When American warplanes began bombing Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, the Pentagon and the press cautioned that victory would not come quickly. The fabled Taliban warriors were battle-tested, schooled in guerrilla warfare, and uniquely familiar with Afghanistan's rugged terrain. They also fielded some 45,000 troops, versus the Northern Alliance's 12,000--a sure recipe for a Vietnam-style quagmire, claimed pundits, noting that no foreign army had successfully conquered Afghanistan since Alexander the Great.
Fast-forward 10 weeks. The forces opposing the UnitedStates have been routed, from Mazar-i-Sharif to Kabul, from Kandahar to ToraBora. Milton Bearden, a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief inPakistan, predicts that the Taliban is politically and militarily finished andthat its remaining elements will fold back into Afghanistan's tribal structure."They had their turn and they squandered it," says Bearden. "They're like thosedot-com kids who became millionaires and then had to move back in with theirmothers."
Bearden brings some bona fides to back up his assessment: He helped direct theCIA's covert program to back mujahideen rebels fighting Soviet troops in the1980s. The Soviets, too, had seized control of most major Afghan cities withintwo weeks of their 1979 invasion. Afterward, they were bled so badly--some 12,000casualties in 10 years--that they ultimately withdrew. Is America's Afghan warreally over--and if so, why so fast? The Prospect ran the question by a number ofCold War-era Afghan hands, including CIA officials, gunrunners, and Green Berets.
Some answers don't take an expert to figure: the complete mismatch of opposingforces, for example, particularly given the United States' total control of theair. According to Andrew Gembara, a former U.S. Special Forces officer, Americantechnological superiority has been a factor since as early as late September,when army special-forces units began conducting strategic reconnaissance againstthe Taliban. Using night-vision equipment for round-the-clock surveillance ofsuspected enemy hideouts, these units could also guide in troops or call for airstrikes with handheld equipment. Many Taliban soldiers were likely killed withouteven knowing they were in the sights of enemy fire.
Technology, of course, was supposed to avail American soldiers little againsta fearsome guerrilla army. One ex-CIA official recalls a discussion he had in the1980s with the mujahideen commander Abdul Haq (who was captured and executed bythe Taliban on October 26 of last year). Asked if he was worried about thedreaded Russian special forces known as Spetsnaz and popularly portrayed asunstoppable superwarriors, Haq replied: "Why should we be afraid of the Spetsnaz?They train for a few years in the mountains, they learn to carry heavy weightsacross long distances, and they [operate] in bad weather and with bad food. Sowhat? That's our life." But the CIA official notes that the Taliban is not itselfa battle-hardened force. Most of the original mujahideen fought on the side ofthe Northern Alliance. In fact, the Taliban's 1996 victory owed more tonegotiation than to military might. Pakistani intelligence also helped theTaliban substantially--and that tie was officially severed at the start of thiswar.
So, seemingly, were the Taliban's ties to its own people, many of whom hadcome to revile the theocratic regime. "It wasn't clear until the war started howlittle support they had," says Andrew Eiva, a former Green Beret who helpedtrain the mujahideen in air defense. "That made it easier for the United Statesto peel Pashtuns away from the regime." That goal was achieved through a varietyof means, including cash payments and other inducements offered to triballeaders.
"We have bought, negotiated, and conquered local people to our side," saysFrank Anderson, a former CIA station chief who played a central role in runningthe agency's Afghan operation.
Some current and past Afghan experts, however, admonish that it is too soon to declare the campaign triumphant. Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, they fear,could still regroup in the mountains in order to launch a guerrilla war on the new government and U.S. forces. At a December 19 Pentagon news conference,Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cautioned: "It would be a mistake to saythat the al-Qaeda is finished in Afghanistan at this stage." About a week earlier,General Tommy Franks, head of the central command, voiced similar concerns about"pockets of resistance" in remote parts of Afghanistan.
But it will be hugely difficult for the dwindling remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda to mount any serious military challenge to the United States. MelvinGoodman, a former senior analyst at the CIA who monitored the Afghan-Soviet war,believes that the bombing campaign caused considerable confusion and panic amongforces loyal to the former government. "At this point, who could even lead ororganize a guerrilla campaign?" asks Goodman. "You might have very small groupsof resistance, but most [potential fighters] have probably cut and run."
What fighters remain would be completely isolated, Bearden points out. Nooutside power is prepared to lend Taliban fighters the kind of support the CIA channeled to the mujahideen throughout the 1980s. At the peak of its operation, the agency was funneling 60,000 tons of military equipment and supplies to rebels annually. The CIA also backed the mujahideen with critical intelligenceand operational support the likes of which would not be forthcoming to aguerrilla force today.
Nonetheless, potential problems still lurk down the road. Gembara says thatthe trickiest phase of the current campaign is just about to begin: closing downthe guerrilla forces the United States helped create. "This is a dangerous pointwhere various dissident groups might emerge and become the new bad guys,"according to Gembara. And Afghanistan is flush with weapons, since outside powers, including the United States, have pumped in an estimated $8 billion worthover the last two decades.
Perhaps most likely, however, is an eruption of the tribal hostilities thatthe past two decades of continuous fighting have stoked. But even on this score,there have been some encouraging signs. With the exception of the NorthernAlliance's occupation of Kabul, the various anti-Taliban factions have largelyconfined themselves to their own ethnic turf. If the Northern Alliance doesn't tryto move into Pashtun areas in other parts of the country--and if it refrains fromcarrying out large-scale atrocities in Kabul, as it did when it controlled thecity between 1992 and 1996--peace may stand a significantly better chance.
The promise of billions of dollars in foreign aid furnishes a powerfulincentive for the various factions to keep the peace--but it is also a potentialsource of friction. "There's not going to be an armed struggle, but there will bea struggle over who gets what slice of the foreign-aid pie," surmises VincentCannistraro, chief of counterterrorism operations at the CIA during the last fewyears of the Afghan war. He predicts infighting among the leaders of the newgovernment, ministerial resignations, and threats of violence; but he believesthat the new government will last three to six months. Beyond that, neither henor others the Prospect interviewed were confident venturing a guess.
Despite all this uncertainty, some U.S. hard-liners have not justdeclared victory: They've recommended extending the Afghan war's methods to Iraq.The argument from this camp--led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,former CIA Director James Woolsey, and Defense Policy Board Chairman RichardPerle--is that a combination of air strikes and special-forces actions willprompt a popular uprising and mass desertions from the Iraqi army. Few Americanforces will then be needed to topple Saddam Hussein, because the Iraqi NationalCongress (INC), which musters Kurds in northern Iraq and Shiites in the south,will carry out the bulk of the fighting.
Former Afghan hands find this scenario highly dubious. Theysuspect that in order to topple Hussein, far more than the 10,000 or so U.S.troops that were sent to Afghanistan would be needed. The Iraqi army is muchbetter equipped and trained than the Taliban. More important, the opposition doesnot have a reliable fighting force comparable to the Northern Alliance. "The INCis worthless," says Goodman. "The Kurds are split down the middle with some ofthem cutting deals with Saddam, and the Shiites are not well organized."
The military prospects are further complicated by geopolitical considerations.Given the lack of clear evidence that Hussein was involved in the September 11attacks or the anthrax incidents, even the closest U.S. allies are unlikely tofollow the Bush administration into Iraq. Furthermore, few Islamic governmentstruly cared much about Afghanistan, but a war on Iraq would be a differentmatter. That means that even if the hard-liners are right about the possibilityof painlessly overthrowing Hussein, the United States alone would need to occupyIraq afterward. A retired intelligence officer confides that the United Statesdoesn't have the resources to handle that task: "We've already got troops inBosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, and now these people want to start another war,"he says. "At some point, the rubber band is going to snap."
Goodman believes that invading Iraq is not only undesirable but unnecessary.He notes that the Afghan war's success has already led governments in Yemen andSudan, both of which have provided support to al-Qaeda in the past, to offer atleast partial cooperation with the United States. "The effectiveness of ourweapons, and our willingness to use them, have made an impression on Hussein,"he adds. "We've delivered a message and he got it."
