The Taliban: Exporting Extremism

Ahmed Rashid

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 1999

Article preview: first 500 of 4,434 words total.

Summary:  Across one of the world's most sensitive regions, radical Islam and repressive politics are gaining ground. As they consolidate their power over Afghanistan, the Taliban are starting to destabilize the entire surrounding area -- and beyond. Muslim fundamentalists from around the globe study revolution under their tutelage, rebel armies find sanctuary on their turf, and the drugs and other goods that are smuggled out of the country are undermining the economies of Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors. The Great Game has changed, and the West must learn the new rules.

Ahmed Rashid has covered the war in Afghanistan for 20 years. He is Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia Correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and author of The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? and the forthcoming Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.

REWRITING THE RULES OF THE GREAT GAME

"Talibanization," the destabilizing export of Afghan-style radical Islam, may be a new term in the American political lexicon. But in Central and South Asia, where the repercussions of the superstrict Taliban rule of Afghanistan have been widely felt, the word has become all too familiar. As political fragmentation, economic meltdown, ethnic and sectarian warfare, and Islamic fundamentalism tighten their grip on Pakistan and much of the rest of the region, the dangerous behavior of Afghanistan's new leaders is no longer a local affair.

More and more, chaos in Afghanistan is seeping through its porous borders. The ongoing civil war has polarized the region, with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia backing the Taliban regime while Iran, Russia, India, and four former Soviet Central Asian republics support the opposition Northern Alliance. The confrontation is producing enormous economic disruption throughout the area, as the Afghan warlords' dependence on smuggling and drug trafficking grows insatiable.

Into the political vacuum left by 20 years of war and the collapse of stable government has marched a new generation of violent fundamentalists, nurtured and inspired by the Taliban's unique Islamist model. Thousands of foreign radicals now fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan are determined to someday overthrow their own regimes and carry out Taliban-style Islamist revolutions in their homelands. For example, the Chechnya-based militants who took over parts of Dagestan in July included in their ranks Arabs, Afghans, and Pakistanis, most of whom had fought in Afghanistan. So had the 800 Uzbek and Tajik gunmen who took over parts of southern Kyrgyzstan in August. The state breakdown in Afghanistan offers militants from Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian republics, and China's predominantly Muslim Xinjiang province a tempting package deal: sanctuary and financial support through smuggling.

Meanwhile, Washington's sole response so far has been its single-minded obsession with bringing to justice the Saudi-born terrorist Usama bin Ladin -- hardly a comprehensive policy for dealing with this increasingly volatile part of the world.

For Western nations to presume that they can safely exploit the vast oil and gas riches of Central Asia without first helping bring peace to Afghanistan is unrealistic to the extreme. A new Great Game is being played in the region. At stake, however, are no longer questions of mere political influence or who gets to build oil and gas pipelines where. These issues will be irrelevant unless the West figures out how to stop the spreading conflagration in Afghanistan -- and fast.

THE STUDENTS WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

For Afghanistan to be at the center of both dialogue and conflict between civilizations is nothing new. The country's location at the crossroads between Iran, Central Asia, the Arabian Sea, and India has given its mountain passes a strategic significance for centuries. At certain times, Afghanistan has acted as a buffer between competing empires and ideologies; at others it has served as a corridor through which armies marched. Repeated efforts to colonize the country, most recently by the British ...

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