Second thoughts on the Taliban!

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 30. What should the United States do with the Taliban? A series of contradictory statements from Washington suggest deep divisions within the Bush administration. Some want to replace the regime in Kabul while others say the U.S. should limit itself to getting hold of Osama bin Laden and destroying the Al-Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan.

The biggest opponent of overthrowing the Taliban appears to be the U.S. Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell. If the Taliban can be persuaded to hand over Osama and close down the terrorist camps threatening the U.S., Gen. Powell seems to suggest, the nature of the regime in Kabul should not be of concern.

In ``persuading'' the Taliban to change course, Gen. Powell may not be averse to the offer of a full range of incentives - including recognition and economic assistance. The hope is that either the Taliban as a whole, or parts of it, may be interested in a deal with the U.S.

Others, however, believe that without a total defeat of the regimes which harbour terrorists, the U.S. will not be secure. Separating terrorists from their sponsors must be the central objective in the current war against international terrorism, those calling for a muscular approach say.

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The American debate on the objectives of its present war is not as academic as it sounds. It reflects a real philosophical divergence on the nature of power and purpose in the U.S. foreign policy and on reconciling ends and means. It is also shaped by the lessons drawn from the Vietnam war - the defining event for the current generation of American leaders.

Gen. Powell's lessons are straightforward: keep your objectives limited and do not let ``mission creep'' expand them into unrealisable goals; use overwhelming force to achieve those goals; do not enter a war without an exit strategy; and do not undertake an objective that cannot be sustained by domestic consensus and a viable international coalition.

These arise from Gen. Powell's distillation of the American failure in Vietnam. His principles eventually became a doctrine, when he was a rising star in the U.S. national security bureaucracy in the 1980s and shaped his cautious approach in the Gulf War against Iraq during 1990-91, when he was the chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

For others, this is a complete misreading of what the U.S. can and should do. They argue that excessive caution in the Gulf War has saddled the U.S. with Mr. Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Critics of the Powell doctrine also suggest that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have changed the security condition of the United States, making its homeland vulnerable. They demand that these threats be addressed and eliminated comprehensively.

But there are fears that the U.S. may get bogged down either in an endless war in Afghanistan or in rebuilding that nation. There is also the apprehension that expansive aims for the war will undermine the international coalition. These concerns may strengthen the hands of those urging restraint on Washington.

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The choice the Bush administration makes on the Taliban will have a considerable impact on the subcontinent. The Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, would want to salvage at least some part of the Pakistani military's huge investment in Afghanistan over the last two decades. The Army in Pakistan has desperately sought strategic depth in Afghanistan and will be loath to give it up now.

Islamabad is likely to do its best to ensure that either the Taliban survives in some form or a variant of it has the dominant role in any future set-up in Kabul. That was the message from Pakistan's total rejection of any role for the Northern Alliance in shaping the new political order in Afghanistan. For India, however, there is no ``good Taliban or bad Taliban, it is just the Taliban.''

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As it prepares for military action in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is said to be short of people fluent in Pushtu, a language spoken widely by the Pashtuns who dominate the southern parts of the country. The Pentagon is said to be recruiting large numbers of Afghan-Americans who can speak the language to facilitate the operations. The U.S. is said to have enough men who can speak Dari, a variant of Persian that is widely spoken in Afghanistan.

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