The second failure is that at the Tokyo conference in January, the international community pledged $4.5 billion for reconstruction aid, as opposed to humanitarian. None of this money has arrived yet. There is no reconstruction and no redevelopment going on. Even the rubble in Kabul hasn't been cleared. You have a huge poppy crop that is going to be harvested in April. There's no incentive for the farmer to grow anything else because he has no other seed. Poppy is the easiest thing.

Agriculture would help in the demobilization of the warlord armies. A lot of these kids want to go home, but they have nothing to go home to. You need to give them a package of incentives to go back to the farm. These kids haven't been paid for six months, some of them. If you give them an incentive -- seed, fertilizer, tools, whatever -- it would help.

The other thing that the lack of peacekeepers is doing is creating a vacuum in the provinces that's being filled once again by the neighboring countries. The Russians are back in northern Afghanistan, the Iranians are back in western Afghanistan. The whole purpose of Bonn was to demand that the neighbors do not interfere and allow the Afghans to settle their own problems. And they were the cause of the civil war for the last 10 years.

Is it important for the U.S. specifically to make a lasting commitment to Afghanistan, or can it mainly be handled by the rest of the international community?

I think U.S. commitment is very important. The war against terrorism cannot be won by a purely military strategy. It needs the stabilization of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been the center of instability for Pakistan, for Central Asia -- for the whole region. Unless you have a credible government with the rule of law established in Afghanistan, which is able to offer its people reconstruction, you are not going to eliminate the threat. Al-Qaida can be regrouping all the time. So the U.S. commitment is very important.

It's more important in the long term, because a real U.S. commitment would send a very strong message throughout the Muslim world, that the U.S. doesn't just come in and bomb and then push off. Everybody there has serious doubts about U.S. commitment, because history teaches us that the U.S. comes in for a few weeks or a few months, carries out whatever limited agenda it has, and then leaves. It deserted Afghanistan in 1989, it's deserted Pakistan several times. I think you've got to have a serious U.S. commitment for at least the next year or so.

In your book "Taliban," you write a lot about the role that oil companies played in Afghanistan and the money they invested to build oil and gas pipelines that would run through the country. What role do you think they will play in the future of Afghanistan?

I don't think [oil] played a role after Sept. 11, I think that [the U.S.] response was genuinely because of terrorism. But certainly in the long term, especially the U.S. presence in Central Asia is probably going to be very important to securing pipeline routes, which the U.S. would back, as opposed to what the Russians or Chinese or the Iranians would want. And what we don't know is: Is the U.S. military presence in Central Asia going to be long-term or short-term? And I suspect it will be long-term.

I think it's far too early to start thinking about the pipeline again. I don't see any oil company, having been burned very badly once in Afghanistan, I don't think they're in any hurry to jump in until there's a credible government and stability.

What about Pakistan's role in the new Afghanistan?

There's a lot of pressure on [President] Musharraf to clamp down on the border where all these guys have been fleeing into Pakistan. I don't think the army has been doing enough, and I think there's a lot of frustration behind the scenes by the Americans that the Pakistan army has not sealed the border. I think there's a great deal more that Musharraf can do.

How thorough was Musharraf last fall in purging the ISI -- Inter-Services Intelligence -- of Taliban sympathizers?

I think those officers who were running the pro-Taliban policy have been removed, but I think these stories in the American press have been very exaggerated. You've not had a reorganization of the intelligence services to break the linkages and the sympathies they have with some of the militant groups in Pakistan.

There was a lot of talk about possible ISI links in the murder of Daniel Pearl, for example.

The murder of Danny Pearl and the arrest of Omar Saeed is very murky. Omar Saeed was held by the ISI for one week before he was released to the police. There's no explanation yet by the government as to what he was doing in ISI custody and what was talked about. And throughout that period, we were told that Danny Pearl was alive and well, and it is now very clear that Danny Pearl was killed almost immediately after he was picked up. So, I don't know what kind of pressure the Americans are putting on Musharraf, but I think the situation remains very murky.

How stable is the Musharraf government?

Well, the recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan -- the bombing of the church in Islamabad, the killing of Danny Pearl, the assassination of seven to 10 Pakistanis in Karachi -- have created a greater sense of insecurity, and the failure of the government to crack down on extremist groups, the failure of the government to arrest anyone responsible for these killings. In January, he banned five political parties, he arrested 2,000 militants -- they've all been freed. Not a single charge has been brought against these militant leaders, their parties -- nothing. The only people on trial at the moment are these Danny Pearl people.

I think he's nervous about making a full-scale crackdown.

Are these militants a real threat to the government of Pakistan?

They're a threat to the people of Pakistan, and they're certainly creating a huge sense of insecurity, particularly for liberal Pakistanis. Having failed to win popular support for a mass movement, they have stepped up acts of terrorism, bombings and assassinations. Musharraf is also in a dilemma. First, there's a fear of the backlash within the military itself if the crackdown is too harsh. The other big problem is the fact that the Indians have something like 600,000 troops on the border for the last two months. There's also a lot of Indian pressure for him to crack down. It's much more difficult for Musharraf to be seen to be bending to Indian demands than it is to be seen bending to American demands. And I think this Indian strategy is a huge mistake. It's putting enormous pressure on Musharraf that he can't respond to, because if he does, there will be public and military resistance.

Is there any sign that the U.S. or any other country may try to play a more active role in resolving the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir?

My own feeling is that this is an ideal moment. This is an incredible opportunity to bring in the West to help broker a peace settlement in Kashmir. We're never going to get this opportunity again. There's total U.S. engagement with both countries, there's so much focus from the West on both countries, this is a moment that we should seize.

There was speculation a couple of months ago that the Americans may appoint a special envoy to Kashmir, but that hasn't happened. I think it would be a very good thing if they did. It would show both countries that the U.S. is concerned and that they're determined to try to help both countries resolve this problem.

But it seems as though the Americans are moving on to Baghdad.

I don't think there's any international support for bombing Iraq. This Cheney trip to the Middle East, he came back completely empty-handed. He went to try to get support for Iraq, everybody said, "Take care of Israel and Palestine." How can any Muslim regime right now with this Mideast crisis going on, how can any Muslim country support another American attack on a Muslim country? It's inconceivable.

Is the United States cooperating at all with Iran in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan has been the one area where there's been continuous contact between Americans and the Iranians for the last four or five years, because they both had a common interest in knocking out the Taliban. Behind the scenes, there was a dialogue going on, there were meetings, and it was very productive. It helped contain the Taliban movement.

But now, the "axis of evil" has lumped the hard-liners and moderates into one camp, and condemned all of them, which was very wrong. It was a disaster. [Iranian President Mohammad] Khatami was trying to build bridges with the Americans, and because of "axis of evil," he was forced to make a statement supporting the hard-liners. And the hard-liners turned around and said, Look, we always told you the Americans are evil and anti-Islam.

The axis of evil speech has frozen the behind-the-scenes dialogue that was going on. The Iranians supported the war. They did not object to U.S. bombing near the Iranian border. They supported the Bonn process. American diplomats and Iranian diplomats were working very closely together in Bonn to set up this interim government, and all that seems to have gone out the window.

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