Bracing for the backlash

LONDON: If Afghanistan's Taliban leaders were in any doubt that the U.S. military has them firmly in its sights, such illusions should have been dispelled by George Bush's uncompromising speech to Congress. The U.S. president made clear that Osama bin Laden, his terrorist associates and their training camps and facilities inside Afghanistan remain the primary target.

But in accusing the Taliban of "aiding and abetting murder" and explicitly condemning them, he gave formal notice that they, too, now face the full might of America's wrath. "The Taliban must act and act immediately," he insisted. "They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate."

The terms of Bush's ultimatum, which include the immediate surrender of all terrorist suspects, the closure of their bases and free, full access for U.S. forces anywhere in Taliban-held territory, were, he said, non-negotiable.

They are also, as he surely knows, impossible to meet, given Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's close alliance with Bin Laden, the uncertain whereabouts of the Saudi renegade, the mullah's fervent hatred of all that the U.S. represents, and the anathema that attaches to any kind of foreign intervention. The ultimatum was indeed duly rejected on Friday.

Despite continuing speculation about broader U.S. action, Bush did not specify any other, third-country targets at this stage. But his remarks now open the way for an American-led attack not only on the terrorist group deemed responsible for last week's atrocities, but also on a supposedly independent, sovereign state whose complicity is assumed and asserted but nevertheless not directly proven.

Bush was at pains to distinguish between the Afghan people, whom "the U.S. respects", and the Taliban regime. And in this distinction may lie the difference between possible success and an ever-extending, potentially disastrous military and political imbroglio. Mullah Omar, after all, is hardly the people's choice. His ascendancy is founded on brute force, dating back to 1996 when his followers overran Kabul.

Since then, Taliban misrule and merciless zealotry have merely compounded the woes of a country already devastated by the Soviet invasion, the U.S.-backed resistance struggle, and the ensuing civil war.

According to UN and other reports, one in four Afghan children dies before the age of five, the illiteracy rate is 75 percent, the annual per capita income is US$700, 3.5 million people have sought refuge along the Iranian and Pakistani borders (before the present crisis erupted) and up to one million more are "internally displaced".

Far from bringing peace to this ravaged land, Mullah Omar's men have presided over summary executions, extreme religious intolerance, utter disregard for conventional concepts of human rights, the systematic repression of women, cultural desecration (such as the looting of museum artifacts and the destruction of the Bamiyan buddhas), xenophobia of the most paranoid variety, and an economic implosion.

As many as five million Afghans are now affected by famine, according to the World Food Program. After foreign charity workers were arrested and the UN and others subsequently pulled out, even the inadequate trickle of food aid is drying up. Stockpiles are expected to run out next week.

Sunni Muslim Taliban forces have assaulted the Hazara Shia, alienated non-Pathan ethnic groups and only narrowly survived local, popular uprisings in Nimruz, Khost and Jalalabad.

Mullah Omar has meanwhile signally failed to win the ongoing war in the Panjshir and Herat. His promise to bring peace was, after all, the main reason why he was initially supported five years ago. In scorning UN-sponsored talks and increasingly clinging to power through intensified repression, Mullah Omar has proved to be rather less of an inspiration to the beleaguered masses and rather more of an unwelcome burden, a failed warlord in clerical garb.

For all these reasons, and quite apart from anything the United States may say, the Afghan people deserve to see an end to the era of Mullah Omar. Yet, from a western perspective, it is this same record of Taliban incompetence and maladministration, military failure and strategic incomprehension that may also now afford the best means of achieving Bush's aims with a minimum of bloodshed, especially civilian blood.

Current military plans, in so far as they are known, call for the establishment of air supremacy followed by the insertion of special forces. Such plans, if enacted, will certainly bring U.S. and British commandos into direct confrontation with Taliban forces. To control the air, and inhibit resistance on the ground, substantial air raids will also be required, bringing the inevitable toll of non- combatants. And it remains quite possible that yet more sweeping action is contemplated. From this arises the fearsome prospect of uncontrollable escalation, insurrection in Pakistan and a global Muslim backlash.

It may already be too late. But other less bellicose, parallel approaches should still be considered. They could involve exploiting known divisions between moderates and fanatics within Taliban ranks; they could mean encouraging the resistance in the north and west, and ethnic groups with no love of the Taliban, to press forward; they could include military aid, but also massive, direct food aid to the people, perhaps by aerial drops; and they could entail a propaganda campaign, using radio and other means, to convince Afghans that this is not an assault on Islam or their country but a shared fight for justice.

This also means the encirclement of Afghanistan through alliances with neighboring countries, a process now underway but problematic in respect of Pakistan -- the Taliban's sponsor. In all of this, good intelligence would certainly play a pivotal role. But that is already the case.

If Afghans were to depose the Taliban themselves, the problem of finding Bin Laden would still remain. But while admittedly still fraught with peril, it could be a lot less bloody a process. And when victory came, it would be a victory for the Afghan people, too -- a popular outcome which, unlike a western- imposed settlement, would have a real chance of lasting success. Bush told Congress he is a patient man. Let him show it.

-- Guardian News Service