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The destabilization of Afghanistan over the last 25 years has resulted in four major overlapping transformations: 1. the center has collapsed causing the center-periphery relationship to evaporate, 2. the national market of Afghanistan has disappeared, 3, ethnic, sectarian, and regional cleavages have become more robust and assertive, 4. Islamist ideologies have become powerful transparent forces in the construction of self and political life of Afghans. All these changes have been triggered by the introduction of massive amounts of external material resources (largely by the United States and Saudi Arabia) and Wahabi and other Fundamentalist Islamist ideological orientations. In pre-1978 Afghanistan political power and surplus economic resources were extremely limited and severely circumscribed and there was virtually no institutional access available for groups to contend for them. Subsequently, as increasingly large amounts of resources were rapidly introduced and old structural barriers removed or eased, intense competition for real and potential power has emerged.

Academic literature (especially in anthropology) about socio-cultural diversity in general and ethnic groups encapsulated by nation-states in particular, are replete with accounts of the correlation between heightened ethnic, linguistic, and regional tension and conflict and the competitive introduction of new resources from outside. The political dynamics of Afghanistan during the past twenty-five years vividly illustrate and confirm this causal relationship. Policies and programs for the country’s rehabilitation and reconstruction should be informed by a disciplined understanding of the changing configuration of ethnic, sectarian, and regional contrasts in Afghan polity and the quality and quantity of external resources that have been (and are being) grafted on these variations. The introduction of massive amounts of material resources, Fundamentalist Islamist ideologies and the consequent emergence of new political awareness continue to produce increasing ethnic, sectarian, and regional consciousness and tensions in Afghanistan. Together these developments have become powerful components of innovative political claims and strategies in the volatile Afghan political field

Pre-1978 Afghanistan was a loosely woven state with a tenuous national market. Relationships between its center and periphery and amongst the various ethnic groups, religious sects, and regions were framed in vague and contested notions of national identity. Ethnic, linguistic, sectarian, and regional idioms of identity superseded conceptions of nation and nationality in Afghanistan. Due to general underdevelopment, weak and disinterested center, paucity of economic resources, absence of effective means of communication, and lack of participatory political institutions, the diverse elements of Afghan polity were spared robust interaction with the state, each other, and with the outside world. All this dramatically changed when during the 1980s when the Afghan center, in spite of its enhanced destructive ability, became increasingly unpopular, weak and fragmented by the opposition posed to it by the introduction in the periphery of massive amounts of ideological and destructive resources by outsiders.

The United States and its local oil rich ally, Saudi Arabia, with the facilitation of Pakistan, played a major role in the collapse of the fragile state configuration of Afghanistan. By pouring billions of dollars and massive quantities of weapons into the Afghan periphery through the recruitment, training, and arming of tens of thousands of the so called “freedom fighters” and inventing the ideology for their assembly line “jihad” (holy struggle or war), the United States radically altered the balance of center-periphery relations in the country. These changes converted the relatively peaceful traditional patterns of socio-cultural distinctions into competing and hostile ethno-linguistic, sectarian, and regional cleavages. The prominence of various warlords in the country today is a profound expression of these resource-induced transformations taking the country back to the late eighteenth century.

Afghanistan’s quiescent traditional patterns of ethnic and rudimentary social class distinctions had gradually become noticeable, especially in urban areas, after WWII with the introduction of limited (but significant by Afghan standards) amounts of foreign aid for economic development and military upgrading and modernization. But the introduction and competitive distribution of billions of dollars and massive amounts of means of destruction (overwhelming by Afghan and regional standards) during the decade of the 1980s aggravated ethno-linguistic, sectarian, and regional distinctions and triggered a slide in social class variations in the country. Not only were ethnic and regional distinctions in Afghanistan exacerbated, new political arrangements appeared as well. As an adaptation to the absence of the center, alternative social and political models for local governance in the periphery emerged and assumed increasing autonomy and self-sufficiency. The Afghan center did not only disappear, it became totally irrelevant. These new contrasts and tensions could easily be seen in the policies and behavior of the umbrella organizations of the “mujahidin”, the Afghan opposition factions operating out of Pakistan. Armed confrontation in the field among these groups were not unusual earlier but became widespread after 1989 when the Soviets withdrew and the U.S. substantially downscaled its mujahidin subsidy and supervision. These confrontations gave way to an all out war after the central government of Afghanistan collapsed in April 1992. The Taliban evolved out of the anarchy that followed in the wake of the disappearance of the Afghan center. The post-1978 chaotic social conditions throughout the country allowed millions of Afghan young men and adolescent boys to participate in various forms of opposition to the state as well as in free for all self-aggrandizing economic activities. They experienced first-hand the soft underbelly and fragility of the Afghan state, life without a state, and the viability of local rule and government as an adjustment to the disaster that struck the country and continues to shape life there.

Presently the United States does not have a clear and coherent policy for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan, with justifiable cynicism, view the U. S. presence in their country solely aimed at eradicating the Taleban and al-Qaeda and, when that is accomplished, they believe the United States will leave. Since 9-11 the United States has followed courses that are predicated on an empirically and historically unfounded premise, a premise that is shared by analysts of Afghanistan in the government, the media and academic specialists. These approaches assume that the collapse of the Afghan center and the destruction of its infrastructure could have been prevented had the United States decided to stay in the region and not to abandon its mujahidin clients after 1989, especially after 1992. However, the record shows that the dramatic changes in the structure of Afghanistan and Afghan Islam had begun long before the Soviets left the country in 1989 and immediately after the U. S. assumed sponsorship of the mujahidin in the early 1980s and started the course for Wahabi and other Muslim fanatics to enter the country. The withdrawal of the USSR and the corresponding decline of the underwriting of mujahidin by the United States and its allies are events that, ipso facto, have little to do with the collapse of Afghanistan, the emergence of Taleban, or the infestation of the country by al-Qaeda. The seeds for these transformations were sown during the early1980s when the United States government debilitated the Afghan center by introducing massive monetary and destructive resources into the periphery, created and manipulated the mujahidin in the framework of a vehement anti-Soviet (and anti-Afghan Government) fundamentalist Islamist ideology.

During the devastation of Afghanistan, Osma Bin Laden and his gangs of Wahabi zealots, with CIA support, lead the recruitment of thousands of Arabs and other Muslims from around the world for the “Afghan jihad”. The penetration of Afghanistan by large numbers of al-Qaeda started right after the departure of Soviet troops. Cognizant of this trend, the Afghan government of the time repeatedly warned of the infiltration of the country by the Wahabis and the presence of increasing numbers of other Arab Muslims in the ranks of the mujahidin. By this time the armed opposition against the government of Afghanistan had become a mostly Wahabi-led Arabized affair.

The ethnically conditioned tensions and antagonisms between the various faction of the mujahidin and armed confrontations in the field among them emerged when the United States and its local allies began pouring vast amounts of resources into the Afghan conflict in the early 1980s. By the time the USSR left Afghanistan in 1989 there were daily reports of pitched battles for control of territory and resources among these groups. These conflicts could not be disguised by the forced charade of the fractious Afghanistan Interim Government (AIG) in 1989 and the CIA-ISI orchestrated attack on Jellalabad in April of that year in which the Kabul government forces soundly defeated the thousands of well equipped and well paid but discordant “freedom fighters”. By the time the US embassy in Kabul was officially closed in winter 1989 the configuration of ethnic relations had dramatically changed and Fundamentalist Islamist fervor had replaced the traditional patterns of ethnic and religious tolerance in Afghanistan. The political passions that were initially (and theoretically) directed towards the Russians became rapidly diverted to hostilities towards other ethnic groups, regions, sects and, ironically, the West—especially the United States. And today, when millions of dollars are given to the Kabul government and, in a cruel contradiction of the theory about the integration and rebuilding of Afghanistan espoused by the Bush administration, to the various Afghan warlords, these passions are more vibrant and consequently each region remains largely independent of central control and each ethnicity and sect is more aware and articulate about its prospects for access to power. What the policy makers and analysts do not recognize is that the main cause of the disappearance of center-periphery relations and the disruption of the traditional balance of interethnic and interregional relations in Afghanistan is the introduction of massive new resources, not the withdrawal of the United States from the region and its abandonment of the freedom fighters. In fact, had the United States stayed on and continued funding the mujahidin after 1992, interethnic and sectarian conflicts would have assumed even sharper, more articulate contrasts, as they seem to have during the past eighteen months. And the Wahabis would have driven even wider and deeper roots in Afghan society.

Notable in the participation of the USSR in the destabilization of Afghanistan was its bolstering of the Afghan center’s destructive ability, in a way, the opposite of what the United States is responsible for. In comparative terms, the Soviets corrupted the Afghan center by moving it to the extreme left while the United States radicalized the periphery by moving it to the extreme right of traditional Afghan political discourse and relations of power. The clash between these two extremes caused the collapse of the Afghan state and the debris of this collapse frames the 1992-present political dynamics of the country. This radicalization not only polarized Afghanistan, it produced radical Muslim elements from Morocco to Indonesia. Without doubt the USSR and its successor, the Russian Republic, bear heavy responsibility for the destruction of and corresponding obligation for the rebuilding of Afghanistan. But given the circumstances, and in light of the widely circulated knowledge that Russia is currently promoting some of the Soviet era local extremists (of the left and right), that responsibility should be discharged through the United Nations. Similarly, the obligation of Saudi Arabia to the reconstruction of Afghanistan should be discharged through the United Nations. With this general framework in mind the following recommendation are made for an alternative United States approach towards Afghanistan.

The United States should unambiguously and emphatically embrace its moral and political responsibility for the destabilization of Afghanistan and the collapse of its state structure. It should assure (and convince) the people of Afghanistan and the world community that it is committed to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country and that this time around it will stay the course in Afghanistan and stand with its people until their country is repaired, totally back on its feet, and securely tracked on its way to a stable and self-sufficient democratic state. We should do all we can to brighten the dimmed hopes of the people of Afghanistan and reinforce their confidence in a peaceful, secure, and democratic tomorrow.

The U. S. must shoulder its obligation for a substantial material contribution to the country’s rehabilitation and reconstruction over the next 10-12 years. It should draw up a carefully studies long range “Marshall Plan”—in spirit if not in scope—for the country with realistic and specific objectives over the next 10-12 years not the three years unfocused speed race for a “quick fix” that is currently Underway And we must not forget that Afghanistan is not post-WWII Germany. The latter was privileged by a long-standing and firmly placed blue print for a strong modern state structure, a strong sense of nationalism, and foundations on which to build democratic institutions. Present day Afghanistan is a rubble underneath which there is only a faint and broken outline of the moorings of a fragile state format. The absence of a strong, coherent, uncontested nationalist ideology in Afghanistan has left in its wake a country that is desperately in need of a national ideology. Thus, in Afghanistan we have the daunting challenge of not only resuscitating a failed state but also the, virtually from scratch, task of forging a coherent sense of nationality to which all Afghans can comfortably subscribe. Obviously, the latter challenge is the more complex and difficult of the two. Consequently, the reconstruction of Afghanistan involves an interconnected two track project that should, when carefully merged, produce the beginnings of a viable nation-state. The project offers a unique historical opportunity for the United States and the international community to help a collapsed state in the recovery and reconstruction of which its people can retain the best features of their traditional social institutions and cultural values and to adopt the best elements that the modern world has to offer. A firm and sustained commitment to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan should be the explicit basis of U. S. presence in the country and must be independent of its military operations there. These operations should be phased out as the transitional period gradually evolves into a rehabilitated state and the establishment of a democratically elected central government. American involvement with the reconstruction of Afghanistan should be in the framework of an international consortium in which the United States should have the leading role.

Why the haste and impatience in the reconstruction of Afghanistan? If we hurry in its reconstruction, as is presently the case, we will have in Afghanistan, once again, a warlord run country, ripe for terrorist infestation, that will be dominated by groups that are currently politically organized and have roots in various shades of extremism: radical Islamist fundamentalists (Taleban, Hekmatyar, both supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia); former leftists in various guises (e. g. Dostum, and other Parcham elements in the Northern Alliance, supported mostly by Russia and Iran); and mainstream “jehadi” or mujahidin groupings led by Rabbani, Ismael Khan, Sayaf, Gailani, Mojaddidi, and followers of the deceased Ahmad Shah Mas’ud (supported by Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Russia in case of Rabbani and Mas’ud). If we hold elections now we will certainly end up with the status quo—Karzai in Kabul and the warlords with their militias in the provinces. And this is what the United States has apparently resigned itself to. U. S. General John Vines, Coalition Commander in Afghanistan, believes that the warlord militias are needed in Afghanistan “because there has been no security mechanism to protect the people of an area” (NBC Nightly News, September 9, 2003) Why confer legitimacy on arrangements that do not reflect the wishes of the people of Afghanistan? Our aim should be the gradual and certain dismantling of undemocratic structures throughout the country. If we allow these corrupt and oppressive arrangements to become legitimate through imposed superficial elections, we may never be able to remove them from the political landscape of Afghanistan.

Much that has been undertaken in Afghanistan during the past two years has been piecemeal and in haste and therefore inconsequential because the elite chosen by the United States to govern the country is in a hurry so that they can convert the transitional regime to a situation in which they and their supporters will become permanent political fixtures in the country. The traditional American addiction to a “quick fix” encourages this hurried and reckless pace. Lakhdar Brahimi, United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, who seems to be inspired by the World Bank’s notoriously wasteful and unrealistic theoretical approach to development, is orchestrating, under American supervision, a naïve and hasty march to the new constitution and elections for neither of which the country is in the least prepared. In Afghanistan we have a golden opportunity to cautiously, gradually, and patiently sow the foundations of an independent judiciary in a democratic Muslim state that is legitimated by consensus, not coercion. Anything less would be a great loss for the people of Afghanistan and the global community. If the current rush to a new constitution and elections is allowed to pass, the country will likely lapse into a radical Islamist government or disintegrate into autonomous principalities controlled by warlords. Impatience with Afghanistan and putting the cart of democracy before the social engine that can drive it will make the situation much worse than it already is. A sincere and diligent commitment to the rescue and reconstruction of Afghanistan requires that the people of Afghanistan should be helped to their feet first before a new constitution and elections are thrust upon them. Once the Afghan people are on their feet they can then write their constitution and hold free elections under the watch of leaders chosen by themselves not those appointed by and accountable to outsiders. These appointees should serve only during the transitional period.

State building within a democratic framework in Afghanistan cannot be accomplished in a hurry and in a few years. The foundational ingredients and institutional rudiments of a state require measured and gradual development and special human and material resources. The under thirty years old population of Afghanistan, the vast majority in the country, have never peacefully experienced a state structure within Afghanistan. Millions of Afghans have participated in the violent deconstruction of their state in recent years; they have learned to manipulate and intimidate the state and to view the state as an obstacle to their personal interests and something without which they have survive easily. The need for patience and gradualism is especially critical in Afghanistan where the state and periphery arrangement has totally disappeared, where 90% of the population is illiterate, where tribal and local loyalties among the vast majority of its people are the only loyalties, and where the idea of a firmly established nation state and democratic institutions is totally unfamiliar. Realism, patience, and gradualism should be the guiding lights of our approach to Afghanistan. We need a deliberate slow pace with gradual introduction of capital, technology, and social innovations. At the present time he country cannot absorb the massive amounts of money and technology the Kabul government is seeking. One sure way to slow down the current fast pace is to substantially scale down the transfer of external resources to the country, something that is, not surprisingly, vehemently opposed by Hamed Karzai and his Kabul government.

Moreover, democracy cannot be introduced with violence—rockets, bombs and tanks. It is pure fantasy for George W. Bush to claim that the United States is “spreading freedom and peace” as the rearguard of massive violent destruction and humiliation caused by U. S. armed forces. Humiliation breeds contempt, disrespect, and hatred. The people of Afghanistan cannot forget the painful memories of the humiliating violence inflicted on them during the past twenty five years by the Russian armed forces, by the armed forces of Afghanistan, the U. S. sponsored mujahidin, the Taleban and, in the aftermath of 9-11, the armed forces of the United States. The very idea of democracy is incompatible with violence and fear induced by coercion or the threat of coercion. Democracy requires informed consensus as the basis of political legitimacy. And democracy is not simply made up of a hastily drafted constitution, superficial elections, and three branches of government. A democratic polity requires foremost a set of sentiments and intellectual equipment about freedom, equality, trust, foregoing one’s personal and familial interests for a larger social good, social justice, civil rights and obligations, informed and voluntary participation in one’s political and economic affairs. These requirements can only be gradually learned in the framework of secure, stable and peaceful institutional arrangements (e.g. family, school, mosque, media) over a long haul, sometimes over several generations. In a country ravaged by violence as Afghanistan, this will take all the more time. In Afghanistan we have the monumental task of helping the Afghans to unlearn the use of violence in dealing with social and cultural differences and to repair (and hopefully undo) the impact of centuries full of violence. We should not rush into meeting these challenges. The current hasty and heavily coercive process of social reconstruction, especially the imposing of the “quick fix” constitution and elections, is doomed to failure. Dependence on coercion can be gradually degraded if the process is slowed down; otherwise, it will produce calamitous results that will include what state terror has usually produced in Afghanistan, short-term stability but long-term instability, collapse and fragmentation.

The people of Afghanistan have never participated in free and democratic elections. It is simply self-serving, cruel and unrealistic to impose the burden of a new constitution and “free” and “democratic” elections on a people who are the least prepared for it, and in a society that lacks minimal meaningful institutional arrangements for a meaningful participatory process. Moreover, Afghanistan is in a state of chaos, lawlessness, and anarchy; it must be secured, stabilized and politically and economically integrated before such things as a new constitution and elections are contemplated. Forcing on the people of Afghanistan a document that is written in haste by strangers and friends and supporters of Hamed Karzai—people who have been estranged from Afghanistan for decades—in an atmosphere of fear, insecurity, and uncertainty, will give way to more instability and division. The people of Afghanistan must be first provided with basic tools for the understanding and appreciation of constitutional government and a participatory political system. The tool most necessary for this understanding is education, literacy, and a responsible free press. Illiteracy and ignorance have made it possible for all forms of corrupt and self-serving regimes and religious fanatics to dominate the country. Today we are in an advantaged position not to allow this to happen again. Afghans should experience democracy gradually and in meaningful, smaller, closer to home, doses. During the transitional period no national or provincial elections should be held. Only local elections dealing with specific non-polarizing issues, not offices and individuals, should be frequently held. Elections for individual office holders will only strengthen the Karzai and his friends and warlords and their supporters at this time. The first national election in Afghanistan should be held at the end of the transitional period (when the national police force replaces the warlords and their militias) with a symbolic, impersonal issue such as alternatives for the form and colors of the prospective national flag, on the ballot. Thereafter, with increased literacy and universal compulsory education firmly in place, Afghans should be able to meaningfully tackle the complex issue of a new constitution and elections for national and provincial offices. No national elections for political office should be held until the various warlords and their militias have been eliminated and replaced by the national police force.

The current hasty and disingenuous plans for the new constitution and the machinery for drafting it along with arrangements for the spurious “loya jirga” (see below) and national elections should be suspended. The Kabul government’s desire for a new constitution and speedy elections is based solely on its desperate desire for a device with which to deceive the people of Afghanistan and to perpetuate itself. In so doing, the Karzai government is blatantly exploiting the fears and innocence of the people of Afghanistan. The right of Afghans to create, under informed, peaceful and secure conditions, a framework by themselves in which to hammer out a document that will serve as the foundation of a constitutional government in Afghanistan should not be preempted and trampled by the contortions of a “new” constitution. This “new” constitution is in fact the 1964 constitution with minor modifications. The publicly disclosed drafts of this document closely resemble the 1964 constitution. Karzai’s constitutional commission has simply replaced “king” with “president”, “kingdom” with “republic” in the new document. Such packaging of old wine in new bottles by remnants of those who created the nightmare of the past 25 years and by the children of the old Afghan elite—essentially those who participated in the arrangements that caused the demise of the Afghan state—should not be allowed to pass. However, for practical purposes and with minor modifications, the 1964 constitution is adequate—not as a “new” constitution but a provisional charter—for the transitional period in which the focus should be on security, stabilization, integration, and seeding for democratic institutions.

The present government in Kabul is composed mostly of individuals with dubious ties to the present population of Afghanistan. Many of them have been away from the country for decades and are connected to the pre-1978 corrupt regimes and the small middle class that emigrated years ago to Europe and the United States. Others, in key posts, are remnants of the disastrous “jihad” and elements tied to former leftist groups. They have gathered around Hamed Karzai (called by some as “mayor of Kabul”), an appointee of Washington, whose rule does not extend beyond the building in which he lives and who was an ally of the Taleban until the United States invaded Afghanistan. Karzai and his government has accomplished nothing since they were installed in Kabul by the United States. Karzai and some members of his cabinet are protected by bodyguards composed of United States armed forces. Their security details do not include Afghan personnel. Those who decided to install American security guards for Mr. Karzai must be indeed naïve, indifferent, incompetent or desperate for someone to govern Afghanistan for them. The decision suggests only one thing: Karzai is an undisputed puppet of an occupying power and undeserving of the trust of the people he pretends to govern. He is the only head of government in the world who cannot trust his personal security to his own people. There is no head of government in the world, other than the U. S. president, whose security detail is composed strictly of American security forces. By any standard, this disingenuous practice is unacceptable. It is an insult to the people of Afghanistan. One assumes that sooner or later the American forces will leave Afghanistan; what will happen when or if Karzai’s American bodyguards are removed?! Those who have created this embarrassing arrangement must think very little of the people of Afghanistan and of Mr. Karzai beyond his utility as a front man to do the bidding of the U. S. government in Kabul. Common sense and a sincere commitment to a democratic Afghanistan require that, if for no other reason, for incompetence and for the reason that he cannot trust his own people, Karzai should be immediately removed and, for his own safety, taken out of Afghanistan. Due, in part, to American uncertainty and distrust of local Afghans Hamed Karzai has become indispensable to United States policy in Afghanistan. Echoing this policy, Robert Oakly, an experienced American diplomat, has recently stated that if Karzai dies “it (Afghanistan) could all crash and burn” and “if he (Karzai) goes under we are going to have big problems” (NBC Nighly News, September 7, 2003). The United Nation’s Lakhdar Brahimi who implements United States policy in Kabul believes that “there is not much of an alternative to him (Karzai)” (NBC Nightly News, September 9, 2003). Why limit our options and succumb to such a dangerous addiction, an addiction that we have to give up sooner or later? What if Karzai falls ill or dies of natural causes? Would Afghanistan then be relegated to political oblivion?! No single person is or should be viewed as indispensable in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the American policy makers have selfishly installed Karzai and his mostly Western trained cabinet members simply because they feel comfortable with them without regard to the comfort of Afghans and the needs of social and political reconstruction in Afghanistan. Having listened to a few of these cabinet ministers with titles of “doctor” and “professor” on tour in the United States, it is clear that they have no clear and coherent idea of what Afghanistan was, what has happened to it in the last fifty years, and where it is headed. Nor are they able to objectively and coherently conceptualize the country’s current massive political and social devastation. Fluency in a European languages and having academic degrees from Western institutions does not guarantee understanding the scope and implications of a collapsed state in Afghanistan and the daunting challenge of its rescue and reconstruction.

The people of Afghanistan do not identify with estranged and alienated individuals like Karzai, his cabinet and their cronies in the Kabul government and collectively consider them instruments of an occupying power. Instead of supporting corrupt and disconnected expatriates, the United States government should seek competent and respected moderate elements from within the country for the transitional government of Afghanistan. The country has ample human resources for leadership and service. Due to selfishness, indifference, and perhaps incompetence, the United States and the United nations has not looked hard enough to find these resources.

The theorist behind the American government’s approach during the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations to Afghanistan is Zalmay Khalilzad (a.k.a. Hannah Negaran). He and Hamed Karzai, his long time friend, have put together the present transitional government in Kabul. An Afghan-American of obscure background, Khalilzad contributed to the choice of Karzai as head of the Kabul government. He claims to be a Pashtun and the son of an Afghan government official during the monarchy. But this writer is unaware of any one who knows for certain Khalilzad’s tribal, ethnic, and regional affiliations in Afghanistan. He does not speak a word of Pashtu, one of the two major languages of Afghanistan. Khalilzad has become famous as an “expert” on Afghanistan but his academic training has nothing to do with that country. He has not written a single scholarly word on the country. His writings, full of distortions and misrepresentations, are of journalistic and popular bent and are uninformed by historical and ethnographic accounts of culture, society and politics in the country. His understanding of Afghanistan is garbled and confused. A close associate of Richard Perle, Daniel Pipes, and Paul Wolfowitz—all avowed pro-Israeli Zionists—Kahlilzad is rumored to have arranged for the intelligence services of Afghanistan to be developed and organized by Israel. If this is true, Afghanistan is sure to become a pariah among Muslim countries, a status that will guarantee its demise. Khalizad’s Zionist connections and leanings are well known in Afghanistan and do nothing but compromise American credibility there and in the surrounding region. He is admired in the Bush administration for his fondness of the military option as the first option. Khalilzad works for Condoleezza Rice as personal representative of President George W. Bush to Afghanistan and has been mentioned as the next United States ambassador to that country.

During Ronald Reagan’s presidency Khalilzad was involved in the construction and management of the United States government’s coziness with the “freedom fighters”, the creation of the Afghanistan Interim Government (AIG) in 1989, and he was actively behind the mujahidin takeover of Kabul in 1992 that caused the collapse of the Afghan center. For years he negotiated with the Taleban on behalf of UNICOL Corporation. Some have suggested that Hamed Karzai was also involved in these negotiations. During his employment with the United States government, Khalilzad has left in his wake a trail of destruction in Afghanistan. He personalizes the devastation of that country and what he has done there since 9-11 does not change the correctness of this symbolic effect.

The disarray, confusion, and selfishness in the Kabul government are vividly visible in the clothing Hamed Karzai wears in public. Perhaps borrowing from the example of Shah Shuja’a whom the British installed in Kabul during 1839-42 (see his portrayals in 19th century colonial sketches), Mr. Karzai has opted for a wardrobe that is an incoherent mechanical patchwork of styles and colors in the region. Like the Iranian religious leaders he eschews the Western collared shirt and tie. His headgears, cape over Western jacket and bloomers give the appearance of an assemblage that is uneasily stitched together, much like the social and cultural pieces that are tensely encapsulated within the borders of Afghanistan. It cannot be comforting for Afghans to see in the clothing of their ruler arrangements that echo the unease with which cultural diversity is framed in Afghan society. However colorful and attractive to Madison Avenue, Karzai’s garb, even though regularly ridiculed by Afghans inside and outside Afghanistan, seem to be designed to make Karzai appear unique and indispensable and to promote a personality cult. No one is or should be indispensable in Afghanistan. Those American handlers of Mr. Karzai who view him as indispensable are misinformed and do not understand Afghan society. Karzai may be indispensable to United States material objectives in Afghanistan but he is not indispensable to Afghanistan. If one looked hard enough and if one had a sincere and informed interest in the democratic reconstruction of the country, Afghanistan has no shortage of individuals (inside the country) who can work for and lead their country during the transition period and beyond.

Hamed Karzai and his transitional government should be replaced. They have done virtually nothing for Afghanistan. A new government composed of those who have experienced life first-hand and continuously in Afghanistan during the past two decades, and who are genuinely dedicated to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Afghanistan, and not interested in accumulating wealth and creating personality cults and political dynasties, should be installed in Kabul. Karzai and his cabinet members have staffed ministries with their relatives, friends and personal loyalists. It has been suggested that 95% of the staff of Afghan embassies abroad are relatives of high-ranking officials of the Kabul government and various warlords. Corruption is said to be endemic in the Kabul government. For dealing with these and other important challenges facing Afghanistan, an alternative model for its transitional government is sketched below.

A UN-facilitated National Assembly of Afghanistan (Dari—Shura-ye Mili-ye Afghanistan, Pashtu—de Afghanistan Mili Shura), not the “Loya Jirga”, with five to ten representatives (depending on UN population guesstimates) from each 32 Afghan province, will set in motion the machinery of the transitional government (see 5a below). The Jerga is an informal Pashtun tribal institution for the resolution of specific local conflict. It seldom has more than twenty adult male members. Decisions are based on total consensus. Dissent is not allowed. During the past century various central governments of Afghanistan, including the current government of Kabul, have invented a corrupt distortion of this tribal Pashtun institution of local importance as a Loya Jirga (Pashtu, grand assembly or grand council) to rubber stamp their decisions dealing with major internal and international issues and problems. Member of the Loya Jirga were elected through corrupt procedures and, in spite of this, its decisions were frequently vetoed by the government. The Loya Jirga was designed in order to co-opt and pacify the Pashtun tribes and to intimidate the non-Pashtun population of Afghanistan with the alleged numerical majority and historical prestige of the Pashtuns, a divide and rule tactic of playing Pashtuns against non-Pashtuns. In reality these governments were neither tribal nor Pashtun and it was a mere speculation that the Pashtuns constituted a numerical majority in Afghanistan. The fabrication and manipulation of Loya Jirga by Afghan governments has served as a major divisive element in the political life of modern Afghanistan and is especially (and understandably) resented by non-Pashtun Afghans. Ironically, the Loya Jirga has produced little tangible political and economic advantage for the Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan. Although members of the Loya Jirga held in Kabul during June 2002 were handpicked by the Karzai government, its decision to select the former king as Afghanistan’s leader was, vetoed by the combined agency of the United States and the puppet government of Kabul. We should not legitimize and lay the foundations of democracy in Afghanistan with a divisive political instrument that, in its current essential and traditional format, does not permit dissent and is restricted to men only. To do so will be a great disservice to the people of Afghanistan and will, once again, make state and society in Afghanistan subordinate and vulnerable to the imagined domination and threat of Pashtun tribes.

The National Assembly of Afghanistan will consist of people who have lived continuously in Afghanistan for at least the past 15 years and who have not served as high ranking officers or members of upper councils (cabinets and other policy making bodies) of the previous governments of Afghanistan. Members of the assembly should be literate and at least 35 years old. This assembly will set up its own rules and select its own presiding and executive officers. The assembly will select members of the Supreme Council for the Unity and Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Farsi, Majles-e A’la-ye Etehad wa Nowsazi-ye Afghanistan; Pashtu, De Afghanistan de Etehad aw Nawi Jorawulo A’la Majles) and Supervisory Boards (see below) from a list of Afghans who are not members of the assembly. This list will be prepared by a joint committee of the United Nations and the National Assembly of Afghanistan.

The Supreme Council for the Unity and Reconstruction of Afghanistan (SCURA) will preside over the Transitional Government of Afghanistan. The council will be the policy-making and executive organ of the state and will be composed of nine highly respected and qualified individuals chosen for a term of seven years. Additional criteria for membership should include professional expertise, administrative experience, and ethnic background. SCURA will elect its own chairperson who will act as the Prime Minister (chief executive officer) for a term of one year renewable once at the discretion of SCURA. Women will be eligible to serve on the council. A ranked list of 20 alternate members should be produced by the National Assembly in case a SCURA member has to be replaced for reasons of health, death, removal, or resignation. The position of Prime Minister will rotate among members of SCURA and no member should serve for more than two one year terms. The prime minister will be accountable to SCURA which will review and approve his/her major decisions, including those involving appointments to the cabinet and provincial heads of government. Five non-voting international experts (preferably fluent in one of Afghanistan’s major languages) selected by the United Nations should serve as advisors to SCURA with full rights of participation in its deliberations.

The Supreme Council for the Unity and Reconstruction of Afghanistan will establish 5-6 supervisory boards, each with five members. Members to these boards will be appointed by SCURA. Each board will regularly review and audit the fiscal and personnel affairs of 3-4 cabinet ministries. For example, there will be a supervisory board for the ministries of internal security (national police), justice, and ministry of interior (for the supervision of provincial governments); another board will supervise the ministries of education, higher education, and public health, etc. Two international experts selected by the United Nations should serve as advisors to each board with full rights of participation in deliberations except voting. Decisions of these boards will be subject to review by SCURA.

Governors, military commanders, and high ranking officers of provinces will be appointed by the prime minister with the approval of SCURA. Provincial governments will be overseen by the Ministry of Interior which will provide funds for their budgets and monitor their security and fiscal affairs. No local government in Afghanistan should receive or accept direct assistance from a foreign state or international agency.

For the interim period Afghanistan does not need a standing army. Traditionally the armed forces of Afghanistan have been used by the unrepresentative, corrupt, and despotic governments to intimidate and terrorize the people of Afghanistan. The current Afghan military forces are heavily involved in drug trafficking. The reason the Kabul government is pleading for a large and expensive army is that it plans on remaining in power irrespective of the wishes of the people of Afghanistan and to continue what previous governments have done with the armed forces of that country. No persuasive case has been or can be made for a standing army in Afghanistan at the present time. During the interim period all existing militia and armed forces under control of the central government and various warlords should be dismantled and replaced by international security forces. Instead, Afghanistan, with the help of the United States and other international donors, should develop a large (50-60 thousand), well-trained (and well paid) national police force. The national police force should be controlled by the Ministry of Internal Security. There will be no portfolio for the ministry of defense during the transitional period. The territorial defense of Afghanistan during the transitional period will be the responsibility of the United States or an international consortium. Until the Afghan police force is fully developed the internal security of the country should be the responsibility of an international coalition. This responsibility should involve all of Afghanistan not only the city of Kabul. At the end of the transitional period when the national police force should be large enough to replace all international security forces and after its first democratically elected government is in place, Afghanistan may develop its own military forces—army, air force, etc.

Transferring large amounts of capital to Afghanistan during the transitional period is counterproductive. In the absence of a coherent plan for reconstruction and since there is no system of checks and balances, much of it will be wasted or otherwise stolen. Until the foundations of institutions for free and compulsory universal education, health, food, resettlement of refugees, security and communication have been firmly established and until the country is sufficiently, disarmed, secure, and integrated in such a way as to have reclaimed at least its pre-1978 level of security and national market, the transfer to Afghanistan of large amounts of capital and extensive modern technology are to be postponed. During the interim government a concerted international effort should be made to disarm the country, reduce the power of the warlords, and to eradicate the production of poppy in Afghanistan. As in Turkey Afghan farmers should be helped in growing alternative cash producing crops.

The cities of Afghanistan should not be rebuilt until modern underground water, sewage, and other utility systems are laid out. It makes no sense to build high-rise hotels and office buildings in Kabul (as is the case today) without these systems. Kabul streets have been accurately referred to as “one big toilet”. All such construction and the building of new private homes without these facilities and enforceable standards for safety, sanitation, and public health must be halted. The gradual development of basic institutions and urban infrastructure should take about twelve years or one school cycle. At the end of the transitional stage Afghanistan should be able to stand on its own feet with its people ready to freely and securely participate in hammering out choices of their own for the development of democratic political and economic institutions in their country.