Global Policy Forum

By Carlotta Gall

More than a year into his mission here as United Nations special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, the former foreign minister of Algeria and a veteran peacemaker in Afghanistan, has been warning people that the peace here is not yet irreversible.

As the prospect of war in Iraq looms, Mr. Brahimi predicts that in its current weak state, Afghanistan will not be able to withstand the buffeting from all sides. Activity by the Taliban and Al Qaeda has been increasing in the border areas and could garner more support as popular unease over a war in Iraq grows, he said.

"I am very concerned" about the prospect of a war, Mr. Brahimi said in Kabul. "Just looking at it from the narrow prospective of Afghanistan, we fear that it will have negative results." A war could cause unrest in neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan, to grow, he said. As for Afghanistan, he fears that it will be abandoned once again just as the fragile peace here is entering its most delicate phase.

Despite assurances from Washington that no matter what happens in Iraq, Afghanistan will not be forgotten — including a personal promise from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in January — Mr. Brahimi says his experience leads him to believe otherwise. "There are only 24 hours in a day," he said. "If you are forced to spend 20 hours on Iraq, then clearly you are not going to have much time on anything else, however much you would like to."

Afghanistan is looking much better than it did 14 months ago, when, as the Taliban fell, Mr. Brahimi helped forge the Bonn agreement for a transitional government to lead the country up to national elections in 2004. As the United Nations' special representative here, he took on responsibility for the United Nations' large-scale civilian aid, human rights and political program. But he says that the job is only half done and that full international support is still essential for its survival. Building the state has barely started. Afghanistan has no functioning national army, police force or judicial system yet — all projects that are dependent on foreign aid. A United Nations program for the disarmament and demobilization of armed fighters has not even begun. Reconstruction, essential to create jobs, has not yet reached a point at which it is having much of an effect.

On the political side, the Taliban have refused to accept defeat and still claim a right to rule. Other political parties and groups that were left out in the Bonn agreement are demanding a share of power, and there is interference from neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan. Furthermore, this country of more than 20 million, mostly illiterate, unregistered citizens, is supposed to organize elections and vote 18 months from now for a new national leadership and constitution.

Mr. Brahimi was considered a good choice his job, with experience of his own country's upheavals and his work mediating the end to the civil war in Lebanon. But his situation in Afghanistan is, by his own admission, a peculiar one. The United States-led coalition is still fighting a war against rebel forces in various parts of the country, while Mr. Brahimi is trying to manage peace efforts. This creates, in effect, two parallel outside powers in the country, and some United Nations officials complain that the aims of the American military seem to contradict the country's long-term needs for peace and reconciliation.

Mr. Brahimi's view for the future of Afghanistan remains full of "ifs," and he warns that without full international backing for the next two years, the country may not be able to stand on its own feet. "If the support of the international community is there for another couple of years, and if our ideas concerning the national army are really moved forward," and then if a police force and a judiciary are created, then success is possible, he said. "And if to put — as it were — the roof over the house, we manage to organize a credible, fair, free election 18 months from now, you will have your state," he said.

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