THE INDEPENDENT
18 September 2001
The apparently abortive effort by Pakistan to secure the hand-over to the United States of the world's most wanted individual ensures two things: that Washington will intensify its preparations for a military response and that the panicked uncertainty in and around Afghanistan will mount. There is not the slightest guarantee, however, either that duress will force the surrender of Osama bin Laden the man now named as chief suspect in last week's terrorist attacks or that his surrender will solve a great deal beyond assuaging America's thirst for revenge.
The identification of Mr bin Laden has reduced to one simple target an exercise that is fraught with hard choices for every country concerned. For even if the sting of this one murderous mastermind and financier is eventually drawn, the operation would risk dispersing its life-threatening poison around the globe. General Musharraf of Pakistan, who sent his envoys to plead with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, has to weigh his need for international credibility and Western aid against the risk to his government and to the stability of the region as a whole.
By offering his country's "unstinted co-operation" to the United States in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks, General Musharraf has already drawn criticism from Muslim clerics. The threat of an Islamic revolution is an ever-present reality that a Pakistan leader has to confront, but so is the need for Western help. Remaining in power entails managing an ever-shifting compromise between Islam and the West. Appear too soft on the fundamentalist Taliban, and not only does Western support fade away, but unrest is fomented among three million exiled Afghans, most of whom eke out an existence in refugee camps near the border.
This pattern is more or less repeated in every country of the region. In weighing whether to withdraw their protection for Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have to judge whether impending famine and/or American armed assault is a greater threat to their survival than betraying their faith and the pledge of succour they gave to Mr bin Laden. This is not to say that they have it in their power to protect him or that he is even still on their territory. But rather that their survival in power dictates the rejection of any move that smacks of capitulation to the West.
The same fine judgements govern the response of Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi rulers may incline to give the United States their support: they have oil revenue to consider and they already have US bases on their territory. Saudi Arabia, however, is not as stable in its Islamic-Western double-act as once it was. It has felt the wrath of Islamic terror within its borders before and could do again.
In Iran, the US hunt for the perpetrators of last week's terror holds both promise and threat. Power is finely balanced here, too, between conservatives and reformers. The US and Europe have wooed the reformers, but have had to tread with great care, lest they open the way to a new Islamic revolt.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan ... each in its own distinct way holds a part of the key not only to the success of any US military operation, but to its aftermath. In the best case, Mr bin Laden ends up in American hands and his network of terrorism is so thoroughly neutralised that any backlash is minimal. Any resentment held over to the next generation is minimal, too.
That preferable outcome, however, looks remote. The cumulative anger of the US is currently too great for Washington to renounce the use of military force, while the regimes in the region are too fragile and too fearful or dependent on Islamic conservatism to be able to give up Mr bin Laden or to agree a joint remedy themselves. The swelling exodus of refugees from Afghanistan, anticipating a US attack, and Pakistan's status as a Third World nuclear power add powerful, and lethally unpredictable, detonators to the mix. The risk is of all-embracing unrest that could change the whole face of the region, perhaps violently, and for the worse.
Yesterday's only heartening news was the decision of Pakistan's envoys to remain in Afghanistan an extra day in the hope of persuading the Taliban leaders to change their minds.