Executive Summary [Part II]

Those who assert that Saudi Arabian involvement in the Afghani-Soviet conflict directly links the Kingdom with Islamic militancy are neglecting the fact that neither Saudi Arabia nor the United States were allowed to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the clash. It was, in fact, Pakistan who created and used the militant and fundamentalist Muslim movement as a tool to manage troubles that might spill over the border into Pakistan. In their efforts, the Pakistani government greatly increased the number of religious schools, or madrasas, in order to collect and mobilize Afghani youth to fight the Soviet Union. Upon the Soviet withdrawal, these schools would give rise to the Taliban. It was the inter-state movement of people organized primarily by the Pakistanis and Muslim Brotherhood that connected the various singular Muslim entities and imparted them with the organizational and military skills they employ today. So, while the Saudis and the CIA were involved in the conflict, the incubator of modern militant Islam was Pakistan. As both Saudi and US involvement aided in ridding Afghanistan of the Soviet Union, they also facilitated Pakistan’s creation of the breeding ground for al Qaeda. Now the two nations must unite under the new common goal of ridding the Middle East of the militant fundamentalists.

In "The Crucibles: 9/11, Afghanistan and the Fashioning of a Foe," Gregory Dowling examines these important issues that shape the current dialogue on US-Saudi relations.  The Saudi-American Forum is pleased to present Mr. Dowling's essay, distributed in two parts.  Part I was distributed last week and is available online in the Saudi-American Forum.

The Crucibles:  9/11, Afghanistan and the Fashioning of a Foe [Part II]
By Gregory J. H. Dowling

Pakistan Orchestrates…

It is critical to note that neither the Kingdom nor the United States were involved in the direct management of the campaign against the Soviet Union. That task fell to Pakistan, and specifically, its Directorate for Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Confirmation of the centrality of Pakistan's role is reflected in the fact that virtually all assistance, financial and material, to the Afghani resistance from either the Kingdom or the United States was channeled through and distributed by the ISI. Certainly, Pakistan was ideally positioned as a border state to act as the 'staging ground' for the campaign. But its dominance, indeed Pakistan's refusal to allow any other country to have the lead role, was based on matters well beyond geography that touched on the country's very integrity. Pakistan's own objectives transcended and indeed trumped both U.S. and Saudi interests.

Key among Pakistan's concerns was the containment, indeed eradication, of any distinctive nationalist ethos among the myriad ethnic groups that comprised Pakistan's population. One sizable group in particular, the Pashtuns, who were concentrated on both sides of the country's border with Afghanistan, had long been seen by Pakistani authorities as a potential threat given the aspiration among some of this community for a unique Pashtun homeland, 'Pashtunistan'. The dangers of Pakistan fracturing along ethnic lines was dramatically evidenced in 1971 when East Pakistan broke away to establish Bangladesh, a development that grew out of a strong national ethos among the Bengalis. And when, just two years later, a Pashtun assumed the head of the Afghani state, Sardar Muhammad Daoud, and called upon Pakistan's Pashtuns in the border areas to secede and become part of Afghanistan, fears of a more extensive dismemberment intensified.

What became critical for the Pakistani leadership was to find a mechanism that could effectively subvert the Afghani government's appeal to its Pakistani citizenry while turning Afghani Pashtuns into effective agents of Pakistani national goals. What the Pakistani state - then under the leadership of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto - adopted as its policy was the promotion of a militant and fundamentalist Islam among Pashtuns. Within Afghanistan, Pakistani authorities pursued links with those members of the Pashtun community who expressed an Islamic zealotry and were committed to the establishment of a strict Islamic state in that country. Afghan Pashtuns of this persuasion were given support by the Pakistani military leading to the establishment of a guerilla force and a low intensity war against the Soviet-backed Afghani state. As one astute writer has noted, "(s)ix years before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, the mujahideen had been born."⁷

The Soviet invasion did not initiate the struggle, what that did was internationalize it, thereby intensifying it. The Soviet action did not alter Pakistan's approach to the struggle; to the contrary, it allowed Pakistan's subsequent leader, General Zia al Haq, to implement his political objectives with greater vigor and success. As expressed in an excellent and recent study of Pakistan, for " General Zia, the invasion seemed like a gift from Allah."⁸

The intensification of the 'forward' policy in the wake of the Soviet invasion was complimented by a domestic program to vigorously reassert the primacy of a strict adherence to Islam in Pakistani politics and society. One manifestation of the domestic program was General Zia's growing reliance on Islamist political parties, particularly the Jamaat-e-Islami. This alliance, in turn, acted to reinforce the bias towards to the most fundamentalist elements within the Afghani resistance.

…And Educates…

A second manifestation was a government program to expand religious schools, the now infamous madrasas, including those that provided Islamic instruction in accordance with the Deobandi tradition. Although not the dominant expression of the faith in the country, key elements of the tradition ideally positioned it to support government objectives both at home and the 'near-abroad.' The Deobandi tradition stressed a strict and literal application of the Sharia in the individual's daily life just as it incorporated a tradition of militancy (the Deobandi tradition initially coalesced in the mid-19th century among Muslims strongly and militantly opposed to the British presence in the subcontinent). Moreover, it was a tradition that had strong roots among the Pashtuns with one of the most famous of its religious schools, the Haqqaniya madrasa, in the North West Frontier Province. Finally, important Deobandi madrasas, such as the Haqqaniya, were closely linked with the Islamic political party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islami.

As the Afghani war progressed following the Soviet invasion, the number of these Deobandi madrasas was to be dramatically expanded. They provided an ideal mechanism to deal with the influx of Afghani Pashtun refugees, many of them orphaned children, displaced by the conflict in Afghanistan. Part school, part orphanage, they offered the Pakistani government not only a place to collect and hold the young refugees but to mobilize them for the struggle against the Soviet Union, ensuring that the impetus to participate in the struggle was not grounded in a Pashtun irredentism. The fact that so many of the young were orphans, violently stripped of their ties to family and clan, undoubtedly aided the process of political mobilization. The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islami willingly participated in this development as it offered the party a means to expand its political influence within Pakistan again demonstrating the mutually reinforcing dynamic of domestic and foreign policy agendas.

…To Graduate Just the Right Kind of Students

The Taliban were, of course, the most celebrated Afghani Pashtun students of the Deobandi madrasas. Their rapid and successful rise to political prominence in Afghanistan, subsequent to the Soviet withdrawal and the ultimate collapse of their client state in 1992, caught observers by surprise. Yet, such a movement among the Afghani Pashtuns was precisely the sort envisioned by the Pakistani state under President Zia: politically motivated by religious not ethnic zeal and linked to Pakistan. The Taliban were perfectly representative of the contemporary Deobandi madrasas' narrow and limited curriculum: dedicated to the application of Sharia law in daily life, adverse to modernity and strongly opposed to Western secular society. They had little if any grasp on how to implement an effective system of governance, a matter that only enhanced the opportunity for Pakistani influence. Their greatest asset was arguably their ability to act unfettered by the profound social and ethnic cleavages that bedeviled any form of Afghani political unity. This asset was amplified by a general desire among the Afghani peoples for peace and order after decades of strife. There is little question that the movement's successes were a reflection less of the inherent capabilities of the Taliban leadership then the chaotic and deplorable state of affairs into which Afghanistan had fallen.

As the foregoing makes clear, attempting to classify the militant Islamic tenor that characterized the Afghan campaign or the emergence of the Taliban as Saudi-inspired developments is to completely miscast events. With specific regard to the Taliban, there is no question that Saudi Arabia, in the wake of the Pakistani state's all out support for the movement, contributed vital financial and material assistance. The Kingdom also offered diplomatic support becoming one of only three countries (Pakistan and the UAE the other two) that officially acknowledged it as the legitimate Afghani government. Indeed, the Kingdom may have looked upon the Taliban regime sympathetically as the latter sought to govern in accord with Islamic law. But such support as was extended was grounded essentially in considerations of realpolitik. The Taliban appeared to offer a serious opportunity to return political stability to the country while offering the Kingdom the chance to exert influence in a region of considerable significance to it. Supporting the Taliban also enabled the Kingdom to ease the burdens of an embattled Pakistan, an important ally, now contending with a chaotic Afghanistan without U.S. aid. Equally, Taliban-Saudi diplomatic links positioned the Kingdom to act as a key intermediary with the regime on behalf of the United States.

Guest Workers Welcome

There was, of course, another much celebrated influx of individuals into Pakistan during the war against the Soviets, Muslims from across the globe, Arab and non-Arab both, who came to participate in the jihad. Although the Kingdom's intelligence services were engaged, clearly facilitating the effort, it would be more than a stretch to see this as a Saudi-run operation. Indeed, it can be argued that Saudi Arabia could not have undertaken such a task on its own. Those international Muslim organizations sponsored by the Kingdom, such as the Muslim World League, were notably