Rising challenge to Western power in Afghanistan
 

A recent suicide bomb blast at a US military base just outside Kabul, which was apparently aimed at visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney, in which he escaped unhurt but which saw several others losing their lives, is a disquieting pointer to the mounting perils US power is encountering in South West Asia.

It was also a chilling reminder that the Taliban is once again proving a military factor to contend with in Afghanistan. Over the past few months, the Taliban, supported by the Al Quaeda, has made its presence increasingly felt in the Afghan theatre and the chances are that the US-led NATO forces there would find their "law and order" chores increasingly difficult to carry out.

The bloody incident at the US military base comes against the backdrop of the frustrating military gridlock in Iraq for the US and the mounting civil war carnage there, which has, of course, spurred a major public debate in the US on the ultimate purpose in attempting to project US power in the region.

We are apparently seeing a shift in US policy on Iran and Syria with Washington now agreeing to a "neighbours' parley" with these states with which it has had strained relations, along with Iraq.

This could be a response to rising domestic criticism of US policy in the region and the mounting American anti-war sentiment but there is unlikely to be a substantial dilution of the fundamental US policy of maintaining a high military presence in the Gulf region. The visit by British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, to Afghanistan for top level talks with the latter's leadership, close on the heels of Cheney's visit to Afghanistan for the same purpose, underscores Western concern over politico-military developments in the Gulf region in general and over the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan in particular.

Apparently, the compulsion is great for the West to continue to project its military power in the Gulf, although it may try out tension-defusing measures in the short and medium terms, such as entering into a dialogue of sorts with Iran and Syria.

The fact is that South West Asia and the Gulf have been of abiding interest to the West on account of their strategic natural resources, such as oil, and their vitality from the geo-political standpoint. Under conservative Republican administrations, such as that headed by Ronald Reagan, the US power projection tendency in the Gulf has been greater than under Democratic dispensations, but the fundamental US policy of maintaining a military presence in the region has not changed and is unlikely to change.

However, the region would turn out to be an increasingly fiercely-contested arena, given the brutal and staunch resistance offered by the Taliban and its allies to the Western military presence.

In contrast, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the resistance offered by the Mujahedin of those years, may seem mild and less lacerating.

Interestingly, it is the Afghan Mujahedin, helped militarily by the West in the Soviet occupation years, which has assumed the guise of the Taliban today. However, in an ironic reversal of roles, the Taliban is today taking on the US led NATO forces.

Compared to the issues thrown-up by the ethno-populist explosion in South and South West Asia today, the Soviet occupation era questions, proved less intractable. Twenty five after the Soviet occupation, these regions are a hot bed of identity-based conflicts which the Western military presence only intensifies.

The West played its hand deftly by backing the democratic process in Afghanistan.

The presidential polls held there some months ago, for example, proved that Afghanistan could be turned into fertile soil for the institutionalising of democracy.

Such processes need to take root or firmer root in the restive regions of the Afghan-Pakistan border. This could help in defusing ethnopopulist tensions to a considerable degree.

However, the gains from such processes could be reversed if the West insists on perpetuating a marked military presence in these regions.

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