The U.S. Won’t Leave Afghanistan

Afghanistan needs a new government structure which will guarantee the involvement of all political forces and all people in order to avoid the concentration of political power in one person’s hands. In addition, more powers should be delegated from the central government to local branches. The well-known Afghan politician Ahmad Wali Massoud, brother of the dead “Lion of Panjshir,” the famous military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, brought this concept for the settlement of long-term conflict in Afghanistan.

These, as well as a number of other issues, have been touched on by almost 90 diplomats, experts, businesspeople and journalists from Russia, Afghanistan, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. They assembled to participate in the international conference “Scenarios for Afghanistan and the Transformation of Regional Security,” which opened on June 9 in Almaty.

Specialists felt free to make quite audacious statements and predictions, which only stimulated further discussion. Oleg Sokolovsky, an expert from Tashkent put forward the idea that “it is essential to examine the question in northern Afghanistan on creation of the buffer zone, which would block the dissemination of the conflict potential to Central Asian republics of the former USSR.”

Konstantin Syroezhkin, a senior research officer for the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Studies, dwelled on the problem of drug trafficking from Afghanistan. “At the present moment, drug production and sales make up about 40% of Afghanistan’s GDP. This sector employs up to 15% of the population. You can argue about it as much as you like, but it is completely obvious that the well-organized system of drug trafficking was shaped and reinforced during the presence of the Western coalition in Afghanistan. There is evidence that representatives of national elites of the U.S., the West, Russia and Central Asian countries are engaged in this illegal business,” he pointed out, emphasizing that “if it desired, NATO could cut off the drug flow from Afghanistan to Europe, but it does not.”

Ahmad Wali Massoud, one of Afghanistan’s influential politicians, noted that the recent elimination of “Number One” terrorist Osama bin Laden “may be a victory for the U.S. government, but it isn’t for the countries of the region. This assassination does not solve the problem of terrorism, which is not exclusively an Afghan problem, but the world’s common one.”

Many speakers expressed the common opinion, which was dominant amongst experts, that the U.S. will not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan as it has officially declared. “I never believed and still do not, that the U.S will leave Afghanistan. They will use various pretexts in order to stay there for a very long time,” stressed Vladimir Nikitovich Plastun, a professor at the Department of Oriental Studies at Novosibirsk State University.

“Broadly, Afghanistan is a minor aim for the U.S. Their main goal is to strengthen their positions in Central Asia based on a plea of the counterterrorism fight. In this connection, it is naïve to reckon that the U.S will leave Afghanistan,” stated Sultan Akimbekov, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics.

Commenting on the atmosphere of the conference, Alexander Knyazev, one of the event organizers, remarked, “Our main task was to gather the most authoritative experts on Afghanistan, including influential figures from Afghanistan itself, and to give them the possibility to exchange opinions, to argue in a free, informal atmosphere. Judging from the people’s mood and, so to speak, the great extent of intensity, we succeeded. Periodically, heated disputes arose.”

The conference will last for two days and will close on June 10.