The Central Asian chess game

If the United States goes to war in Afghanistan, it will need the cooperation of former Soviet republics.

By Steve Kettmann

Sep 25, 2001 | Osama bin Laden remains the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but any hopes of actually capturing him may be more fantasy than reality -- at least for the time being. Instead, United States military planners appear to be focusing on more achievable goals, meaning a long campaign against countries that harbor or sponsor terrorists.

That probably will begin with military action in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban. One likely scenario will be for a renewed campaign by Afghanistan's umbrella rebel group, the Northern Alliance, reinforced with American and Russian weapons. In such a move, the Northern Alliance, which controls a stretch of Afghanistan's northern border region, would grind its way south, backed by American air power, and take the Afghan capital of Kabul, throwing the Taliban into disarray.

Monday, Russia announced it would step up its efforts to arm the group, which Russia has supported since the 1990s. One likely benefactor would be Mohammad Zahir Shah, the 86-year-old former king of Afghanistan, who lives in Italy and who has been in touch with the Northern Alliance about forming an anti-Taliban coalition.

"This business of going after bin Laden is Mickey Mouse," said Maj. Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies. "It's really something that is dreamt up in the media. Afghanistan is bigger than France, roughly the size of Texas, and 70 percent of it is mountains. Imagine looking for someone in Texas."

But to anyone familiar with recent Afghan history, the strategy poses inherent risks. The Taliban itself came to power with at least tacit support from the United States before it became America's new public enemy. Heyman says there are other concerns, most notably that the group is unpopular with the Afghan people and has been accused of stooping to gangsterism. But, he says, arming the Northern Alliance may be the best short-term solution in the global war against terrorism.

"The long-term result of destroying the Taliban's military capability is that almost certainly it lets the Northern Alliance in," Heyman said. "Allied forces can then withdraw quite easily. Having withdrawn, and destroyed the Taliban's capability, it would then be possible to say to Sudan or Somalia: 'You have terrorist training camps on your territory, either get rid of them or suffer the same fate that the Taliban did.' Phase 1 is Afghanistan. Phase 2 is another couple of countries, probably Sudan and Somalia. And then Phase 3, you spread your net wider."

But to get that far, the U.S. will first have to plunge into startlingly new political and diplomatic territory. Joining Russia in arming the Northern Alliance, whether covertly or otherwise, involves the United States in the region, no matter how the coming weeks play out. It will take ongoing and flexible diplomacy to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin's continued support. It will also put the U.S. in league with the three Central Asian republics along the Afghan border -- Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan -- all of which face internal instability, which they see as being fueled by the Taliban and its aid to Islamic militants.

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