Conquest of Afghanistan has been relatively easy for a long list of invaders;
later withdrawal has often been disastrous. With vastly superior military technology,
the American coalition forces defeated and easily drove Taliban and Al Qaeda
fighters underground. Eventual American withdrawal from the country can be either
easy or vastly more difficult, depending in part on whether or not devastated
Afghanistan is treated with a neo-Marshall plan, in the same fashion as the
rebuilding of enemy states after World War II. Certainly the future of other
hotspots in South Asia and the Middle East may hang in this same balance as
well. In spite of optimistic projections from Afghanistan leader Hamid Karzai
and Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),
the choice of either national success or continued failure may very much rest
upon how competent the United States is in rebuilding the country.
Indeed, optimistic strategies for Afghanistans recovery came forward at
the Afghanistan-American Summit in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2002,
and yet again in Chicago in the summer
of 2003. Millions of dollars have been promised for health, education, women,
family and society, reconstruction, and commerce and trade. Where the money
is to come from is unknown, however, as the millions of dollars donor nations
have promised are undelivered; rebuilding has barely begun. Reports from American
government insiders in Kabul and media reports indicate little progress. In
my experience, USAID seems to have lost much of its competence following post-Cold
War demobilization. In fact, analysts recognize that robust reconstruction
to keep the American coalition from failure in Afghanistan is critical
to preventing Al Qaeda from winning another victory as large as September 11.
Ideas for rebuilding Afghanistan with its own resources were first assessed
for USAID in the 1980s as the Soviets departed. In fact, extensive Soviet exploration
resulted in first-rate geologic maps and reports that detailed more than 1,400
mineral shows and occurrences, and about 70 commercial deposits (discussed in
Geotimes reports in March 1987 and February 2002). The Soviet Union committed
more than $652 million for resource exploration and development, with a half-million-ton
oil refiner, as well as a smelter for the Ainak deposit that was to have produced
1.5 million tons of copper a year. A World Bank analysis indicated that the
Ainak copper production could capture as much as 2 percent of the annual world
market, as well as vast coal deposits and many other deposits that could spur
major development. Assessments revealed that the Hajigak iron deposit, high
in the Hindu Kush west of Kabul, is one of the largest remaining high-grade
deposits in the world. Thus in the late 1980s, the future of Afghanistan appeared
to have an optimistic cast, at least from the point of view of having the basic
resources to eventually produce revenue and rebuild the country.
But when the Soviets left Afghanistan in the late 1980s, so did we Americans,
and only the poorly educated and largely illiterate Taliban were left to take
over the destroyed country and introduce their own primitive constraints. Rebuilding
the country was not in their backward plans. The Taliban did consider construction
of a trans-Afghanistan oil and gas pipeline from Central Asia to Pakistan, but
aside from their personal greed, they had no vision of a better future for their
country. Instead, they allowed it to flounder further into illiteracy, poverty
and despair. Al Qaeda slipped into this vacuum and dragged Afghanistan ever
more deeply into the deserts of the human spirit, with the result that all Afghans
suffer today.
In fact, although Afghanistan is not endowed with vast natural riches, it clearly
has plentiful deposits of low-grade minerals, considerable coal, oil and natural
gas, and a few sizeable ore bodies. Because Soviet geologists developed all
of the original resource information on Afghanistan during the Cold War, more
modern resource assays are now necessary. Last year the U.S. Geological Survey
requested some $70 million from the U.S. Department of State for reassessment
of Afghanistans resources. The request focused on water and mineral resources,
oil, gas, coal, earthquake hazards, infrastructure
development and training. The State Department offered less than 10 percent
of the request, however, and just for oil and gas. A broader approach could
counter the cynics and conspiracy theorists of the Middle East who perceive
Washington to be lusting only after hydrocarbon wealth.
Unfortunately many other possibilities for resource extraction leading to redevelopment
seem to have been ignored. Exploitation of their own resources could be the
key to the Afghans lifting themselves by their bootstraps. With competent help
from Washington, the World Bank and the promised donors, greater resource assessment
and extraction might become an essential element for Kabul.
If the Bush administration is serious about showing that the American public
wants peace, stability and decent treatment of human beings, a proper step would
be robust reconstruction of Afghanistan. A well-designed and efficient neo-Marshall
plan could turn the beleaguered state into an example of American beneficence
and good will. Americans generally consider themselves to be an altruistic people
who want the best for their friends, and oftentimes even for their conquered
enemies. Many of the people of Afghanistan have great hopes that with American
help they can live as decent human beings once again and build up their failed
nation. As America now also deals with a defeated Iraq, any reasonable person
would expect a better job in the reconstruction of previously conquered Afghanistan.
The wretched of that benighted country certainly deserve better than the little
that has been done up to now.
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