter of Afghans, over 8 million out of 30.  The majority live in the north of the country, where Afghanistan and Tajikistan share 750 miles of border. 

In the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, the most prominent monument is to the country’s national hero and founder of the Tajik nation, Ismail Somani (ruled 892-907).  The Somanid Empire he founded at its peak in the 10^th century contained all of present-day Afghanistan and Tajikistan, plus most of Uzbekistan and the eastern half of Iran:  over one million square miles.

One quarter of the Somanid Empire was thus composed of present-day Afghanistan, for it is a quarter-million square miles ( a bit smaller than Texas, which is 268,000 sq. mi.).  Afghan and Tajikistan Tajiks speak the same Dari dialect of Persian, and most all ascribe to the Sunni version of Islam.

The president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, is encouraging a Tajik cultural revival, which includes memories of a Somanid "Greater Tajikistan."  Yet he is a secular Moslem who despises Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and radical Islam in general.   He is not itching for war, and it would come as a shock to him if the US broached the possibility of expanding his borders to the Hindu Kush – but it would be a fantasy dream come true for him and his country.

Currently, Tajikistan is the poorest of the five Central Asian "Stans" that came out of the USSR (the other four:  Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).  The population is only 7.5 million, 80% of whom are Tajik.  That is, there are 6 million Tajiks in Tajikistan and 8 million Tajiks in Afghanistan. 

Adding the latter to the former would increase the Tajik population of Tajikistan by 133% – plus give the poorest Stan a major share of the trillion dollars’ worth of mineral wealth the Pentagon claims Afghanistan has.

(One quid pro quo of the deal would be for US firms to get priority for resource extraction.)

So getting Tajikistan to accept Tajik northern Afghanistan would by a laydown.  What about the two other countries on the north?

Uzbekistan’s Afghan border only runs 85 miles.  To the south of it live a bit more than 2.5 million Uzbeks.  The Uzbek area of Afghanistan contains oil and gas.  Dictator Islam Karimov would be overjoyed to be offered it.  Yes, he’s a dictator, but he has zero tolerance for Moslem crazies.  You can count him in on the deal.

Even though Turkmenistan’s Afghan border runs about 450 miles, it’s mostly uninhabited wasteland.  Less than a million or about 900,000 Turkmen live in the region. The leader of Turkmenistan is an odd duck dictator, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamadov.  Nonetheless, no need to antagonize him by excluding him – he’ll jump at the deal.

You can also bet the Afghan Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmen would love to get out of Afghanistan’s Dodge.  They are sick of Pushtun corruption and tyranny, whether from Kabul or the Taliban.

So far, so easy.  Next is Iran.  Afghanistan’s border with Iran runs 580 miles – but although eastern Iran is ethnic Persian there are almost no Persians in Afghanistan.  Western Afghanistan is mostly Tajik, as is Herat, the largest city in the region.  So there is no reason to carve up Afghanistan for Iran’s behalf.

That said, Iran – or rather the Mullah Regime that runs it – is a major part of the problem, and not just in Afghanistan but throughout all of southwest Asia.  Thus one necessary – necessary – condition of a strategy to solve the problem of Afghanistan is to effect regime change in Iran.

The "Green" (for the color of Islam, not eco-greenie) democracy movement in Iran is deep and widespread, but not strong enough to overcome regime brutality.  The only way to catalyze regime change in Iran is with a military Decapitation Strike conducted by the Israelis with US assistance. 

The resultant chaos after the destruction of the Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) and Basij (thug militia) centers, communications and control centers, the Presidential Palace in Tehran, etc. – striking at the heart of the regime with minimal civilian casualties – would enable democracy forces to seize control, and no more Mullah Regime.

Okay – now for the core of the problem:  Pakistan.  It’s not a real country either.  It’s a Punjabi Empire.  Punjabis comprise 45% of Pakistan’s 177 million or about 80 million, and they are the business/military elite.  Their biggest problem, other than maniacal hatred for India, is the 27 million Pushtuns among them, primarily along the Afghan "border."

That is, the Durrand Line of the 1600 mile-long Afghan-Pak border divides the Pushtuns in half.  Thus the great Pak fear of an independent "Pushtunistan" with the loss of the western third of their country.  Well, as the Forum’s Joe Katzman would advise, let’s look at this as a feature, not a bug, and use it to solve the problem.

Our problem in Afghanistan is essentially the creation of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency or ISI, or "government-within-a-government."  The ISI created the Taliban after their boy Gulbuddin couldn’t form a government in Kabul in the mid-1990s.  Their creation is now slipping beyond their control and will create their Pushtunistan nightmare unless we win this war.

The ISI and the government in Islamabad must insist that the Af-Pak border is real – but this provides the Taliban with a Pak sanctuary that we cannot violate except by drones.  This conundrum has got to go.  So we must present the Paks with a choice:  either we create an independent Pushtunistan, carving half of it out of your country – or you expand your borders to include all of Pushtunistan, absorbing eastern and southern Afghanistan.

Adding 12 to 13 million Afghan Pushtuns would bring the total Pushtun population in Pakistan to half that of the Punjabis, about 40 million.  There are only two ways for the Paks to handle this.  The Punjabi elite can actually democratize and relinquish full control – or they can call in their buddies, the Chinese.

Offer the Chicoms a lion’s share of the mineral wealth in what was Pushtun Afghanistan and is now part of Pakistan, and they will waste little time disposing of any troublesome Taliban left after ISI support is cut off.  No ROEs for them.

Skye on the Forum provided an example:  exterminate any Taliban hiding out in mountain caves and tunnels with white phosphorus:  Fly an expendable RPV with a 100 pound white phosphorous warhead into a cave and not only does no one get out alive, no one will be able to use that cave for quite a while.  WP is neurotoxic and can be absorbed through the skin. Exploded in a cave with limited oxygen, much unburned WP will be left covering every surface. Nasty stuff, which Chicoms will have no qualms using.

Believe it or not, American soldiers are right now as you read this risking their lives providing security for the multi-billion-dollar Aynak copper mine south of Kabul deep in Taliban country – which is owned and operated by the Chinese.  Chicom soldiers can do this from now on.

In sum:  Karzai and a corrupt Kabul government is only a proximate problem, and it will not help one whit to replace him and it with some other central klepto-government.  The basic problem is the obsolescence of Afghanistan as a nation-state.

Our basic goal must not be to build a new improved version of this nation-state – for that goal is indeed doomed to failure.  Our goal must be to ensure that this place is no longer a threat to us, no longer can be a launching pad for terrorist atrocities against us.  The best way to remove that threat is to remove the nation-state itself:  northern and western Afghanistan to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan;  eastern and southern Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The US (along with India and just maybe Russia) can assist the three Stans in this absorption – but with no Taliban and agreeable populations, this has a quite good chance to go pretty smoothly.  The Chicoms can assist the Paks in absorbing and consolidating all of Pushtunistan.

The price we must extract from the Chicoms for allowing access to Pushtun Afghan mineral wealth and consolidating Pakistan as their client-state is their guarantee to exterminate the Taliban and Moslem terrorist threat there.  They have a good track record of doing just that in the Moslem areas of China.

One addendum is that a majority of Pushtuns would agree that the Afghan carve-up is a good deal for them as well – for at the price of losing the Tajiks et al, they are no longer divided but united.  They can dream of an independent Pushtunistan – and how they try to effect this is now a Chicom problem, not ours.

One addendum more regards central Afghanistan, a region called the Hazarajat because it’s peopled by descendants of Genghiz Khan’s Mongols called Hazaras.  They are Shia Moslem and number (together with Sunni Hazaras called Aimaqs) about 4 million or 13% of Afghans.  Since they bear an extreme antipathy towards the Taliban and Pushtuns in general, most likely they would opt to join Tajikistan.

Last Saturday (6/26), the New York Times ran a revelatory story headlined Overture to Taliban Jolts Afghan Minorities.  Here’s the key excerpt:

Talks between Mr. Karzai and the Pakistani leaders have been unfolding here and in Islamabad for several weeks, with some discussions involving bestowing legitimacy on Taliban insurgents.

"Karzai is giving Afghanistan back to the Taliban, and he is opening up the old schisms," said Rehman Oghly, an Uzbek member of Parliament and once a member of an anti-Taliban militia. "If he wants to bring in the Taliban, and they begin to use force, then we will go back to civil war and Afghanistan will be split."

The deepening estrangement of Afghanistan’s non-Pashtun communities presents a paradox for the Americans and their NATO partners. American commanders have concluded that only a political settlement can end the war. But in helping Mr. Karzai to make a deal, they risk reigniting Afghanistan’s ethnic strife.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was worried about "the Tajik-Pashtun divide that has been so strong." American and NATO leaders, he said, are trying to stifle any return to ethnic violence.

"It has the potential to really tear this country apart," Admiral Mullen said in an interview. "That’s not what we are going to permit."

Trapped in a 19^th century thought-box, Mullen doesn’t grasp that it’s exactly what we should not only permit, but should work to achieve as the solution to this war.

Petraeus is savvy enough not to be in such a box, and has the moxie to effect what could be called the Dissolution Solution to Afghanistan.  He’s also canny enough to persuasively pitch it to Zero as his (Zero’s) way to win the war and quickly, so our troops are home and he can have a victory campaign in 2012.

The diploweenies in our State Department will get the vapors.  Too bad.  Do what you’re told or be assigned to the consulate in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.  It’s time to win, time to get rid of the problem and threat of Afghanistan, time to end the necessity of putting our soldiers in harm’s way there.

It’s time to ask, Why should there be an Afghanistan?  It’s time for the Afghan Dissolution Solution.