Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia

Yet for ordinary Afghans, how much had life really changed? Seven years on, Afghanistan was still listed fifth from last on the UNDP’s Human Development Index in terms of education, longevity, and economic performance. Its position of 174 out of 178 placed it only above the poorest countries of Africa. (36) One third of Afghans did not have enough to eat, and only 12 percent of women were literate, compared to 32 percent of men. Life expectancy was just a miserable forty-three years, half of that in the United States.

However, the Taliban are now expanding in Pakistan much faster than anyone could have imagined. It has not been their successful strategy as much as the failed policies of the army and Musharraf that have created this crisis. The world’s terrorist leaders were already living on the Pakistan side of the border, but with the creation of the Pakistani Taliban, they are now able to expand their influence, base areas, and training camps at will across northern Pakistan. The 2008 election offers a panacea, but it will bring relief only if the army, the politicians, and the international community come together to help the new Pakistan government tackle its myriad problems.

Success depends on the army persuaded to give up their twisted logic of insecurity, national pride, and expansion in the region, to help sort out the country’s problems, and to be good friends to Pakistan’s neighbors, instead of constantly trying to undermine them. The army’s insecurity, which since 1947 has essentially bred a covert policy of undermining neighbors, has now come full circle, for Pakistan’s very future is at stake as extremists threaten to undermine Pakistan itself.

The past three periods of prolonged military rule in Pakistan coincided with large U.S. aid flows to the country, but never in such quantities as the Bush administration undertook to provide Musharraf. Between 1954 and 2002, the United States provided a total of $12.6 billion in economic and military aid to Pakistan, of which $9.19 billion was given during twenty-four years of military rule, while only $3.4 billion was provided to civilian governments over a nineteen-year period. Between 2001 and 2007, the United States gave more than $10.0 billion to the Musharraf regime. Yet what has been the gross profit of this aid?

Today, seven years after 9/11, Mullah Omar and the original Afghan Taliban Shura still live in Balochistan province. Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leaders live on farther north, in FATA, as do the militias of Jalalud-din Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hikmetyar. Al Qaeda has a safe haven in FATA, and along with them reside a plethora of Asian and Arab terrorist groups who are now expanding their reach into Europe and the United States. The United States and NATO have failed to understand that the Taliban belong to neither Afghanistan nor Pakistan, but are a lumpen population, the product of refugee camps, militarized madrassas, and the lack of opportunities in the borderland of Pakistan and Afghanistan. They have neither been true citizens of either country nor experienced traditional Pashtun tribal society. The longer the war goes on, the more deeply rooted and widespread the Taliban and their transnational milieu will become.

The Bush doctrine has been overburdened with lies, omissions, and spin - all of which has done little to increase global confidence in the United States. It is going to take a generation before the world begins to see America in a different light, and the next U.S. president is going to have a very hard time cultivating a new image of America - quite apart from the immediate problem of what to do about Iraq and Afghanistan.

The enormous cost of these wars has crippled the United States and world economies, the military deployments have shattered the U.S. and British armies, and the death and destruction have bled civilian populations and worsened the humanitarian crisis for neighboring countries.

According to one estimate, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually reach $3.0 trillion. (37) In 2008 Iraq cost $12.5 billion a month and Afghanistan $3.5 billion a month. That is already double the cost of the Korean War and costlier than the twelve-year-long Vietnam War. Today’s wars have been financed almost entirely by borrowing, with no new taxes being raised. As a consequence, Americans for generations will be paying off these debts. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continues to expand and there is the danger that one day it will wreak more havoc in the West.

The West’s failure to follow through on nation building has disillusioned millions of people and made too many Muslims ready recruits for al Qaecia, It is ironic that finally, in 2008, the new U.S. Army doctrine stipulates that stabilizing war-torn countries is just as important as defeating the enemy. (38) If only that had been considered important in 2001. For those in organizations such as the UN, who try to do the best they can even under worsening circumstances and with smaller funds, the business of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and nation building is becoming harder. “The problem is that our expectations and agendas are not becoming any more realistic,” says Lakhdar Brahimi, the wise old Afghan peacemaker. “Instead, they have become more ambitious and multifaceted, seeking to promote justice, national reconciliation, human rights, gender equality, the rule of law, sustainable economic development, and democracy, all at the same time, from day one, now, immediately, even including in the midst of conflict.” (39)

Bush promised a great transformation in 2001, and he has certainly transformed the world, but not in the way that any of us could ever have imagined. We now all have to live with the consequences, pick up the pieces and help improve the world we are left with by tilting the earth’s axis back to where it should be.

The region of South and Central Asia will not see stability unless there is a new global compact among the leading players - the United States, the European Union, NATO, and the UN - to help this region resolve its problems, which range from settling the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan to funding a massive education and job-creation program in the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan and along their borders with Central Asia. The international community has to approach this region holistically rather than in a piecemeal fashion, and it has to persuade its own populations to agree to a long-term commitment of troops and money. Much will depend on how the new U.S. president sees this region and what importance he or she gives it. Only belatedly has the Bush administration admitted its failures. “I would have to admit that it is really important to be able to help others build their nations,” U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice acknowledged to Congress in March 2008. (40) For the first time, in the 2008-2009 budget, the administration designated nearly $250 million to create 350 diplomatic posts devoted to “nation building.”

The Pakistan army has to put to rest its notion of a centralized state based solely on defense against India and an expansionist, Islamist strategic military doctrine carried out at the expense of democracy. Musharraf deliberately raised the profile of jihadi groups to make himself more useful to the United States and to enhance his country’s strategic importance in Western eyes. No Pakistani leader can afford to take such a deadly gamble again, to play with the destiny of the nation, betray the people’s trust, and foster Islamic extremism that bites the hand that feeds it. Pakistan needs national reconciliation that brings an end to the demonization of politicians by the army; a new military culture that is taught to respect civilians, institutions, and neighbors; and reformed intelligence agencies that cease to interfere politically. (41)

Members of the Afghan elite need to appreciate the opportunity to be born again as a nation, a chance they were given by foreign intervention in 2001 and international aid since then - even though the results and commitment of both have been at best halfhearted. The Afghans need to evolve a system of governance capable of delivering services to the people and relatively free of tribalism, sectarianism, and corruption. They need to tackle the drug problem themselves and show the world, first, that they are worthy of help and aid, and second, that they will assume responsibility for their nation in the quickest possible time. So far, President Karzai has taken his people only partially down that road. He has compromised too much with warlords, thieves, and brigands rather than collaborating with the mainstream Afghans who want to rebuild their nation. However, the international community has to do far better than it has done to defeat the Taliban and provide better coordination among the competing tasks of fighting, good governance, and reconstruction.

Central Asia needs a political transformation before it can move forward. A generation of leaders will have to die or step down before real change can be expected. In the meantime, Central Asia, but especially Uzbekistan, is a powder keg, and the West will have to make itself more aware of the region so that it can contain the fallout from any explosion there. We have seen in this book that Islamic extremism will flourish in a political vacuum, in the most backward, deprived, and neglected places but also among people who are educated and politically conscious. Central Asia is the new frontier for al Qaeda, and at present there is nobody there effective enough to resist them. As long as Central Asian extremist groups continue to find sanctuary on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, they will remain a major threat to states in the region.

Solutions do not come easily in such a world or in a region that was traumatized well before 9/11. But the peoples and regimes of this region have to understand that unless they themselves move their nations toward greater democracy, the chaos that presently surrounds them will, in time, overwhelm them. Pakistan has shown a new beginning in 2008, and Afghanistan still has the potential to do so. If we can better understand what has happened before, what has gone wrong, and what needs to go right, as this book attempts to do, then we can better face up to our collective future.

36. The best history of the madrassa system in Pakistan is International Crisis Group, “Madrassas: Extremism and the Military,” July 2002.

37. Aga Khan Development Network, “Philanthropy in Pakistan: A Report of the Initiative on Indigenous Philanthropy,” Karachi, Pakistan, 2001.

38. The Madrassa Registration Ordinance was issued by the government on June 19, 2001.

39. State Department, “Press conference of President George W. Bush and President Musharraf,” Washington, DC., June 24, 2003.

40. Irfan Raza, “Almost One Madrassa Opened Every Week,” Dawn, December 31, 2006.

41. Khalid Hassan, “Americans Safer with Pakistan as Ally: Bush,” Daily Times, July 12, 2004.