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Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror This page intentionally left blank Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror BARNETT R. RUBIN 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitt ed, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitt ed by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rubin, Barnett R. Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror / Barnett R. Rubin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-979112-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Afghanistan—Politics and government— 1989–2001. 2. Afghanistan—Politics and government—2001– 3. Afghan War, 2001– 4. War on Terrorism, 2001–2009. 5. Afghanistan—Foreign relations—21st century. 6. Postwar reconstruction—Afghanistan. 7. Local government—Afghanistan. 8. Taliban. 9. Islamic fundamentalism—Afghanistan. I. Title. DS371.3.R83 2013 958.104—dc23 2012046996 9780199791125 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper To Lakhdar Brahimi and Richard Holbrooke: thanks for the opportunity to serve. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Foreword ix Acknowledgments xiii Contributors xix Introduction 1 PART ONE: PRELUDE: AFGHANISTAN BETWEEN TWO WARS, 1989–2001 Preface to Part One: Helping Afghanistan 25 1. Afghanistan in the International System 27 2. Th e Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan 52 3. Arab Islamists in Afghanistan 73 PART TWO: NATION BUILDING LITE Preface to Part Two: Afghans Can Be Our Allies 99 4. A Blueprint for Afghanistan 101 5. Th e Politics of Center-Periphery Relations in Afghanistan 109 With Helena Malikyar 6. Transitional Justice and Human Rights in Afghanistan 133 7. Craft ing a Constitution for Afghanistan 149 vii 8. Th e Political Context of Public Administration Reform in Afghanistan 164 9. Peace Building, State Building: Constructing Sovereignty for Security 180 10. Th e Politics of Security in Postconfl ict State Building 192 11. Regional Issues in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan 213 With Andrea Armstrong 12. Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition from Turmoil to Normalcy 226 13. Afghanistan 2005 and Beyond: Prospects for Improved Stability Reference Document 256 With Humayun Hamidzada and Abby Stoddard PART THREE: BACK TO WAR Preface to Part Th ree: Th e Death of an Afghan Optimist 339 14. Saving Afghanistan 343 15. Resolving the Pakistan-Afghanistan Stalemate 360 With Abubakar Siddique 16. Counternarcotics to Stabilize Afghanistan: Th e False Promise of Crop Eradication 386 With Jake Sherman 17. Afghan Dilemmas: Defi ning Commitments 423 18. Th e Transformation of the Afghan State 434 19. From Great Game to Grand Bargain: Ending Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan 442 With Ahmed Rashid 20. Th e Way Forward in Afghanistan: End the War on Terror 454 Epilogue: A Tribe Apart: Afghan Elites Face a Corrosive Past 458 Works Cited 477 Index 4 87 FOREWORD For almost three decades, Barnett Rubin has been a most acute observer of Afghanistan’s iterated wars, as well as an activist in the protracted search there for justice and peace. For the past dozen years, his perch for that work was the NYU Center on International Cooperation, where I have the privilege of being his colleague. Barney is not your average scholar. Like the best academics, he is deeply versed in the literature and theory of confl ict, in the methods of empirical research, and in the region that has now been most of his life work. Unlike most academics, he has the kind of in-depth knowledge of the culture, history, and people of Afghanistan and its neighborhood that oft en surprises Afghans them- selves. I got a glimmer of how unusual is his expertise when I was given an account of a meeting he att ended along with an Iranian diplomat in Dubai (this at a time when only a handful of Americans had any contact with offi cial Iran), conducted partly in terms of trading refrains from Iqbal, the Indo-Pakistani poet-philosopher—in Farsi. Barney’s insight into the relationships that shape the local and subregional dynamics of the Afghan wars is unparalleled. Aft er September 11, and through 2008, Barney was called on by the UN’s Lakhdar Brahimi, by the Afghan authorities, and by the NATO allies with increasing frequency—and with increasing despair about the missed opportuni- ties, errors in misunderstanding, and mistakes of strategy that characterized much of the coalition eff ort. Barney was never content to carp on the sidelines, though, but took every fl ight and invitation to publish, brief, or advise to help shape, wherever he could, a more productive engagement. One person who saw Barney’s unique value was Richard Holbrooke. Th ey had worked together when Barney ran the Council on Foreign Relations’s groundbreaking project on preventive action in the mid-1990s, when Barney was also writing his seminal books Th e Fragmentation of Afghanistan and B lood on the Doorstep . When Holbrooke became chair of the board of the Asia Society, ix