The capture of Kabul by troops of the US-backed Northern Alliance was greeted by rejoicing in the city’s streets. However, even in Washington, military observers are saying it is too early to predict how the coming weeks and months will develop. The Taliban have been driven further south opening up vital corridors for the transportation of food and other aid but with the harsh winter conditions settling in, famine and disease could still be just around the corner for thousands of long-suffering Afghans. Some say this is a war that — in its present form — nobody can win.

Despite the euphoria that surrounded the capture of Kabul from the Taliban the future for Afghanistan remains far from clear. Indeed, there is still uncertainty about exactly what the United States hopes to achieve with its multi-million dollar offensive. The Taliban regime has not been destroyed. The CIA and its associate and allied spy agencies have not improved their prospective in finding the main suspects of 11 September mass murders. The terror master, disgraced billionaire Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaedah organisation, are believed to be still safe, hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Demanding Taliban hands over Bin Laden, has been America’s main pretext for starting this strange, first war of the 21st century.
So far, the other aims of the campaign have not been made clear. While political observers have questioned the thinking behind US actions, military experts have questioned the wisdom of targeting cruise missiles, at a cost of $1.5 million each, or laser guided bombs at half that cost each, at Taliban’s mud-huts and tents that cost less than $10 each.

The main aim of the bombing campaign was to satisfy a frustrated and angry American public.

America also seems to have been loosing the propaganda war, as television cameras, mainly those of the Qatar satellite station Al-Jazeera, the only one to which Taliban permits access, showed civilians, mainly children, injured by American bombs. Red Cross warehouses, containing medical supplies were also wrongly targeted. And then, thousands of terrified Afghan refugees were on the move, in an attempt to find safety across the borders.

It seems the CIA learned little from the mistakes that led to the Gulf war in 1990. The maps American pilots used to bomb alleged Taliban targets, were, it transpires, obtained from the Russians, whose research was conducted back in early days of their unsuccessful foray into the Afghan quagmire in early 1980s. Taliban had in the intervening 20 years or so, changed the human and military topography of the country.
As became increasingly evident, the main aim of the bombing campaign was to satisfy a frustrated and angry American public, which had no choice but to believe in President Bush’s early rhetoric. America had obviously decided to put on a Rambo-style show of “kicking Taliban’s butt.”
US special forces launched a “behind enemy lines” commando style operation, using helicopters and night equipment against a stronghold of Taliban’s war lord Mullah Mohammed Omar near the southern City of Qandahar. However, the early October raid went badly wrong when Taliban fighters faced US troops with fierce resistance.
The raid ended in near disaster with over a dozen rangers injured, one loosing a foot. Meanwhile, the Taliban put out a statements saying they had forced the Americans to “run away”.

The Americans have no clear strategy of what theaims of the war are

A week later, anti-Soviet Afghan war hero Abdel Haq, who went into territories controlled by Taliban, reportedly with millions of dollars in cash to bribe Pushtun tribes to switch allegiances was ambushed and captured by Taliban. Frantic calls for aid on his US satellite phone didn’t help as an American drone — unmanned air craft — Type Predator, bombed Taliban troops after Abdel Haq was captured. At the end of a battle lasting 12 hours, Abdel Haq was executed and his body put on display to discourage others from ‘betraying Taliban.’
Since then there have been many signs the Americans have no clear strategy of what the aims of the war are, neither does there appear to be any Plan B, or even an understanding of what shape post-war Afghanistan might look like.

In order to further President Bush’s aims, step up Mr Tony Blair and British diplomacy, keen to play a major role in shaping the conduct and the outcome of the war, especially by engaging the help and understanding of Arab and Islamic friends.
Until Mr Blair’s one day trip to Washington on 7 November, there had been some differences of emphasis by London and Washington. While the Americans wanted to enlarge the war against terrorism and keep pressure on Taliban, the British wanted more achievable aims, including enlisting the help of the Northern Allaince to defeat Taliban on the ground.

EU officials discussed what type of government they would like to see in Afghanistan

Just three days before his Washington visit Prime Minister Blair held a mini European summit at 10 Downing Street. What started as a working dinner for French President Jacques Chirac, his Prime Minister Leonel Jospin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on the evening of Sunday 4 November, was expanded at the last minute to include the Prime Ministers of Spain, Italy, Holland and Belgium — currently the seat of EU presidency, in addition to EU foreign minister and security policy representative Javier Solana. The officials discussed what type of government they would like to see in Afghanistan, reaching agreement that it should include a broad base of all the country’s forces and ethnic groups, headed by the exiled former Afghan King Zahir Shah, who lives in Italy. There was also an understanding on the Middle East and agreement that the Palestinian question must be resolved. Mr Blair carried with him to Washington a plan the Americans could use to pressurise, or bribe, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, into accepting. The plan was to be introduced by the US as a means of establishing the “viable state”, mentioned twice in public statements by Mr Bush, providing music to Arab ears.

Osama bin Laden and his associates, have, in a sense, hijacked the Palestinian issue

By early October, it had become evident that President George W Bush’s diplomatic campaign to get a wider Arab and Islamic coalition to fight terrorism was getting no-where. Mr Blair, meanwhile, achieved some success in Muslim countries in the Middle East and in Pakistan, even though he came up against the ‘people in the Middle East don’t like America,’ argument, and often Britain by association, a number of times.
The message Blair took with him to President Bush was clear: without reaching a comprehensive peace, the corner stone of which is giving the Palestinians their independent state, ground lost in the propaganda battle in the Middle East will never be recovered. However, Palestinian source say, unless Mr Bush returns from the Afghan campaign smelling of roses, there is no hope of settling the issue.
Osama bin Laden and his associates, have, in a sense, hijacked the Palestinian issue. No Arab journalist has attempted to remind the disillusioned Arab public that neither Bin Laden nor his right hand man, Egyptian terror master Dr Ayman El-Zwahiri, has ever before mentioned Palestine in any of their public speeches.

Arguments that the 11 September attacks took years to plan, long before the current Palestinian Intifada took place, fell on deaf ears. The public, and even officials and intellectuals in the Arab world chose to believe the urban myths, such as the one suggesting the 11 September attacks were the work of Israel’s secret service agency Mossad, which, the rumours insist, instructed 4,000 Jews working in the World Trade Centre in New York, to stay away from work on that day .
Mr Blair, who toured Pakistan, the Gulf and Egypt, eventually met with officials from Saudi Arabia in his second tour of the region, towards the end of October.
Informed commentators in the Saudi media announced a belief that the kingdom could be especially effective in fight by sharing the services of its intelligence gathering agencies and ensuring all financial aid supply lines, which might be tapped by the terrorists, were shut off.
The Turks who were initially nervous, also came round to the idea eventually, recognising that any distabilisation in the Central Asian region could have a knock on effect in Turkey. But the Turks have asked for a clearer operating strategy that Washington has yet to define.
The Islamists have been quiet so far. The violent groups that created havoc in the late 1980s and early 1990s have lost the battle against Egyptian security forces
Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, who in October celebrated his 20th year in office, has succeeded in playing a clever balancing act between secular and Islamic groups, both of whom are opposed to the US campaign in Afghanistan. Mr Mubarak’s popularity has surged to its highest since the Gulf War 10 years ago, because of his handling of this current crisis.
While Britain has become popular in Cairo, thanks to Tony Blair’s charm and his declared commitment to the creation of Palestinian state, the Americans are not.

Most non-government newspapers carry editorials supporting George Bush’s stance against terrorism, but warn America against launching strikes on Iraq or any other Arab country.

At the outset of the aggression President Bush made his unwise statement “you are either with us, or against us, in this war on terrorism”
The Islamists have been quiet so far. The violent groups that created havoc in the late 1980s and early 1990s, such as Al-Gammat Al Islamia and ‘The Withdrawal and Flight’ group — which shares the ideology of Bin Laden and Ayamn Al Zwahiri — have lost the battle against the Egyptian security forces although the new generation of Islamists wield considerable clout. They have also established a considerable support network among professional bodies, university campuses and through a network of charitable and social organisations.

The only real mishap occurred during Mr Blair’s visit to Syria, when a joint press conference in Damascus was hijacked by President Bashar Assad, who defended Hamas and other extremists groups as “freedom fighters” on the eve of Mr Blair’s visit to Israel.

Meanwhile, the Israelis are clearly not happy being told to shut up and keep quiet by the Americans. Predictably, Tel Aviv wants to use the current campaign to settle scores with Islamic and Palestinian groups, but the Americans have been too wise to fall into this trap. Fortunately, the British have convinced the Americans that now is not a good time to move against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Such a move would prompt Arab allies to disappear overnight.

Despite Mr Blair and Mr Bush’s repeated shouts from the top of every minaret they could climb, that this was not a war by the West against Islam, no one in the Middle East has been listening. Neither is resentment and anti-American feeling confined to Islamic and Arab countries, but is also being felt in Africa and the Far East.

At the outset of the aggression President Bush made his unwise statement that there was no third choice, “you are either with us, or against us, in this war on terrorism,” he announced to the world. This leaves little room for America’s friends who value their own independence. As the war drags on for what, by America’s own admission, might be years, President Bush might regret his demand when the time comes to enlist the support of allies in hitherto unexpected places.

Those paying the price have nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or the thousands who lost their lives in New York city.

With their superior knowledge of Afghanistan’s hostile mountain terrain, over the coming months Taliban will, for the most part, outwit the American forces, as they did the Russians but ultimately, they will lose control of Afghanistan. The US with its unlimited resources and sophisticated weaponry will exact a savage revenge for the 11 September attacks but lose international sympathy as it becomes clear those paying the highest price have nothing to do with Osama bin Laden, terrorist cells or the thousands who lost their lives in New York city.
For the moment despite the euphoria surrounding the capture of Kabul no one is even close to claiming any sort of victory. But as winter takes hold and pictures of cold, hungry, sick and dying Afghan refugees are beamed to television screens across the globe, it will be all too easy to identify the losers. .

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