Visiting Islamabad in March 1997, I learned about the presence in the city of several senior Taleban leaders. After initial contacts, I arranged to have lunch with Mulla Wakil Ahmad Mutawakkil, then the Taleban’s foreign minister.
The following morning, however, a Taleban messenger came to say that the mulla would meet me but not for lunch. The reason? The Taleban had checked the kitchen of the hotel and found out that its principal chef was a Frenchman. " We are not sure about the Farangi’s food," the messenger commented.
The meeting, a few hours later, assumed a strange air. I ate my lunch as Mulla Mutawakkil, flanked by aides, looked on and talked.
A few months later, in fact in the October of the same year, I again happened to be in Islamabad at the time that Mutawakkil was also on a working visit. I renewed the lunch invitation at the same French hotel. This time he came with no qualms and ate a hearty lunch, prepared by the same French chef.
The changes that the mulla had undergone in just six months was a wonder to witness. The crude, almost childish, rhetoric was still there, but only as background noise. My guest also wore clothes that were obviously made of more expensive material while a brand new and expensive gold watch glittered at his wrist. The mulla was now speaking like a diplomat, seeking new friends and trying to reassure potential enemies.
One fact that emerged on both occasions was that foreigners, mostly Pakistani intelligence agents, often surrounded the Taleban leaders. This became clear because the agents spoke no Persian and were clearly frustrated because they could not follow the course of the interview. At one point they even suggested that the conversation shift to English, for "greater clarity."
The anecdote is worth recalling to underline two points. The first is that, over a year after their capture of Kabul, the Taleban seemed to be open to change. They were beginning to understand the responsibilities that political power brings, and to enjoy the perks that it offers. Mutawakkil, certainly, sounded like a man who knew that the militia could not behave the same way in government as it had done during the struggle for power.
The second point, directly linked with the first, is the negative influence that foreign players, notably Pakistanis, exerted on the Taleban. The Taleban had started as an almost spontaneous popular reaction against the corruption and brutality of local warlords in Kandahar, the country’s Pashtun heartland. The Pashtuns, accounting for some 38 percent of the population, are Afghanistan’s largest ethnic community and traditional ruling elite. But, by 1992, they had almost no prominent leader to advance their historic claims. By capturing Kandahar and promoting Mulla Muhammad Omar as their leader, some of the Pashtuns, at least, were working out an ethnic comeback to the center of Afghan politics. All that was put off course when the Pakistani secret services decided to build the Taleban into an instrument of Islamabad’s influence in Afghanistan.
The Taleban, mostly poor young men with virtually no political experience, fell into the trap. Pakistani support, in the form of brand new weapons and suitcases full of crisp dollar notes needed to bribe rival warlords, had a magic effect. People forget that the Taleban conquered almost 80 percent of Afghanistan without a fight. The ease with which victory was won turned the Taleban’s head. They believed that they were winning so quickly not because they had more money and arms but because they had a divine mission. Some Pakistani politicians and generals callously encouraged that fantasy.
Gen. Nasirullah Babar, who served as interior minister in Benazir Bhutto’s government, liked to describe the Taleban as his "children." He certainly knew how to flatter the Taleban. In every meeting with the Taleban leaders, Babar would remind them of "the mission to show the world what true Islam is." Many Taleban leaders, and certainly Mullah Omar himself, fell for those flattering lies.
Bin Laden was quick to discover the naiveté of the Taleban leaders and their capacity for self-deception. It was under his influence that Mulla Omar decided to take the title of "Amir Al-Momeneen" (Commander of the Faithful). Bin Laden went even further and referred to the mulla as the Third Omar, thus comparing him to the Caliphs Omar Ibn Khattab and Omar Ibn Abdel Aziz. A clear pattern could be established as to how Bin Laden’s evil influence helped transform Mulla Omar from a semiliterate but essentially modest peasant leader into a megalomaniac with messianic illusions.
All that is in the past and what matters now is that old mistakes should not be repeated. And yet there are signs that foreign influence may, once again, play a negative role in Afghan politics.This time it is the United States, and not small players like Pakistan and Iran, that is calling the shots. The US should be on guard against fostering any personal or collective illusions in Afghanistan. It is wrong for the US officials and media to foster a cult of personality around Hamid Karzai, for example. Karzai is a good man and a patriot. But he is not the providential savior of Afghanistan. He is there because, after Abdul Haq was killed, the Americans could not find another Pashtun leader to promote as head of an interim government.
Nor should the US try to promote an America-style democratic system in Afghanistan. Such a system could, of course, be imposed as it was on Germany and Japan after World War II. But that required half-a-century of American military presence in Germany and Japan. Today, the US is not ready to make such a commitment to Afghanistan. It should, therefore, let the Afghans themselves sort out the kind of system they want.
Every society, like every language, has its own grammar. And the Afghan society is no exception. The image of Afghanistan as a place where everyone is firing on everyone else is a dangerous, and false, caricature. From its founding in 1744 until the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was one of the most stable and relatively peaceful countries in the world. It was plunged into conflict and turmoil only when foreign powers intervened either directly or through the Pashtun tribes.
The Afghans should be allowed to find ways of healing their wounds and develop a system of government that reflects their realities and aspirations. The only way that the US should intervene in Afghan affairs is by making sure that no foreign power can interfere in Afghanistan’s domestic politics. If that assurance is in place, I am confident that Afghanistan could quickly revert to its peaceful existence. If not, the Afghan imbroglio will return to haunt us again and again.
