by LARRY HUFFORD

Larry Hufford, Ph.D., is a professor of International Relations at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.

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Dick Cheney’s visit to Afganistan and Pakistan

Vice President Dick Cheney made recent stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan in anticipation of a Taliban and al-Qaeda spring offensive. While there, Cheney played neo-conservative hardball with Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, with the goal of prodding Musharraf to move militarily into the remote northwestern Pakistan region of the country to combat Taliban and al-Qaeda safe havens. The logic is that 2007 is a make-or-break year for U.S./NATO forces and the Karzai government in Afghanistan.

However, this neo-conservative strategy is likely to fail for a host of reasons that Cheney is failing to recognize.

No Pakistani government has ever controlled the Pashtun region of the country. Warlords and local militias reign supreme. For the U.S. to pressure Musharraf to militarily fight its Pashtun population would threaten Pakistan’s domestic security and risk the overthrow of the government by hard-line military leaders or by radical Islamists. Remember that Musharraf is facing a heated September election in a politically divided country.

In Pakistan there are Pashtun Islamists and Pashtun nationalists. The Islamists think and act as part of a regional movement, while the nationalists favor the creation of an independent nation-state called Pashtunistan, which would include the Pashtun region of Afghanistan. The current boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan is known as the Durand Line, drawn by Sir Mortimer Durand of Great Britain in 1893. To the Pashtun tribes the boundary remains an artificial one.

On the Afghanistan side there are Pashtun nationalists, Pashtun warlords linked to Pakistan, and Pashtun warlords linked to al-Qaeda. The Karzai government has little control of the country outside of Kabul and Kandahar, and Afghanistan is deeply divided by ethnicity, language, warlords and tribal loyalties. This was helpful in fighting the Soviet Union and overthrowing the Taliban, but the factions have solidified power in the decentralized chaos that followed the downfall of the Taliban.

The unit of Afghan tribal organization is the Quam. This network links loyalties rooted in the family that spread to the tribe and ethnic group. Quams are societies within a society. Historians point out that since World War II efforts to unify and centralize rule in Afghanistan have failed. What does this mean? An Afghan “citizen” has yet to be created.

Currently in Afghanistan there are no major highways connecting provincial capitals or cross-border road and rail systems. Major parts of the country lack electrical power, clean water, an education and health care system. Meanwhile, in 2005 Afghanistan produced over 90 percent of the world’s opium. In 2006, poppy cultivation increased almost 60 percent. Drug money and corruption feed political divisions. Simply put, Afghanistan is a decentralized narco-state.

Intelligence reports that conclude that while it would be a public relations bonanza to capture or kill Osama bin Laden (assuming he is alive) it would have little impact on the ground. Several analysts state that Mullah Omar, whose base of operations is in southeastern Afghanistan, is calling the shots. Omar’s strategy appears to be to turn resistance to U.S./NATO forces into an Afghan nationalist movement against western occupiers.

Perhaps the most basic reason U.S./NATO forces are not likely to be successful in avoiding the spring offensive is that Pakistan has no domestic security interest in action that would strengthen a secular democratic government in Afghanistan. Why? Pakistan’s fear that a secular state in Afghanistan might decide that a strategic alliance with Hindu dominant India would be the way to “contain” Pakistan.

The U.S. must reject neo-conservative dogma, instead relying on diplomacy and a moderate use of force in the region. Pakistan is a fragile state with nuclear weapons. If the Bush-Cheney administration pushes too hard, the country could implode, leaving a person or group far more radical than Musharraf in control of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Meanwhile, regional peace will not be achieved by allowing Mullah Omar and the Taliban to return to power, not to mention the human rights abuses that would re-emerge. Diplomacy is critical, but will only succeed if it is rooted in a historical, theological and anthropological understanding of Afghanistan and Pakistan.