After the fall

Sanjoy Banerjee is a professor in the international relations department at San Francisco State University.

What happens now?

The Northern Alliance forces have now entered Kabul and control the city. After that there are a range of options. They have named [Borhanuddin] Rabbani president, who was president before the Taliban took over. [Rabbani is still recognized by the U.N.] They're clearly moving politically to create a government, but so far they have been silent on the role of Mohammad Zahir-Shah [the deposed king of Afghanistan]. So we can imagine a government more dominated by the Northern Alliance or they can try to bring in Zahir Shah and then move towards a more inclusive government. I think that they want to reestablish the pre-Taliban government as much as they can and then they can try to be more inclusive of Pashtuns, at least those free of taint of the Taliban.

Other discussions have been going on about bringing in various foreign Muslim armies under U.N. auspices like Turkey, Indonesia, and Bangladesh. The United States is talking about that. Pakistan has volunteered but they're unpopular with the Northern Alliance because they supported the Taliban against Rabbani and previous groups.

Under these circumstances we can see quite a bit of Northern Alliance consolidation in the north amidst a very fluid situation. We'll have to see if the Taliban can consolidate in the south. If they can then Afghanistan will be de facto partitioned. If that happens then American goals will be unachieved; al-Qaida will still be ensconced in the south.

Why does the south represent such a potentially difficult battle?

First, there is this big ethnic divide. You would have the Taliban guerillas able to rely on villages that they could not in the north for more enthusiastic and active resistance. They could allow any penetrating army to move as they wish initially and then stage hit-and-run attacks, whereas before they were trying to block access to Kabul. They can rely on the Pashtun population to assist them and also utilize the extensive networks of caves and tunnels. The terrain and the predominant ethnicity tend to favor the Taliban more in the south.

Politically the Taliban is much stronger in the south. We've seen, in spite of two months of bombing and offers of inducements to Pashtun leaders to defect, very little success. The few interested parties were killed. That could change now that the tide of battle has really turned. But we cannot underestimate the significance of the Taliban's strength.

How stable is the Northern Alliance politically?

The odds of their factions fighting against one another before the threat of the Taliban and Pakistan is resolved aren't high. Many have switched sides many times but history has moved on. Possible coalitions have congealed and changed so there aren't really a lot of options for leaders to switch sides. Other groups haven't really fought against one another. I think the Pashtun against non-Pashtun is the big conflict. There are other dangers, though, like a lack of discipline, which may have prompted the reported massacres after the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif.

How strong is the Northern Alliance administratively?

They haven't demonstrated any great administrative capacity in the past. But it also was not a valid test because there was always outside interference. When they first established a government in the early '90s, Pakistan intervened. Now they probably have better options. They'll certainly have access to much greater resources in terms of material and expertise from the U.N. and the West. They have friends in Russia and India. They're not even dependent exclusively on the West and the U.N., though that is likely to be their first and main target for support because that's where the money is.

How do you see a future Afghan government? Will it be a strong state?

A lot of the suggestions that were made as of 48 hours ago suggested that Afghanistan would emerge as a semi-sovereign state with a lot of foreign supervision. That prospect may be receding as the Northern Alliance moves in, especially with President Bush expressing support even though he was saying something completely different 24 hours earlier. It's not even that Bush is doing a big flip-flop -- this just wasn't the scenario he was envisioning. He though that there would be a civil war within Kabul, but when the Taliban pulled out the local population welcomed the Northern Alliance.

Under those circumstances, even with the human rights violations against prisoners, the Northern Alliance capture of Kabul is more legitimate than anticipated. They were consistently popular in the north because of a shared ethnicity with the local population. But even in Kabul, which is less northern in ethnicity, they've shown some popularity. Maybe it's only the co-ethnics in Kabul who are celebrating, but at least they're not out fighting and protesting.

So the Northern Alliance took the initiative even amidst interest and pressure from global forces. That's what's interesting as an observer. Here you have a minuscule force driving history and the U.S. having to change its line over six hours.

What role does Pakistan play in Afghanistan's future?

That is the great issue of the future. Now, to talk about that I think you have to accurately describe the interaction between the United States and Pakistan after Sept. 11. Both in terms of government rhetoric and the United States media coverage it has been said that Pakistan is a crucial ally in the war against terrorism. That's true up to a point: Pakistan has permitted American overflights of its territory and some limited non-combat operations from its territory, although Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have done quite a bit more for the American war effort in Afghanistan. Moreover in Pakistan you have these fairly large holy warrior outfits who are the ones now being massacred after they've been captured. They've been moving into Afghanistan without being constrained by the Pakistani government.

The actual attitude of the United States towards all this isn't that easy to fathom. If you listen to Bush's speech to the U.N. a few days ago it contains a few passages whose meaning isn't self-evident. There were sharp passages directed against terrorists, but they don't seem to be directed towards Syria and Iraq -- which has led some to think that it's a veiled threat against Pakistan that it needs to deal with the holy warrior outfits on its territory.

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