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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
"Oil, Democracy, and Militant Islam in Central Asia"
April 10, 2003
Keynote Speaker: Elizabeth Jones,
Assistant Secretary of European and Eurasian Affairs, Department of State and Former U.S. Ambassador to the Repulic of Kazakhstan
"The Resurgance of Islam: The Next Eruption"
April 11, 2003
Keynote Speaker: Ahmed Rashid,
Pakistani scholar, journalist and author
U.S. Engagement in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Staying Our Course Along the Silk Road
Beth Jones, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
Remarks at "Central Asia: Its Geopolitical Significance and Future Impact" Conference Hosted by the Title VI Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language
Program Directors, University of Montana
Missoula, Montana
April 10, 2003
Acknowledgements
Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Thank you, Mark, for your kind introduction. I am so glad to see a distinguished former diplomat like you spearheading initiatives to bring foreign policy alive for American audiences. Mark was among the courageous few diplomats to return to Kuwait to reopen our Embassy there following the first Iraq war. We have colleagues there now waiting to go into Iraq to launch a new relationship between the U.S. and Iraq. We have other USAID colleagues, members of DART (Disaster Assistance Response Teams) teams, already in Um Qasr and Basra to survey the humanitarian situation.
Thank you for the invitation to speak here today. I always welcome these opportunities outside Washington, DC. It helps me gain a fresh perspective on our policies and challenges. My specific goal this evening is to discuss where we are and where we want to go in our relations with the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Opening
In recent months much of the world's attention has understandably been focused on the trans-Atlantic relationship, and the differences that emerged with some of our European friends and allies over Iraq. What has received relatively less attention has been the steadfast support the United States has received from a number of countries in the former Soviet Union. Clearly, one of the reasons we enjoy such a close and supportive relationship is our intense engagement -- through diplomacy and foreign assistance -- during their difficult transitions from Communism toward democratic political systems and market economies.
The United States has important interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus beyond supporting the transition of formerly Communist countries. After September 11 [2001], global interests – such as combating terrorism, weapons proliferation, and trafficking in narcotics and other illicit goods – also came to the fore. Despite the relatively small overall State Department budget, we have undertaken some effective policies and programs in the region. We are successful because we work closely with a number of partners, such non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international financial institutions, and other U.S. Government agencies. I want to highlight how our political engagement and assistance directly support our national interests. I also want to give concrete examples of how our assistance actually works.
Strategic Importance
It is no coincidence that the Caspian region has been on the edge of recent international conflicts. History shows that the Silk Road was not only a trade route but also a strategic bridge for Alexander's armies, the Mongols, the Moghuls, the Ottoman Empire and more recently the Soviet empire. Today, it is a region surrounded by key competitors for energy and for military and ideological power -- Turkey, Russia, China, Iran and India.
Our disengagement from Afghanistan in the 1980s taught us a harsh lesson, one that we do not want to repeat in other countries. We learned that we must engage the region’s governments and people to promote long-term stability and prevent a security vacuum that provides opportunities for extremism and external intervention. This is particularly true in Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where terrorist groups have threatened our own national interests.
In contrast to Afghanistan and Iraq, we engaged in Central Asia and the Caucasus well before the situation reached a crisis. We were among the first countries to open diplomatic missions in Central Asia and the Caucasus after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We have a continuing interest in stopping the transborder movement of terrorist groups, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other weapons traffic, illegal drugs, and trafficked persons. We have an interest in resolving and, where possible, preventing violent conflicts that threaten regional stability. And we also have an interest in seeing all countries of the region become democratic, market-oriented states -- the best long-term guarantee of regional stability and of positive, mutually beneficial relations.
Finally, the Soviet legacy of weapons of mass destruction -- weapons infrastructure and expertise -- remains a critical United States security interest in the region. Our assistance continues to be targeted at the detection, deterrence, interdiction, control and reduction of the vast Soviet military arsenal, with its widely dispersed sources of WMD and WMD expertise.
To address this, in 2002 we spent $958 million on assistance in Central Asia and the Caucasus to build civil society, promote political and economic change, and combat terrorism. This is a bargain, given the radical reform we are striving for in these countries. Though our plan is complex and multifaceted, our vision for this region is simple: That these nations remain independent, and become democratic, stable, and prosperous partners of the United States.
Our Successes
United States assistance programs and policy engagement have generated demonstrable progress in this region. These steps are now discernable, and in some countries, contrast with stalled reforms in the period immediately after independence. We have worked closely with reform-minded leaders, journalists, NGO activists, and we have persevered -- remembering our pledge to be in this for the long haul.
Let me illustrate some success stories and some places where we clearly have more work to do. I have brought handouts on our programs in each of these sectors.
Civil Society: In every state in the region, we are helping carve out a role for non-governmental organizations, independent media outlets, and democratic political parties – where none existed ten years ago. We are working with several local partners -- NGOs, civil society organizations, and journalists -- to help build democracy from the grassroots up. Under repressive conditions – such as those existing in Turkmenistan – these efforts are mostly aimed at keeping alive hope for long-term change. In other countries, though, civil society is increasingly able to act as a real counterweight to arbitrary government behavior. We saw examples of this in Kyrgyzstan, where NGO pressure led to revocation of a presidential decree limiting freedom of the press. In Tajikistan, the government approved the application of Radio One, the first non-state-run station in Dushanbe. Also in Tajikistan, the government has registered new political parties, simplified political party registration, and made it easier for civil society NGOs to register, leading to an explosion in their numbers.
Security: Programs to target cross-border threats provided to Uzbekistan under the Export Control and Related Border Security programs have helped the Uzbeks to interdict several shipments of WMD material transiting their border. Similarly, substantial United States support for a UN drug control program in Tajikistan enabled authorities there to seize record quantities of Afghan heroin on its way to Russia and Europe. Additional support has made it possible for our United States Drug Enforcement Administration to set up the first "vetted" counter-narcotics unit in Central Asia -- in Uzbekistan. In addition, we have expanded our security assistance cooperation to enhance interoperability of many of these states with U.S. and coalition forces.
In Georgia, we began the Train and Equip program (GTEP) in 2002 to enhance Georgia's abilities to control its territory and to fight terrorism. This assistance helped create, train and equip four combat infantry battalions and one mechanized company to defend Georgia against potential terrorist threats in the Pankisi Gorge. GTEP graduated its first class of trained infantry in December 2002 and the Red Bridge border guard station opened in March 2003.
As each day passes, the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus are becoming better equipped, better trained and better coordinated with one another to deal with transnational threats. Our Embassies in the region are among our smaller posts, but they all take very seriously the threats that come from drug trafficking and the destabilizing activities associated with that trade.
Human Rights: The issue of human rights has been the toughest nut to crack. For example, Uzbekistan has serious problems. Since September 2001, however, because of our persistent and consistent diplomatic engagement, we have seen important progress. This included the release in the December 2002 annual amnesty of 923 political prisoners, International Red Cross access to Uzbek prisons, the first-ever registration of two local human rights NGOs, the abolition of prior censorship of the media, and the acknowledgement by the government of the problem of torture following the visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Much remains to be done, but we must recognize that these are real achievements.
Economic Reform: Economic reforms have really started to take hold in Kyrgyzstan, a country that has been working closely with the international financial community. Its economic situation remains precarious, due largely to its isolation and lack of marketable natural resources. But it has achieved six straight years of growth and some reductions in poverty as a result of courageous economic decisions. The IMF [International Monetray Fund] recently approved a major initiative to combat poverty, and the Paris Club restructured Kyrgyzstan's enormous debt. The Kyrgyz Republic was the first former Soviet republic to join the World Trade Organization. A very successful micro-enterprise program that we fund in Kyrgyzstan provides employment for hundreds of poor women -- many of whom are the sole breadwinners for their families and are excellent business women by anyone's standards.
In some countries, agribusiness development programs help increase farmers’ income through marketing and export strategies. In Armenia, the Market Assistance Program (MAP), works directly with 55 agribusinesses and 25 farmer associations. These agribusinesses employ about 3,000 people and buy raw products from over 18,000 farmers. With the Market Assistance Program, 12 dairy processors have already sold 90 tons of cheese in export markets. That means that 2,000 farmers now receive cash for the milk they produce for cheese, if they can meet associations' quality standards.
In Georgia, micro-finance programs benefited 60,000 borrowers last year; approximately 75% were women. Partner financial institutions have established models of successful lending by providing a range of innovative loan products to micro, small and medium-sized businesses and by maintaining a near 98% repayment rate.Our assistance has made these successes possible. These are real steps forward.
Energy: Some states in the Caspian region are fortunate to have abundant oil and gas resources. But because the region is land-locked, developing these resources and getting them to world markets has been a formidable challenge. Recognizing the pivotal nature of the transport issue for the political independence and economic viability of these countries, we have vigorously supported - politically - development of an East-West Energy Corridor. This includes the CPC [Caspian Pipeline Consortium] pipeline, which is taking oil from Tengiz in Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk in Russia. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is now under construction and will start operating in 2005. The South Caucasus gas pipeline, built parallel to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, will ship gas from the off-shore Shah Deniz field to central Turkey beginning in 2006. Together, these projects strengthen the Caspian countries, promote regional integration and contribute to global energy security by diversifying supply sources.
The Roots of Extremism: This is perhaps the clearest example where our diplomacy and assistance programs need to work hand-in-glove. In Central Asia, poor economic and social conditions are contributing to the appeal of extremist Islam in the volatile Ferghana Valley. We seek to head off conflict by improving infrastructure, creating employment opportunities, and helping develop and strengthen civil society. We are creating jobs through marketing assistance and establishing credit for agricultural processors. We are maintaining a high level of student and professional exchanges. In addition, we hope to expand highly successful pilot health reform projects, including the establishment of private medical clinics that are not dependent on the central system. These clinics will have an insurance co-payment system, primary care physician training, and management of their own funds. We have put our money where our mouth is. While admittedly foreign aid can never substitute for the political will of the parties involved to find peaceful solutions to their conflicts, we can do a great deal to support countries recovering from conflict and to address the social, economic, and political conditions that sow the seeds of conflict. We do not want another Afghanistan.
Anti-Corruption: Our battle against corruption throughout the region has begun to reap rewards. For example, the United States and the Kyrgyz Government addressed corruption in academia where Communist party or government influence used to determine admission to universities. At the request of the Kyrgyz Ministry of Education, we developed and funded the first nation-wide testing program for university scholarships. In June 2002, the National Merit Scholarship Test was administered in three languages (Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Russian) to over 14,000 high school seniors. Nowhere else in the former Soviet Union do students receive university scholarships solely on merit. This is a remarkable achievement and has opened opportunities for young people.
Education and Exchanges: We have funded a whole range of educational programs, such as the Fulbright and Hubert Humphrey academic exchanges. We helped found universities -- for instance, the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek -- and promoted institutional linkages with American universities. Our assistance also focuses on secondary education. The Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program was established in 1992 for high school students from Eurasia to experience life in a democratic society. Since 1993, more than 11,000 students from 12 Eurasian countries, including all the Central Asian ones, have participated. Imagine how important this is for long-term change in Central Asia!
Continuing ChallengesWhile we have achieved a number of successes, we still have much more to do. For example:Political Pluralism: A thriving opposition is a problem in all the countries in the region. This has been evident even in two of the most successful countries in carrying out reforms: Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Kazakhstan has selectively charged and convicted key opposition leaders for corruption and intimidated independent media outlets and journalists associated with the political opposition. Kyrgyzstan’s imprisonment of an opposition parliamentarian led to violence and great instability and recent constitutional changes have tended to concentrate even more power in the hands of the executive. We are working closely with both these governments to turn around these negative trends.
Elections: The Caucasus needs more democratic reform. Although civil society in all three countries – Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan – has advanced, recent Presidential elections in Armenia did not meet OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] or other international democratic standards. Other recent elections in Georgia and Azerbaijan also fell short of international standards. We are working diligently to promote democratic practices ahead of the remaining important elections scheduled over the next several years.
Human Rights: There are serious human rights problems throughout the countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus. For example, in Turkmenistan, we have witnessed a sharp crackdown on the political opposition and society in general since the attack on President Niyazov's motorcade in November. The Government of Turkmenistan arrested a number of political opponents of President Niyazov, all of whom he alleges were involved in the plot. The Turkmen Government did not allow an independent observer from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to visit Turkmenistan to investigate claims of human rights violations, including torture, associated with this crackdown. Despite this bleak picture, we firmly believe that change will come in Turkmenistan. We will not abandon the Turkmen people.
A Commitment to Future EngagementWe are committed to long-term engagement in the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus – through both diplomacy and assistance. Counterterrorism will remain a prominent and integrated element of our assistance. We plan to put more resources into counter-narcotics and law enforcement cooperation across the region, where porous borders and weak law enforcement have created significant opportunities for terrorists and those trafficking in illicit weapons and drugs. We will never forget, however, that human rights, political freedoms and economic opportunity, must be an integrated part of this security assistance. Both factors, tightening up on law enforcement and maintaining human rights standards, must remain an integral part of our assistance.
We have also greatly increased our ability to hack away at terrorist financial flows and money laundering. We provide assistance to draft the necessary laws and regulations, and give technical advice to financial intelligence units and bank regulators throughout the region. These programs do not cost a lot and they may not be especially sexy, but they do have a potentially huge payoff.
Conclusion
We are proud of what our policies and assistance are accomplishing in Central Asia and the Caucasus. There are positive developments, and there have been setbacks. It is critical that we undertake honest assessments of the setbacks, so that we learn from them and understand what remains to be done. The important thing is that we stay the course – to achieve stability, prosperity, and democratic reform will take dedication and persistence.
The United States is wholly committed to intensive engagement and dialogue with each of the nations of this pivotal region of the world. To fulfill this commitment, we must have all the diplomatic and financial tools necessary to permit us to do so. If we do not use all of these tools, we risk failure.There are those who would argue that some of these countries in the region – because of their human rights or corruption records – deserve to be sanctioned or that we should turn our back on them until they “learn to behave.” I do not deny that there are problems, but legislatively imposed sanctions are not the answer. Sanctions do not ensure that countries will “fall in line.”
In fact, experience has shown otherwise. We have witnessed firsthand how sanctions undercut our ability to engage countries and generate leverage for positive change. For example, in Azerbaijan, Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act broadly prohibited most assistance to the Government of Azerbaijan for military, security or intelligence purposes, significantly inhibiting needed cooperation. With the President’s waiver of Section 907 in January 2002, we are now able to help Azerbaijan’s border security to prevent terrorist infiltration and exfiltration, and enhance our intelligence and law enforcement cooperation.
We cannot risk our engagement in Central Asia or the Caucasus through sanctions. We must use the full arsenal of diplomatic tools at all levels to ensure a stable and prosperous region. To bring about change, we must remain engaged. Change won't happen overnight. The Soviet Union was very effective at isolating the Central Asian and Caucasus states from the influences of democracy and market economics. We want to make clear to the millions of people of Central Asia that we are committed to helping them create the stable, prosperous and open societies that they seek.
A stable, prosperous Central Asia and the Caucasus will mean a more secure world for the American people and a more prosperous future for the people of the region. I want to reaffirm in the strongest terms the United States’ long-term commitment to intensive engagement in this important region of the world. Engagement results in a classic win-win situation for everyone. This is attainable and we will continue to strive for it.
Courtesy of The Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, 2003. TOP
"The Resurgance of Islam: The Next Eruption"
April 11, 2003
Keynote Speaker: Ahmed Rashid,
Pakistani scholar, journalist and author
Let me just start by saying that we are all living in incredibly uncertain times. I don’t have a record of, since perhaps the Second World War, when people around the world, and particularly the Americans, have lived in such unpredictable times and such difficult times. An enormous conflict is possibly now ending in Iraq. The aftermath remains incredibly uncertain. We don’t know how the new government is going to be formed in Baghdad. What the forces are which will try to help it, what other forces will try and undermine it. We are faced with the prospect and the danger of the international system, as we have known it since 1945, if not breaking down, certainly having enormous cleavages which are going to be very difficult to mend. And within all this let me just say that I think the war in Afghanistan was fought by the United States as a war of self-defense. And I think many Muslims around the world and most of the world saw it as a war of self-defense. Thousands of Americans were killed on 9/11 and the retribution that the United States then took on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda was justified in the eyes of many Muslim regimes and Muslim people. That cannot be said for this war in Iraq. Many people, not just Muslim people, but people in Europe, many people in the United States, do not see this as a war of self-defense, even though I think this administration has tried to portray it as a war of self-defense. Nor is it really being seen as part of the war against terrorism. And certainly I think there are many other reasons why Saddam should have gone, and why the war should have been fought. But perhaps it could have been done with greater cooperation of the international community, just like Afghanistan was, rather than the way it has been done. Where not only has the U.S. gone it alone, but the U.S. has also put at risk and at stake the future of international organizations as we have known them for the last fifty, sixty, years.
Now the basis of this war, I think, was laid, with the policy of
preemption, that has become now the foreign policy mantra of the Bush administration, announced in September last year. This policy of preemption basically allows the United States to attack, intervene, invade, carry out regime change against any regime which it considers to be a potential threat to the United States and the security of the United States. Now that has formed the basis of this war in Iraq, and what it has left as a residue, especially in the Muslim world right now, is “Who’s Next?”.People, right across the Muslim world are extremely anxious about this, and even though, it may not be true—I mean, maybe nobody’s next--we’ve not had a leading member of this administration, either the President, nor the Secretary of State, saying “Well, there’s nobody’s next. We have to now sort out Iraq and this is going to take some time.” Unfortunately, with the policy of preemption, and this war in Iraq, for many people the U. S. is becoming more and more defined as a country which is seeking an imperial role around the world. This whole policy of preemption is a policy which is going to create enormous instability, particularly around the Muslim world, but which is going to allow the U.S. an imperial position whereby it can dictate its likes and dislikes to regimes which it doesn’t appreciate.
The theme of what I really want to talk about; I don’t want to get into the business of is the U.S. an imperial power or not, is it seeking out an empire or not. But what is really important, especially since 9/11 is to say, that if the U.S. is to become an imperial power, if the U.S. is to carry out, and if this policy of preemption is to become the raison d’être, not just of the Republican administration, but of future Democratic administrations: Imperialism carries immense responsibility with it. Empires have always carried burdens, and borne burdens with them. Is the United States ready to carry those burdens? Are the American people willing to bear those burdens?
I would like to sketch out a brief synopsis of my part of the world, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, to show how and whether the U.S. has fulfilled its responsibilities in this part of the world. And before that let me just say that I think that there are a few points that need to be made. The burden of empire really entails that the United States cannot absolve itself of having a policy of preemption and absolving itself of nation building. Nation building is an intrinsic part of being able and willing to carry out changes of regime around the world As we know, this administration, came in with a policy of no nation building, which after 9/11 and because of Afghanistan, gradually got watered down to “Well we won’t do complete nation building, but we’ll do a kind of limited nation building.” Now with the war in Iraq and with the aftermath in Iraq, the whole issue of nation building is critical to future stability, not only in Iraq, but in the whole Middle East. You cannot say that democracy is for our enemies, that our enemies need to be democratized, even by force if necessary, but our allies don’t need democracy. By that I mean to say that countries which the United States does not like--Iran, Iraq, North Korea--will be democratized, and forcibly democratized, but despotic regimes which the United States backs, particularly in the Muslim world, the regimes in Central Asia, in Pakistan, many of the Arab regimes in the Middle East.—because they are allies of the United States, or provide oil, or provide military bases—these countries don’t need democracy. You can’t make this kind of division between your enemies and your friends. You cannot afford not to spend time on solutions to global problems, such as poverty, hunger, the environment, and AIDS. Poverty and injustice are intrinsic part of the terrorism and extremism that we’ve seen come out of Afghanistan two years ago and which continues to haunt the world. It is not just a question of ideology, it is not just a question of fanaticism, or fundamentalism. It is not an issue of clash of civilizations: the Muslim world facing the Christian world. There are multitudinous reasons for the growth of this kind of extremist ideology. But certainly one of them is laid very firmly in problems of poverty and injustice, and hunger and depravation. You cannot reverse policies in the Muslim world overnight, the way that some ideologues in the administration want to, when you yourselves have backed dictatorships in the Muslim world for the last fifty years. In the Cold War you depended on a widespread string of regimes in the Muslim world, which were essentially dictatorships. As the Soviet Union did also, by the way. You were not alone in that. And now the demand for change in the Muslim cannot be kind of fast-speeded, as it were, just because the U.S. has changed its position, perhaps, on some of the regimes. You cannot resolve the Middle East problem, you cannot bring stability, even to Iraq, without an equitable handling of the Palestinian and the Israeli question. And that remains the core of future security and stability in the Middle East.
At the same time, let me say, that Muslim rulers and Muslim regimes also need to realize that post-9/11 they cannot continue as before. They cannot continue to keep their people completely devoid of representation in decision-making and keep their people subjugated under very oppressive regimes, which breed intolerance and misunderstanding of West and other religions and other civilizations. The Muslim world faced a huge turning point at the end of the Cold War in 1991 and basically most of the Muslim world missed that opportunity for change and for introducing democracy. Nine-eleven has become, in my opinion, another wake-up call to these regimes, and if they ignore this wake-up call, it will be to their peril, and it will be to the development and the growth of fundamentalism in many parts of the Muslim world to a much larger extent than we have seen so far.
I’m not going to get into the details on Iraq , but I’m certainly happy to answer questions later on on Iraq. Stabilizing Iraq, the issue of government formation in Iraq, is going to simply take a lot of things that this administration has been very reluctant to do. It is going to take international cooperation, the kind of international cooperation and coalition building that was done for the war in Afghanistan. It’s going to take a measure of conciliation with Iraq’s neighbors. The United States cannot form a stable government in Baghdad if it is going to make enemies of two of Iraq’s major neighbors, Syria and Iran. They will have to be brought into the picture if you want a stable government to evolve in Iraq. The United States will have to pursue much more rigorously the two critical issues which I think it has missed out on in Afghanistan: the issue of providing security to the Iraqi people, and the issue of reconstruction. And a genuine reconstruction which rebuilds that country.
Now, I just want to give a brief sketch of the region as I see it since 9/11 and how it impinges on present U.S. policy and on Iraq. To my mind, it was very clear that immediately after the war was won in Afghanistan, Afghanistan had to be a model for the United States. The United States had to show that it could bomb a country, it could eliminate a regime, it could install a new regime, but it could also help rebuild that country. And that was an important message to convey to the Muslim world That this is not a vindictive U.S. that is out to get you in some way. This is a U.S., which wants to get rid of a regime that is threatening the whole world, but which is going to be prepared to help you rebuild your country and your society. And as we know now today, it was very clear that immediately after 9/11, within days in fact, there were members of the administration who were advocating we should take out Iraq at the same time we take out Al-Qaeda. That, in fact, the U.S. could wage two wars simultaneously. Certain literature has been out that in one of the meetings on day four, after September 11th, several leading figures in this administration were advocating the taking out of Iraq. So Iraq has been on the agenda certainly very soon after 9/11. And my whole argument is that if Iraq was on the agenda—I’m not questioning that it’s right or wrong—but if Iraq was on the agenda, then surely we should have more deeply realized that we have to do good in Afghanistan, we have to not just win the war, but we have to win the peace also. And we have to create a kind of model of reconstruction and security, so that when we do it in Iraq, there is going to be something to show up there to the Muslim world. Look, we are not creating mayhem, we are going to create greater stability and security.
Now, simply put, I think one of the enormous tragedies of Afghanistan has been not just the fault of the United States, but, I say, of the whole international community, that is that the security issue has failed to be addressed. You have 8,000 troops in Afghanistan who are continuing to fight a war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. They have no peacekeeping role. There are 5,000 European, largely European troops, who have a peacekeeping role in Kabul, but there is no peacekeeping role for them outside Kabul in other cities or in the provinces. As a consequence of this, you still have, as you did at the end of the war, back in December 2001, you still have warlordism, you still have a rampant drugs economy, you still have a lack of security for the Afghan population. You have a lack of security for the NGOs and the aid agencies, who can’t go out and do humanitarian aid and projects. So the security situation has not really been properly addressed the way it should have been addressed.
The other big issue was reconstruction There was a consensus of the international community, that they pledged at the Tokyo conference, in January of 2002. They pledged 4.5 billion dollars for the first two years of reconstruction in Afghanistan. A lot of that money has not turned up, even fifteen months afterwards. The commitments have been very, very slow in coming in. I think one of the reasons for this slowness in Afghanistan, was that the U.S. military won the war, back in December 2001. (And there were two major offensives against Al-Qaeda, Tora Bora and Anaconda, which basically had been finished by February of 2002.) After that, there was not going to be now a major confrontation between the forces of terrorism and the U.S. military Terrorism was going to now evaporate into kind of pinprick attacks and guerrilla attacks. What was needed then to combat terrorism was a strategy of building peace and reconstruction. Providing jobs and economic development, and winning people’s hearts and minds to take them out of the morass that the Afghan people had kind of stumbled into and giving them, presenting them with an alternative. And unfortunately, not just the fault of the United States, but the whole international community, I think, just failed to deliver. I consider the first nine months of last year in Afghanistan an enormous wastage of opportunities. What has turned the situation around was in fact in September of last year, when President Karzai was nearly assassinated in Kandahar, on September the 5th. That became a huge wake-up call for the United States, which then galvanized the world community. “With all of this money you all pledged, none of this money you delivered, you better start delivering. We’re going to do reconstruction, because if Harmid Karzai is going to be killed there may be nobody to replace him and nobody to instill that kind of desire for unity and for bringing the Afghan nation together.” So what we saw in September was a change of tact, a change of policy. There was an enormous commitment, a recommitment if you like, made toward reconstruction and security.
My kind of criticism was much muted after September and I was just really hoping that the U.S.and the Europeans would be doing the right thing. But unfortunately of course what has happened is that Iraq has impinged on that in Afghanistan. Iraq is going to draw donors away from Afghanistan. It’s going to draw away the attention of the United States. It’s going to draw away the attention of the media, and the NGOs, and the intellectuals, and the whole kind of paraphernalia that goes with galvanizing support for reconstruction of a country. And it’s been extremely tragic that the turnaround in Afghanistan in September, which really….you know this month in March, there’s something like a billion dollars that is now coming in for road building, five hundred million dollars for irrigation and water and electricity. Now a lot of these projects may just be put on hold because of what’s happening in Iraq and because donors will be distracted.
The other big problem in Afghanistan has simply been that at the end of the war, at the Bonn Conference, when the Karzai government was established, there was an international consensus, and most significantly the world community, and particularly the United States, laid down a benchmark that there must be no interference by Afghanistan’s neighbors inside that country. If you know anything about the history of Afghanistan, it was the interference of the neighbors which sustained the warlords and the factional fighting and the civil war throughout the 1990s. And what the U.S. basically said was now everybody has to lay off, and everybody has to let the Afghans develop their political system and we will help with reconstruction and security. Unfortunately, again because of this political vacuum during the last year, the security vacuum, the lack of reconstruction and money coming in, the neighbors have all got back into the act. Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, everybody’s funding one warlord or the other warlord, or giving sanctuary to one warlord or the other warlord. So again you have a situation which is very precarious, vis a vis the neighbors, and this is again a situation which you don’t want to repeat in Iraq, because Iraq has much more powerful neighbors than even Afghanistan has. Iraq is surrounded by very powerful neighbors who are all at each other’s throats, and would all like to undermine the U.S. efforts in Iraq. So I think that’s a very important lesson from the Afghan experience.
You know the tragedy is that right now there is money available for large-scale reconstruction projects in Afghanistan. Not only that, there’s a huge political agenda in Afghanistan, which is coming up in the next six months. Next month, the first draft of the new constitution will be published. It will then be debated for the next three months. Groups will go around the country debating it to see what changes people want, etc. There will be a huge debate between moderate Afghans and fundamentalist Afghans, who will be demanding the imposition of shaaria law and a much more Islamic type of constitution. It’s a very important debate, which will lay the seeds and the foundations of the new Afghan state that hopefully will emerge. It’s a debate that cannot be pushed into the corner or relegated to the background because of Iraq. In October there will be a meeting of the loya jurga, the grand national assembly of the Afghans, which will endorse this new constitution. There will be the registration of political parties for the first time this summer in preparation for elections next year. There will be a census carried out of the population and the voters for the first time So there’s a huge political and economic agenda coming up in Afghanistan, which is absolutely vital. Having fought the war, having won the war, if this political agenda is not going to be implemented, is not going to be sustained by the U.S. and by its allies, then frankly Afghanistan is very quickly going to revert back to the kind of chaos and anarchy that existed before, and which allowed the Taliban to come up and take over the country, followed by Al Qaeda, who then took over the Taliban.
Now, moving on from Afghanistan, I’d just like to touch on Pakistan. Now here, too, again, the issue of, the burden, if you like, of empire, and the responsibility, I feel, the U.S. and the international community have. Pakistan has been ruled for the last four years, five years by a military dictator. And Pakistan, as you know, before 9/11 was wholeheartedly backing the Taliban, and inadvertently giving sanctuary to a lot of the Al Qaeda people. It did a complete U-turn and then backed the United States and then supported the U.S. in the war against terrorism. But there were certain other steps that the military in Pakistan had to take. They had to come up with a decent civilianization and move towards democracy. They had to come up with a decent breaking of the links between the military and the fundamentalists and extremists, who have sustained Pakistan’s foreign policy in Kashmir and in India. And who have sustained it in Afghanistan by backing the Taliban. Now what has happened in Pakistan is that because General Musharraff has been extremely helpful and very productive, too, in catching Al Qaeda, the rest of the agenda which he needed to carry out, both for the sake of the Pakistani people and the population, and for bringing Pakistan back out of its international isolation and into the mainstream of the modern world, has been forgotten and the U.S. has not pushed for it. So what we saw last year, was a rigged referendum by the military, which made Musharraff president for five years, and we then saw in October a rigged election in which Musharraff basically eliminated the major secular parties out of the election, and unfortunately facilitated the fundamentalists to win one-third of the seats in the present Parliament that we have. And the situation now is that there is a civilian government and there is a civilian Prime Minister and a Parliament, but power remains firmly still in the hands of the military, and the kind of civilianization that should have taken place, unfortunately, has not happened.
So here again we are faced with a short term benefit, that Pakistan was providing the Americans and providing the international community: catching Al Qaeda. But there were several medium-term and longterm things that Pakistan was unwilling to carry out, and the U.S. was unwilling to put the kind of necessary pressure on Pakistan to do it. Pakistan today, in my opinion remains the center of Islamic radicalism and extremism in the region. It remains a very fragile state. It is armed with nuclear weapons. The fundamentalists are making enormous headway, political headway, they are creating an enormous political space for themselves. The secular parties have been sidelined and it’s a very, very dangerous situation in the medium and longterm, which I think far outstrips just the ability of catching Al Qaeda.
Now let me move on to the topic of Central Asia. There’s been a very interesting conference here on Central Asia. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, and ten years of independence, Central Asia has been almost in total isolation. The Soviets had isolated Central Asia during the whole Soviet period. Since independence, since the break-up, the five republics have also spent much of their time completely out of the limelight. Partly, the reason has been that even though Central Asia has enormous resources, it has oil and gas, it has minerals, it has huge agricultural wealth, but it is landlocked, and getting these goods to market is proving to be a very, very difficult business. The other reason for this isolation has been the legacy of communism in Central Asia. All the Central Asian regimes are holdovers from the communist era. There have been no regime changes in Central Asia since the communist era. The presidents are all former Secretary-Generals of the communist parties of their respective Soviet republic of that time: Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Turkmenistan the others. There has been minimum political and economic reform in Central Asia. The kind of moves toward privatization and market economy, etc., that you’ve seen in most of the other former Soviet republics you just haven’t seen in Central Asia. These are economies that are still state-controlled. And as a result they have completely collapsed basically. Economic production and GDP is one third or one quarter of what it was during Soviet times, so you can imagine how bad the situation is. The whole social structure which the Soviets had, the education, the health, the insurance, pensions, all those facilities have virtually collapsed. And as far as political reform is concerned, only two of the Central Asian states really allow, only two of the five, allow some degree of political parties to register and be active, although they considerably suppress them. Three of the Central Asian states allow no political opposition whatsoever. So these are one-party states, much as they were in the Soviet era. So that has been another cause for this kind of isolation. Now I think 9/11 offered, these modernizers in Central Asia saw that this was a huge opportunity. The U.S. was coming in, the U.S. wanted bases, money could come in, investment could come in. Here was a moment to grab. But what many of the people in the bureaucracies of Central Asia said was, “Well, this is the moment we need to modernize, we need to carry out reforms and we need to grab the attention of the West, and investment.” Unfortunately, the ruling dictatorships did not see it like that. They saw the coming in of the Americans, the bases the Americans were asking for. They saw it and said “That’s wonderful. Now we can carry on as before and now we will be legitimized by the American presence in our country. We will give the Americans bases, and carry on exactly as we were doing before. There’s no need to modernize, there’s no need to carry out political and economic reform, and the Americans will be the guarantors of our future survival.” And that is how things unfortunately have worked out. Again, the kind of responsibility that I think the U.S. had to have a policy of carrot and stick, of pressure and incentive, to get these Central Asian regimes to carry out major economic and political reforms, has just not been there. And there was a huge opportunity, I think. On the other side of the picture, from the people’s side, let me just remind you, that when the Americans went into Central Asia, this was the first Western army that had ever gone into Central Asia since the time of Alexander the Great in 300 BC. And the Central Asians had no idea of the Americans. Here were five states, all Muslim, there was no anti-Americanism. This was the only part of the Muslim world where anti-Americanism did not exist, because actually nobody had ever met an American. Nobody had ever been affected by America. There was not even Disney, movies. There was no American culture in Central Asia. There was no American TV in Central Asia, because it was all censored by the regimes.
So, America had this huge virgin kind of area, in the heart of the Muslim world, which it could influence, but which it could influence to the good. All the Central Asian people did know that America means democracy. So America might support democracy, and change, and reform, and an improvement in our lives. And there still is not anti-Americanism, but I think there’s an enormous frustration now, amongst the elite, amongst the intellectuals, the media, about U.S. policy. The U.S. is just seen as propping up these regimes in Central Asia, rather than being a catalyst for change. What you also have is that a lack of political parties, a lack of political culture in Central Asia has, of course, led to political extremism and radicalism. So you get in the mid-90s the growth of Islamic extremist parties, who then linked up with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and who were then hijacked by bin Laden, who also, by the way, sees Central Asia as this virgin Muslim country that has no experience with Islam. “And here I can spend money, and buy support, and buy groups, and create this huge new base, which will be my base, Al Qaeda base.” He does try to do this, and several of the Central Asian militant groups then join up with Al Qaeda. So, again, unfortunately in Central Asia we have not seen that kind of nuanced foreign policy by the U.S.. Yes, you need the Central Asian regimes to provide you with bases. And, by the way, there are three countries that have given bases, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakastan, where there are something like seven to eight thousand American troops in total there. But there hasn’t been the kind of nuanced policy where you will say, there’s an aim for U.S. bases, and the U.S. has tripled aid, it’s encouraging investment, but it has not gone in with a more nuanced kind of foreign policy where it has said it will also influence political reform and economic reform in these countries.
All I’m trying to say is that certainly there are enormous lessons to be learned by the way the U.S. has handled itself in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It should not repeat the mistakes that it has made in Iraq and the Middle East. The other thing is that the U.S. has to do many things at the same time on the foreign policy front and many people outside the United States always say that the Americans can’t do more than one thing at the same time. They can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. And you are now asking that we have to do a policy in Pakistan, a policy in Central Asia, in Afghanistan, and now we’ve got Iraq, Syria, and Iran and all the rest of it. The U.S. system is not just built to cope with all this. Unfortunately, I mean the experience of post.9/11 is that you’ve got to be able to do multitudinous things at the same time. And you’ve got to be able to articulate policies toward all these regions and these issues. It cannot just be a kind of ad hocism and playing with the status quo. The biggest danger at the moment in my part of the world, which I hope is not going to be repeated in Iraq, is that you have basically changed the regime in Afghanistan, you have changed the whole situation in Afghanistan, you have given Afghanistan enormous hope for the future, but basically you’re living with the status quo, and accepting the status quo in the periphery around Afghanistan. And that is not just matching. Similarly in the Middle East you have brought about enormous change in Iraq, you have brought about a new regime, but you cannot then say that the status quo around Iraq has to stay the same. That the same Arab despotic regimes, the same lack of movement on the Palestinian-Israeli question, that everything else has to stay the same.
We are living in a very, very complicated world. I think the enormous question, which will be faced, and that has to be faced by the American people: Are the American people willing to bear this burden of this kind of political involvement? Are you prepared to bear the economic burden? Somebody pointed out to me very rightly—I was talking about this huge, very positive literacy campaign in Afghanistan, where U.S. aid and the UN sent back 3.5 million children back to school in a single day last March. It was just a wonderful event that happened—an American somewhere said to me, “We don’t have teachers in our state.” (I think it was in Washington State, Seattle somewhere.) “We have to close down our schools early because we don’t have teachers. And here you are saying that the U.S. has given 50 million dollars for education in Afghanistan and it may give another 50 million. Well, we need this money in the United States.” That raises the whole issue of whether the U.S. people are going to be willing to bear the kind of economic burden, quite apart from the political burden, that this kind of involvement is going to bring. And here I will end. Thank you very much indeed.