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CIAO DATE: 03/02
Strange Victory: A critical appraisal of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan war
Carl Conetta
PDA Research Monograph #6
30 January 2002
Appendix 1. The war's impact on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan
A1.1 Estimating the cost in lives of Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis.
This report uses an estimate of 8,000-18,000 Afghani deaths occurring during the mid-September to mid-January period and due to starvation, exposure, associated illnesses, or injury sustained while in flight from war zones. Of this total, at least 40 percent of the deaths (3200+) are attributed to the effects of the crisis and war.
This estimate of 8,000-18,000 deaths during the relevant period is based on an extrapolation from the reported experience of several village clusters and large camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The number of Afghanis in critical need — ie. imminent danger of starvation — was estimated before the war by aid agencies to be 1.5 million. The sample used in this study to estimate deaths constitutes approximately one-fourth of this total and covers slightly more than one-half of the four-month time period under consideration. Thus, the sample is quite large relative to the population and time of interest.
Reports from refugee camps inside Afghanistan suggest that as many as 2,500 people died (out of a total camp population in excess of 400,000) from starvation, exposure, and associated illness during the four months from 15 September to 14 January. The facilities from which data was drawn included IDP camps near Herat, Konduz, and Mazar-i-Sharif: Amirbad, Baghe, Dasht-e-Arzana, Dehdadi, Maslakh, Nasarji, and Sherkat.
For two months the relevant mortality rate at Beghe Sherkat camp was 4 deaths per 1,000 people per month. For four months the relevant mortality rate at Behdadi camp was 3.25 deaths per 1,000 people per month. For two months the relevant mortality rate at Maslakh camp was 1.5 deaths per 1,000 people per month, but lower for one other month. Taken together these camps house more than 60 percent of the Afghan IDPs in official camps. Correcting for size differences among the camps suggests an average relevant mortality rate of at least 1.5 deaths per 1,000 people per month — less at the beginning of the period and more toward the end. The information from the other camps, although less systematic, was broadly consistent with this finding. Applied to the total IDP camp population of more than 400,000 this rate suggests at least 2,500 avoidable deaths during the four months from mid-September to mid-January.
Many more Afghanis would have died during the four-month period among the larger group of perhaps one million Afghans who were outside the camps but at severe risk. A worst case may be represented by 2,000 families in the central highlands who were suffering mortality rates in excess of 7.5 people per 1,000 per month. However, others may have fared better than those in the camps. (The experience of the central highlands is not representative of the entire country.)
Another 5-6 million very poor Afghanis would also have suffered some number of avoidable deaths. Finally, refugees in transit through dangerous areas would have suffered deaths due to accident, exposure, and criminal attack. The overall estimate of 8,000-18,000 avoidable deaths used in the present report assumes that between 5,500 and 15,000 of these occurred among the "at risk" and "very poor" population outside the official IDP camps. Seeking to err on the conservative side, this implies a mortality rate for these larger groups that is lower than that for the camp populations.
A1.2 Estimating the impact of the war
The bombing campaign affected the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan by (i) swelling the flow of refugees, (ii) disrupting relief efforts for the 1.5 million Afghans already considered at extreme risk, (iii) impeding the planting of winter crops, and (iv) degrading the country's infrastructure, which was already in a perilous state.
The general effect of the crisis and war were to increase the level of humanitarian need while reducing or interrupting food production and the supply of aid. It increased the number of "internally displaced persons" by approximately 360,000 — a 40 percent increase — and it prompted 200,000 others to flee to neighboring countries (mostly Pakistan and Iran). The war also caused a 40 percent decline in national-level food aid deliveries during the month of October, although this slowly and intermittently recovered during November.
More important, the distribution of aid and food at the local level was almost fully interrupted for 2 to 3 months in many areas. And, as of mid-January 2002, it still had not fully recovered in some areas either due to lawlessness, residual military operations, or problems of winter inaccessibility affecting perhaps 20 percent of the high-risk population. A nation-wide four-month average reduction in planned grassroots aid delivery of 50 percent is consistent with the available evidence. Based on this and on the increased need caused by the war, it is reasonable to conclude that the war more than doubled the size of the gap between the supply of aid and the need for it. However, the present study conservatively attributes no more than 40 percent of the relevant deaths during the period to the effects of the war. This, because some percentage of those at risk would not have been reached by aid programs in any case.
A December surge in national-level food deliveries helped avert a large-scale humanitarian disaster — although local need is still dire in some places, as noted above. Other effects of the war — the lost planting season and infrastructure destruction — can be mitigated, provided that aid flows as promised and that the internal security situation does not deteriorate. Deployment of peacekeeping troops, to be complete by late January, should help, although their number (4,500) is insufficient.
A1.3 The interaction of relief efforts and war: a closer look
In the aftermath of 11 September relief efforts waxed and waned with the changing security situation in and around Afghanistan. Prior to the September attacks, the World Food Program had been preparing to augment its relief activities in Afghanistan due to a worsening of famine conditions there. But this effort derailed soon after the 11 September events, as the security situation deteriorated, borders closed, and transport became difficult to procure. The bombing campaign further impeded food delivery and distribution beginning 7 October. Relief organizations sought ways to work around the war and were able to gradually restore deliveries to central distribution points between 30 October and 11 November.
Throughout the entire period, however, the war severely restricted efforts to move supplies down the supply line and into the hands of those people who needed them. And, as chaos and lawlessness spread in the wake of the Taliban defeat, the situation on the national level also deteriorated once again, beginning 12 November. Adequate levels of food import were not re-achieved until 25 November. After 7 December national food deliveries soared upward as the international community responded to the crisis conditions; especially important was a US food aid package of $325 Million, representing about 35 percent of the emergency aid promised Afghanistan. By the end of the month total food stocks inside Afghanistan were sufficient to avert a humanitarian disaster.
Local distribution of food and other essentials still lagged behind the success on the national level, however. As noted in 20 December British parliamentary report:
The primary distribution of food has, despite all obstacles, been delivered in adequate quantities, but the failure of the secondary distribution systems has prevented its delivery to all those in need. 90
According to the report one reason for this failure was that,
The collapse of the Taliban did not bring the safe humanitarian space which had been hoped for; it often substituted one security concern for another... Banditry and lawlessness replaced military conflict.
Another cause of difficulty in reviving the secondary distribution system was what the aid group Doctors without Borders called "dislocation of decision-making". Generally speaking, relief organizations cannot uproot their local organizations and then simply redeploy them weeks or months later, during the winter, and into completely transformed circumstances without suffering some serious degradation of capability. Due to the war, population patterns and transportation infrastructures had been disrupted. And some local aid offices had been looted or destroyed.
Only in the last two weeks of December did local deliveries begin to reach adequate emergency levels in many areas. Some areas of the north, east, and south (including Kandahar with 230,000 people in need) were still regarded as "no go" zones at the year's end; in addition, winter snows were seriously impeding emergency relief of some remote mountain areas of north and central Afghanistan. And dislocation left aid agencies less able to handle the sudden influx of aid. For instance, 1000 tons of flour were delivered by the World Food Program to the region of Abdullah Gan (whose residents had been widely reported to be subsisting on grass) — but local relief workers were not informed of the delivery. Once they discovered it, they had to hastily make provisions for its safe storage and delivery. Usually, mud storage huts are built in advance to shelter such supplies from the weather. These could not be built so late in the season, however.
US aid officials have conveyed a fairly positive picture of how well the relief delivery system has recovered. UN relief agencies have offered somewhat less sanguine reports. Local aid delivery organizations are least satisfied. Summarizing the recovery, the public affairs officer for the UN World Food Program, Abby Spring, said on 11 January:
Have we prevented a widespread famine in Afghanistan? Yes, we have. You don't see Afghans in the major urban areas who are keeling over and dying. But because of the lack of security, there are still areas of difficulty. We still have no access to Kandahar, because of the fighting. Jalalabad is very difficult right now. And between the cities of Mazar-i Sherif and Kandahar, different warlords are controlling the roads, stopping convoys and looting vehicles. 91
The delay caused by the war is most salient for agencies who are struggling locally to get the now abundant aid to areas cut off by winter. For them there is no way to simply recoup the loss, despite the flood of new aid. As one aid worker put it: "It's a shame about the timing. If only we'd been here a few months earlier." 92 In the individual treatment of starvation there also are unique problems associated with delay. People starve in stages. In the final stage, medical needs multiply and grow more acute. Even feeding becomes a medical procedure — although the body may lose its capacity to recover. Thus, the demands placed on the care-giving system grow, while the effectiveness of intervention declines. There are some losses that cannot simply be recovered.
Sources on the war and the humanitarian crisis:
The Afghanistan page of Relief Web at <http://www.reliefweb.int> provides a gateway to a wide variety of internet news sources on the humanitarian crisis; The map section provides links to maps detailing the flow of refugees. Among the resources available at Relief Web is a chart of daily national-level food deliveries to Afghanistan published by the UK Department for International Development in the document, Afghanistan crisis situation report, 27 December 2001. Also essential is the internet page of the World Food Program at <http://www.wfp.org> Its "newsroom" section includes regular statistics and reports on the evolving situation in Afghanistan. The UN News Center internet page at <http://www.un.org/News/> also features a useful section on Afghanistan.
Additional sources (reverse chronological order):
Mark Abley "Afghans starve amid plenty: Distribution and drought are hurdles for relief workers," The Gazette (Montreal), 12 January 2002, p. B1;
Alex Perry, "Hunger and Despair in the camps," Time, 11 January 2002;
Moni Basu, "Feeding Afghans still a challenge; Weather, greed hinder aid efforts," Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 11 January 2002;
Ravi Nessman, "Afghans eat grass as aid fails to arrive," The Guardian, 9 January 2002;
Ravi Nessman, "Barely Clinging To Life; As food aid languishes, famine grips Afghans," Newsday (New York), 8 January 2002, p. 8;
"UN extends Afghan food aid operation out west," Reuters, 8 January 2002;
US Committee for Refugees, "Humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan remains acute", ReliefWeb, 7 January 2002;
"Relief distribution in Kabul not meet demands, ICRC official," Xinhua, 6 January 2002;
"Food supply in Afghanistan now sufficient to avert famine: report," Agence France Presse, 31 December 2001;
Ravi Nessman, "Afghan leaders from former front lines meet with aid workers to plea for aid," Associated Press, 27 December 2001;
"Kandahar 'no go' for aid convoys," BBC News, 27 December, 2001;
"Banditry blocking aid to Afghanistan: British report," Agence France Presse, 20 December 2001;
Jane Merrick and Zoe Hughes, "Aid Failing to Reach 'Lawless' Afghanistan," Press Association, 20 December 2001;
Richard Read, "Road to Afghanistan Pitted With Obstacles for Relief Groups," Newhouse News Service, 20 December 2001;
Crisis in Afghanistan: Oxfam Update on the Humanitarian Situation, 20 December 2001;
World Health Organization, "Health update Afghanistan," ReliefWeb, 20 December 2001;
Rory Carroll, "Winter closes in on families trapped by war," The Guardian (London), 19 December 2001, p. 5;
Brian Murphy, "Refugees Struggle in Afghanistan," AP Online, 14 December 2001;
Natasha Walter, "Disaster that lives in this triumph, The Independent (London), 13 December 2001, p. 5;
Christina Lamb, "For Afghan refugees, no respite," Sunday Telegraph, 12 December 2001;
C. J. Chivers, "After Two Months, Some Receive Food, but Others Can Only Watch," New York Times, 11 December 2001;
Anna Badkhen, "Afghan aid stuck in bottleneck; Winter arrives but supplies are elsewhere," San Francisco Chronicle, 9 December 2001, p. 3;
Christina Lamb, "They call this 'the slaughterhouse'; The 'forgotten' camp at Maslakh outside Herat, where up to 800,000 people are starving," Sunday Telegraph (London), 9 December 2001, p. 16;
"Death by bureaucracy," The Economist, 8 December 2001;
"Hunger and cold kill 177 Afghan refugees in camp near Konduz," Agence France Presse, 7 December 2001;
International Organization for Migration, "Press briefing 7," Relief Web, 7 December 2001;
Carlotta Gall with Elizabeth Becker, "As Refugees Suffer, Supplies Sit Unused Near Afghan Border," New York Times, 6 December 2001, p.1;
Tom Bowman and Ellen Gamerman, "Aid distribution in Afghanistan deteriorates; General lawlessness makes task harder than it was under Taliban," Baltimore Sun, 5 December 2001, p. 6;
Paul Watson, "Rivalries and Lawlessness Thwart Efforts to Deliver Aid to Afghans," Los Angeles Times, 5 December 2001, p. 3;
Ian Traynor, "Relief: First snow warns of humanitarian disaster: Aid hampered by weather, bandits and infighting," The Guardian (London), 4 December 2001, p. 7;
Medecins Sans Frontieres, Afghan displaced in Mile 46 and Markaki camps, 22 November 2001, <http://www.reliefweb.int>;
Deborah Barfield, "Afghanistan Edges Toward Famine; Relief efforts hampered by bombing, weather," Newsday (New York, NY), 11 November 2001, p. 5;
Oxfam International, Between a rock and a hard place: the plight of those seeking refuge from Afghanistan, 9 November 2001,<http://www.reliefweb.int>;
Richard lloyd Parry, "UN fears 'disaster' over strikes near huge dam," The Independent (UK), 8 November 2001;
Luke Harding, Barbed wire and cold await the thousands fleeing bombardment, The Guardian (UK), 8 November 2001;
Oxfam International, Findings of oxfam's independent fact-finding mission on the humanitarian crisis in afghanistan and on its borders, 6 November 2001, <http://www.reliefweb.int>;
Norman Kempster, "Millions Face Death, Aid Agencies Say; At least 500,000 will be cut off from truck convoys," Los Angeles Times, 3 November 2001, p. 11;
Nathan Ford and Austen Davis, "Chaos in Afghanistan: famine, aid, and bombs," The Lancet, 3 November 2001, <http://www.reliefweb.int>;
"Food has now run out for many Afghan people," Oxfam International Briefing Paper, 1 November 2001, <http://www.oxfam.org/news/docs/011101_2.htm>
Refugees International, A protection crisis, not a refugee crisis: A report from Chaman, 29 October 2001, <http://www.reliefweb.int>;
"Bombs versus butter," The Economist, 27 October 2001;
Kathleen Kenna, "The invisible victims," Toronto Star, 22 Oct 2001, p. 7;
Christina Lamb, "'We were poor in Kabul, but here we are beggars' The human fallout from the Afghan bombing is greater than expected, and is getting worse," Sunday Telegraph (London), 21 October 2001, p. 18;
Madeleine Bunting, "A grubby, vengeful war," The Guardian, 18 Oct 2001;
Laura King, "Afghan Aid Workers Face Chaos, Peril," Associated Press, 18 October 2001;
Refugees International, Slow food deliveries threaten rising death rate, 16 October 2001, <http://www.reliefweb.int>;
Church World Service, "Internally Displaced Persons in Hazarajat," ReliefWeb, 6 October 2001;
Norwegian Refugee Council, "About 100,000 IDPs around Mazar-e-Sharif face starvation," Global IDP Database, Afghanistan Information Menu, October 2001, available at: <http://www.idpproject.org>; and,
Norwegian Refugee Council, "High mortality rates among Hazarajat IDPs," Global IDP Database, Afghanistan Information Menu, October 2001, available at: <http://www.idpproject.org>
Appendix 2. The Missing Political Framework for Operation Enduring Freedom
The events of 11 September made clear the necessity of attending to the stability of Afghanistan — but not simply because Osama bin Laden and his cohort resided in that country, nor even because top Taliban leaders permitted them to do so. Both these facts were symptomatic of conditions that have made Afghanistan an incubator of terrorism for more than twenty years. The culprit is no one individual, organization, or government but, instead, a set of conditions: interminable civil war, a shattered civil society, and weak, non-responsive governance. Outside powers have contributed generously to these conditions over the years — grinding down Afghan society and seeking variously to subjugate the country, use it as a springboard for their strategic ambitions, or exploit its internal divisions and conflicts. This indicates the extent to which the Afghan prospect has been and is embedded in a wider web of interstate competition. For this reason, progress on Afghanistan requires attention to issues of regional stability as well.
As Operation Enduring Force attests, it is perfectly possible to pursue Al Qaeda and similar groups in a single-minded fashion, with inadequate attention to the stability problems that beset the nations and regions in which these groups nest. But this approach is a myopic one that poorly serves the longer-term goal of curbing the new terrorism. In some important respects, the terrorism problem that confronts the world today is related to several other problems: the post-cold war proliferation of failed states, inter-communal and ethnic conflict, and associated regional rivalries. These related problems have substantially determined the character, extent, and magnitude of the new terrorism, making it a unique phenomenon. Together these problems form a set — a "problem cluster" — that has been augmented further by several residual effects of the cold war: the broad availability of light military weapons and large number of demobilized military personnel and insurgency veterans.
To be truly effective, the US anti-terrorism campaign must attend to and balance the variety of issues constituting the problem cluster of which the new terrorism is only one aspect. This means attacking terrorism by both direct and indirect means — parallel measures — each with its own appropriate time line. Should the United States fail to take a broad and balanced approach to combating terrorism, the effort will become a labor of Sisyphus. Indeed, taking a too narrow or single-minded approach runs the risk of aggravating the conditions that germinate and sustain the new terrorism.
With regard to operations in Afghanistan, a balanced approach would have attended equally to the immediate task of disrupting Al Qaeda and the broader tasks of stabilizing Afghanistan and preserving stability in the region. At minimum, the immediate tasks regarding Al Qaeda should have been undertaken in a way that did not exacerbate other, related problems.
As an alternative to the approach the US adopted in Operation Enduring Freedom, immediate action against Al Qaeda might have emphasized special operations with only a very selective resort to air strikes. Efforts to improve stability in Afghanistan — or "drain the swamp," as some say — should have been pursued on a separate, parallel track and time line.
Stabilizing Afghanistan might have required a large-scale military operation in any case — but not immediately. It certainly should not have been attempted before a supportive political framework was in place. The purpose of more substantial political and diplomatic preparation would have been to transcend the Hobson's choice between the Taliban and Northern Alliance, and to ensure a quick transition to a strong, stable, and responsive government. Better preparation might also have limited the human cost of any large-scale stability operation and reduced its negative impact on regional stability. Giving more time and attention to political and diplomatic efforts might even have obviated large-scale military action.
Preparatory steps for decisive action on Afghanistan should have included:
This program of action would have concluded in UN recognition of the transitional authority as the legitimate governing body of Afghanistan. Subsequently, the transitional authority (supported by the Six-plus-Two powers) would have delivered (i) an ultimatum to the Taliban to step aside and (ii) an invitation to some of its key leaders to join the new Afghan authority. Given the preparatory steps outlined above, there would have been hope for a less bloody, chaotic, and destabilizing transition than that accomplished in the course of Operation Enduring Freedom.
The next sections of this appendix examine in more detail some of the preparatory measures that, in accord with humanitarian and stability concerns, should have preceded the forceful removal of the Taliban regime.
A2.1 Laying the legal and cooperative foundation for decisive action on Afghanistan
The first step in building an adequate political framework for stabilizing Afghanistan would have been a finding by the UN security council that the civil war, the chronic humanitarian crisis, and the general failure of governance in that country constituted a serious threat to the peace and security of the international community. The next step would have been a Security Council mandate for the "Six-Plus-Two Group on Afghanistan" to stabilize the internal situation, facilitate the formation of a more effective and representative government, and end the use of Afghan territory as a base for terrorist and insurgent activities elsewhere. The time limit for decisive action on Afghanistan — including military action, if necessary — should have been set at not more than seven or eight months after the beginning of political and diplomatic work.
The United States and its allies would have had to take a leadership role in building consensus for this process, setting it in motion, and seeing it through to completion. To these ends, a full panoply of persuasive tools would have had to be brought into play — among these: trade bargains, economic assistance, sanction relief, promises of security cooperation, and debt forgiveness.
A2.2 Quarantine of the Afghanistan conflict and relief of the humanitarian crisis
The contact group together with other involved parties (notably India and Saudi Arabia) would have taken immediate steps to quarantine Afghanistan and "freeze" the civil war there. This would have involved several related measures, including
Pakistan and Iran, especially, would have been hard pressed to implement these measures, although their full participation would have been critical. The G-7 and Persian Gulf states would have had to provide financial support to underwrite Iranian and Pakistani efforts. Moreover, in order for Iran and Pakistan to have devoted adequate military resources to the task of border control, they would have needed some mitigation of their other security concerns. For Pakistan, this would have implied some reduction in tensions with India (a prospect that is addressed below). For Iran, it would have implied a reduction in military tensions with the United States and some security guarantees regarding their border with Iraq (which might also have been provided by the United Sates).
A2.3 Creating a transitional government and preparing for post-conflict transition
Central to preparations for positive change in Afghanistan would have been the construction of a strong "transitional authority" or "interim government-in-waiting" well in advance of beginning a stability operation. Being prepared in this way would have had two advantages: first and obviously, it would have helped to limit any post-conflict chaos; second, it would have helped limit any nationalist reaction to military operations and could have served to attract broader Pashtun support for change.
To be effective an interim government would have had to involve balanced representation from all the major constituencies and political tendencies that were willing to participate, including some elements of the Taliban, if possible. The transitional authority would have been constituted on the basis of an agreed process for electing a subsequent government. Once in place, the transitional administration could have begun the task of constituting a national army and police force, relying in the meantime on peace and stability forces provided by outside powers under UN mandate.
A2.4 Building Pakistani cooperation in charting a new course for Afghanistan
No nation was more important than Pakistan to the effort to stabilize Afghanistan — and no nation was more bound to the status quo by security concerns and religious, ethnic, and institutional ties. In a program to stabilize Afghanistan, Pakistan's tasks would be to:
This set of actions implies a dramatic reorientation of Pakistan's foreign and security policy. Along with this it entails for Pakistan the possibility of internal instability and a weakened external security position, both east and west. Any Pakistani government attempting to implement such a plan would expect to face resistance — passive and active, overt and covert — from the intelligence and military establishments. Although the United States had sufficient leverage to compel President Musharraf agreement on many of these points, it is in the US interest to avoid destabilizing Pakistan because such an outcome would add substantially to US security concerns and to the potential for regional conflict. At any rate, what the United States has really needed from Pakistan is the type of consistent, thorough, and energetic cooperation that cannot be coerced.
There is some commonality of interest between the United States and Pakistan regarding the future direction a new Afghanistan might take. This should have formed the essential foundation of cooperation between the two countries in dealing with the Afghanistan problem. Both powers would hope to (i) limit the expansion of Russian and Iranian interests in Afghanistan, (ii) ensure the full representation of Pashtun communities in a future government, and (iii) prevent the emergence of Pashtun political tendencies that might seek to form a greater "Pashtunistan" (comprising portions of Afghanistan and Pakistan). US actions in Afghanistan should have conformed to these imperatives because they are worthwhile in their own right and because they were pivotal to maintaining Pakistani cooperation and stability.
The prospect of developing an alternative structure of Pashtun power in Afghanistan (possibly including the Taliban) was a strong motivator of Pakistani cooperation with US policy. Prior to the actual formation of a new Afghan government this "structure" would have resided in the organization of Pashtuns outside Afghanistan and in the contacts that Pakistani intelligence agencies could have developed with responsive Taliban and non-Taliban elements inside Afghanistan. Given six months these efforts should have been able to proceed far enough to facilitate the devolution of Taliban power and the rapid constitution of an alternative Pashtun coalition.
For strategic, political, and practical reasons a reduction in tensions between Pakistan and India would have improved Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan. The prospect of fundamental change in Afghanistan has entailed a substantial reduction in Pakistani influence there. First among Pakistani security concerns has been the possibility that a less-than-friendly government would emerge in Afghanistan, adding a challenge from the west to the one it faces to the east. This concern could have been mitigated by achieving a reduction in the military tensions between Pakistan and India.
A2.5 Reducing tensions in the Kashmir and Israeli-Palestinian disputes
The prospect of military action in Afghanistan entailed the danger of conflict contagion, especially regarding the conflict in Kashmir and between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In either case, contagion would threaten to undermine the cooperation needed to bring stability to Afghanistan and to act effectively against Al-Qaeda. Thus, part of establishing a proper framework for effective action in Afghanistan (and against Al-Qaeda) was making some progress in reducing tensions in these other conflicts.
A2.5.1 The prospect of taking action on Afghanistan created both the possibility of and the necessity for reducing tensions in the Kashmir conflict.
The improvement in India's security position that would result from US anti-terrorist and stability operations in Afghanistan created a basis for some progress in reducing the tensions between India and Pakistan along the Line of Control (LOC). And this might have served to counter-balance some of Pakistan's security concerns in the west. Conversely, any increase in tensions along the Kashmir front would make Pakistani cooperation in the west more difficult. This calculus should have prompted an early and vigorous effort by the United States to mitigate tensions over Kashmir. The United States had at its disposal a range of inducements — trade bargains, economic assistance packages, and debt and sanction relief — to use in pressing for change.
Reasonable near-term steps for relieving tensions between India and Pakistan included:
A2.5.2 The prospect of taking action on Afghanistan also created a necessity for a US re-engagement with the Middle East peace process.
The United States is deeply implicated in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict whether or not it chooses to involve itself actively as a "peace broker". This is true by virtue of the very substantial military assistance it provides Israel. The course of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the US role in it acts as a lens through which the Arab and Muslim world judges the US campaign on terrorism. Progress in the peace process would encourage Arab and Muslim cooperation in broader efforts against terrorism and help dispel the notion that the United States is engaged in a crusade against Islam or a "clash of civilizations" (as bin Laden would like the world to believe). Conversely, a deterioration in the mideast situation undermines cooperation with Arab and Muslim states in a variety of areas.
Developing a wise and productive policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires that the United States resist and discourage false analogies between this conflict and the broader campaign against terrorism. Although the Palestinian Authority bears responsibility for failing to act decisively against terrorist elements within the Palestinian community, the broader context of this failure is one in which both sides have acted, in different ways, reprehensibly. Both sides have real and substantial concerns and grievances. But neither side can rightfully justify its actions in terms of the behavior of the other: terrorism is simply inexcusable; so are gross violations of human rights.
To intervene decisively against the actions of only one side in the Mideast conflict would be wrong and unwise. Likewise, to simply subsume the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or allow it to be subsumed) within the framework of the campaign against global terrorism would distort the meaning both. (Not least among the differences relevant to US and western interests is that Palestinian terrorism is not globalized in the way that the actions of Al Qaeda and its affiliates have been.) This, and the needs of the broader campaign against terrorism, argue for maintaining an even hand in the middle east.
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