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COMMENTARY
October 10, 2001
Walking in the rain
It is interesting to observe not what the U.S. and British air attacks have hit or missed but what they weren't even aiming for. While some attempt seems to have been made to bomb Taliban infantry emplacements in the extreme north around Mazar-i-Sharif no such targets have been molested on the Jamali plain which is the northern approach to Kabul. The challenge at Mazar was to a Taliban force that could potentially threaten the Uzbek or Tadzhik frontiers; no effort was made to hit behind it as the Northern Alliance would have wished to see done. For in the present circumstances with Alliance guerrillas dug into outposts through the mountains of Hezara across the middle of the country the opportunity to cut off the Taliban's north from its south is irresistible. If I understand the Taliban are reduced to just one reasonably secure supply line through the mountains which once closed leaves them only the one alternative of trekking the long way around to the west -- from Herat and through some of the best ambush country in the world. (I travelled it myself once and don't recommend it even as a holiday.) The omission of the Jamali plain where the Taliban at least have serious defensive gun emplacements smacks of strategy. This plain is as close as there is to a formal front line between the Taliban and its enemies. It has been so for so long that a kind of normal life was descending upon it. From the Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung I learn that as recently as a week ago it was possible to take a mini-van from the Alliance-held market town of Golbahar to the front walk across and catch another one into Kabul if you had business there or relatives to visit. The frontier itself was demarcated by anti-tank mines -- reasonably safe to walk over. With the Afghan winter now settling in the prospects for taking Kabul would naturally be growing dimmer. Golbahar must itself be resupplied over the Anjuman Pass from the Panjshir Valley which snakes towards the Tadzhik frontier -- the Northern Alliance's chief source of food and weapons. The pass is at 17 000 feet you can forget it in winter. Three years of drought on the plain have created a demand for more than munitions. Anything that comes down fresh from behind the mountains must be airborne. If the West isn't trying to hit Taliban targets on the Jamali plain and isn't prepared at this stage to strafe the Taliban's mobile positions it would seem to follow that we aren't immediately interested in taking Kabul. It would further follow that the Bush administration doesn't want to have the Northern Alliance do the job for it either. And finally that the desire to place Zahir Shah symbolically back on his throne in Kabul isn't presently there. For Kabul is certainly ready for the plucking. It is not the centre of gravity for the Taliban whose citadel is Kandahar. It is reasonable to assume their old guerilla instinct would be to cut and run from the city were it seriously challenged rather than indulge in fighting house to house. They are especially hated in Kabul which was once a city with women and everything and their chances of survival would be much better if they dispersed immediately to the west and south. Indeed if I understand the Taliban mindset at all (and perhaps I should hope not to) they must have an overpowering desire to cut and run. Not from cowardice but out of a peculiarly Afghan sense of honour. Urban fighting is distasteful to them it means going on the defensive. The sooner they can re-organize into small guerilla cells and flee to unassailable positions the more hope they can have of success against what they expect will be American invaders. They are in their element at hit-and-run it is what they consider to be manly. At the moment with U.S. jets and cruise missiles flying past at their leisure they must be feeling claustrophobic. The Americans would appear to be aware of this situation. As the U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has explicitly said they will decline battle on the Taliban's terms. They have taken note of the fate of the Soviets before them -- who did not hesitate to grab at the cities -- and are playing a much subtler game of cat-and-mouse. Their problem will be to get the Northern Alliance and other "unallied" regional chiefs to play along with them. For the enemies of the Taliban within Afghanistan itself may have honour courage and the lay of the land; but they have no discipline. We saw this when the U.S. gave the Alliance leadership some advance warning before the air strikes began. Rather than keeping this happy news to themselves they boasted to anyone who would listen. Rather than sitting still as instructed they immediately launched mindless theatrical attacks on every Taliban position in sight. This on top of their other defect that they are unsavoury characters. They may well try to take Kabul regardless of resources. Their thinking will be Just do it, and the Yankees will be forced to back us up. They may be surprised and seriously disheartened to find the U.S. doesn't feel compelled to help them. Or alternatively the U.S. may indeed be compelled to back them up but in that case for reasons almost purely humanitarian. For from the U.S. point of view installing a new government in Kabul is not on the short-term agenda. Rather re-installing Zahir Shah as king in good time and with a United Nations mandate is merely the least bad of the options presently foreseeable. It makes no sense to rush. For the U.S. playing white on this chessboard has put forward just the Queen's pawn and by only one space. The Bush administration as I was saying Monday is still in its "reconnaissance" mode and will remain in that for some time to come. They are more interested in seeing responses than in thinking their next move. They are being remarkably aloof from their Afghan allies or rather "potential allies" in the American frame of mind. They are looking for opportunities to make the telling hit not a series of pinpricks. And they are aware that keeping the Taliban bottled up in the larger cities gives them their best chance. If it were possible I think they would be trying to establish cordons around these cities (Kabul Ghazni Kandahar Herat Mazar Jalalabad) but with the ground allies they have that does not seem possible. The only perfectly clear immediate object in hitting Taliban air defences and exposed command centres is to make the skies safe for humanitarian deliveries. They were already safe enough for special forces manoeuvring. The U.S. has extraordinary all-weather lenses in the sky and is more eager to learn about the present Afghan geography than anything except the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Likewise they are studying other theatres for future action -- Syria and Iraq to name just two -- and are determined not to be taken by surprise unnecessarily. They are "walking in the rain" at present resigned to becoming thoroughly wet but unwilling to run until they see something worth running after. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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