David Chambers: Our second panel on "Regional Stakeholders" is being moderated by the Honorable Peter Tomsen, former US Special Envoy and ambassador to Afghanistan.

Peter Tomsen: Welcome to the "Regional Stakeholders" panel. The Afghans themselves, of course, the inner circle, the domestic circle in Afghanistan, will be the major determinant of what happens in Afghanistan in the coming weeks, months and years. Some Afghans will disagree with that. They'll say, "Oh, foreign interference is the root of all of our problems." Tom Green has heard that; others in this room have heard it; but it's not true. But it is true that Afghans themselves, what they do to each other, how they cooperate with each other, will be deciding what happens in Afghanistan - the main determinant.

But the external circle, especially the regional, larger powers surrounding Afghanistan, will also be very important, we hope in a constructive way. In the 20th century, there are [were] many examples of this external circle being very destructive. However, we should also remember that negative, destabilizing, sort of radiation can go out from Afghanistan to the regional neighbors as well, and that has happened. In the early 18th century, for instance, a Hotak Ghilzai army went from Kandahar over into Iran, attacked Isfahan, and overthrew the Safavid dynasty, which had been in power for about 200 years. That's a good example of Afghan interference with its neighbors. More recently, of course, we have the opium situation, which Grant Smith could talk about much better than I could, where Afghanistan continues to hemorrhage narcotics into Central Asia, into Iran and into Pakistan. Finally, of course, there's the "Pashtunistan" issue, which the unelected President Daoud in the 1950s and 1960s used for internal political purposes into Afghanistan but was very threatening to the very stability of Afghanistan.

We can cite the 20th century examples of the outside regional powers influencing in a negative way what goes on inside Afghanistan. When Afghanistan finally got its complete independence, including the ability to run its own foreign policy, from the British in 1919, King Amanullah sent a delegation to Europe and also to the United States to ask for diplomatic recognition. The British got in touch with each of the European powers and with the United States and asked that diplomatic recognition not be granted to Amanullah's government. Why? Because the British wanted to continue to practice as much hegemony as possible inside Afghanistan. President Harding received the foreign minister of Afghanistan in the White House. They had a nice reception, but we did not grant diplomatic recognition to Afghanistan until after the Second World War.

The Soviet invasion, of course, is probably the prime example of outside interference in Afghanistan in the last century. Some would say it started in 1978, before the actual Soviet invasion. Also circles in Pakistan and in Iran were competing for influence inside Afghanistan and supporting different factions, including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda toward the turn of the last century.

Let's assume for this panel that the future years and perhaps through the 21st century, you're going to have a lot of engagement between Afghanistan and its neighbors, the regional powers. The engagement will be critical to the success or failure of Afghan reconstruction, whether or not Afghanistan is going to be able to get through this rough patch. Afghanistan itself is going to have to follow a constructive foreign policy toward its neighbors. Let's hope that there is cooperation in the region, such as happened beginning in the 1960s in Southeast Asia with ASEAN and certainly with the end of the Franco-German stand-off, which killed 20 million Frenchmen and Germans from 1870 to 1945. There's a chance for peace now. There's a chance for regional consensus on Afghanistan, maintaining stability and peace in Afghanistan for the benefit of the region. Developing peace in Afghanistan would open the east-west/north-south trade corridors through Eurasia and help the economies of each one of Afghanistan's neighbors.

Today, to speak about these issues, we have a very distinguished panel. On my left is Dr. Hadi Semati. On my right is Ambassador Abdrissaev, who is from Kyrgyzstan. He will give the view from Central Asia. Ambassador Haqqani [former Pakistani ambassador to Sri Lanka] will give the view from South Asia, and Dr. Semati will present the view from Southwest Asia.

View from Southwest Asia

Doctorr. Hadi Semati

I will try to be very brief without giving too much historical discussion regarding the Iranian perception of the Afghan crisis as it developed, leading to the removal of the Taliban.

Afghanistan has been in the minds of the Iranian security and foreign policy circles for the last twenty years and it has had an array of soft-core and hard-core security issues. Iranian involvement in Afghanistan over the last two decades has initially created not much of a public debate, a national debate, of the Iranian position vis-a-vis Afghanistan. Over the last seven or eight years, just prior to the Taliban coming to power in Kabul, and with internal dynamics in Iran itself - President Khatami coming to power and the reform movement - part of the strategy of the Iranian government was brought into the national debate and created a discussion on how Iran should position itself vis-a-vis developments in Afghanistan.

One thing I have to give as background is the institutional and individual complexity of Iranian policymaking circles and policymaking institutions. There's no one view of Afghanistan inside Iran. That is quite obvious; a lot of people have observed this. However, at times Iranian foreign policy or security policy - whenever it has come to a consensus on very difficult issues, that consensus seems to have worked, even though rare instances of consensus-building in foreign policy have been witnessed over the last few decades.

But nonetheless, I would argue the multidimensional nature of Iran's relations with Afghanistan, with the political, security and civilizational/cultural elements, have helped push this dialogue further over the last four or five years to what I have called very sensible, national consensus. Given these very difficult, complex political circles in Iran and how they view themselves vis-a-vis Afghanistan, I would argue that Iran has been, just prior to the Bonn conference, operating based on a consensus developed in Iran, and this consensus has lasted up until today and, in my judgment, will last.

I have basically narrowed down two fundamental objectives that Iranians have followed or have pursued, which I think is still very much at the core of Iranian policy. I think Iranians have come to the conclusion that a unified, centralized Afghan state and state-building efforts is to Iran's benefit and Iran should pursue that and should support that. So state-building in a new atmosphere, a new environment, a new context is what Iran, I think, assumes and believes to be in its interest. The second objective and ultimate objective, of course, political influence within a more healthy relationship with Afghanistan. Even though I have said there are all sorts of push from different policy circles that have different agendas, nonetheless this seems to be coming out of Iranian Supreme National Security Agenda with backing of the conservative and reformist forces and the wide spectrum of political persuasions of Iran.

So if these two objectives are the critical objectives or the consensus-arrived objectives that Iranians are pursuing, the means to achieve these objectives have varied, and in the post-Taliban context I think it involves essentially three interrelated mechanisms or processes. The first is, Iran is pursuing all sorts of economic engagement. At least, Iranian circles and elites tend to believe they have a better position and interest to pursue that, and economic engagement is good in terms of economic development around the border area, which is very susceptible in terms of Iran security dilemmas and ethnic questions and drugs and narco-terrorism - all of these issues that have to be basically looked upon around the border of Iran and Afghanistan and certainly part of Pakistan. I think economic development is enough a strong incentive for Iran to pursue that, because ultimately if it is going to develop in that area, economic engagement with Afghanistan would be a central part of that.

Secondly is an alliance-making in terms of Afghan provincial leaders and warlords, if you will. Iran has not abandoned that, but at the same time this is essentially a component of the broader policy that they are pursuing.

Thirdly, a broad political framework exists, and it started in Bonn, and has helped in the multilateral context, in the international context, to help Iranians perceive a sort of reward structure in this dialogue. Therefore, I think the political framework that's probably lacking in Iraq, for sure, has helped Iranians to see a strong incentive in being part of this process of remaking themselves in the region. So I think this is the upside of this whole situation, that Iranians felt that they are part of this process of rebuilding Afghanistan, therefore the incentives and rewards are there that could, in the multilateral context, be very healthy for Iranian security in the eastern border.

But some have argued that Iran has always pursued dual-track policy. The question is whether Iran has had a dual-track or single-track policy. I think one cannot answer this question without [considering] broader US-Iran relations, which is a very big issue in the background of this very tense relationship with Afghanistan. Remember in 1998, Iran almost went to war with the Taliban after the killing of diplomats - almost went to war! For the first time the Iranian public - it was surprising to me - had a sense of demand for military engagement with Afghanistan. It was surprising to see after the Iran-Iraq War and all those difficult times that Iran went through, a sort of national drive to respond militarily to such a venture, which was - in terms of Iranians fighting in historical collective memory, it was very difficult to imagine Iran would be in a position to do so, or to at least think about that, especially the public.

In that background, I think, were the larger US-Iran relations, which I think is still playing. That's why sometimes thinking about dual or single-track policy is helpful. So the broad US-Iran relations is the real context in which Iran-Afghan relations is being played. The fact that Iran still is indeed sometimes vulnerable in all its theaters, whether it's Iraq, whether it's WMD, whether it's terrorism or other issues. Therefore, as the US moves to use issues such as Afghanistan and Iraq, and particularly Afghanistan, to basically build a framework that could engage, Iran has responded positively. So in a way, you could argue the situation has been much more fluid than what a lot of people expected, and depending on how the situation evolves, Iranians have been able to move tactically in different directions. Therefore, it's conceivable that tactical shifts for strategic gains have been a part of the Iranian game - and they're very good at playing that game.

But right now I think essentially as US-Iran relations have developed, have gone through all these cycles, the relationship with Afghanistan [inaudible] changed considerably, even though other areas have become difficult. So US-Iran relations are in the context. Iran is very seriously concerned about real US intentions, what the US is doing in Iraq and what the US is doing in Afghanistan, and ultimately whether Iran as a significant player could be part of this process of regional rebuilding.

So the fragility of state-building, as Iranians see it sometimes, has multiple effects for Iran, whether it's border security, narco-terrorism and drug trafficking; whether it's the probability of ethnic mobilization later on, given the fact that part of the border has had tendencies of radical Sunni extremism which sometimes has created problems for Iran. Therefore these concerns are lingering, and Iran is cautiously playing with this. I think for the most part the consensus basically has not been broken down, but nonetheless a cautious approach is still there.

So even though people are kind of suspicious of what US intentions are, for the most part I think the Bonn process has developed into what Iran has perceived as a regional alliance that is working. Afghanistan as a model of successful political framework for regional development, especially with the Bonn process, has left a positive imprint and at the same time a negative imprint on the Iranian psyche. As a positive, I think it's a successful story in terms of multilateralism and a regional approach to help rebuild a region that is deeply scarred. But at the same time, the larger security environment for Iran in the west and the east is taken into account - then Iranians become a little cautious and a little worried, in a sense. As the Iraq events have pushed issues of Afghanistan a little out of the front page stories and news events, people don't really realize how seriously the 2 million Afghanis in Iran, part of which have already gone back to Afghanistan but a small number - and they are scattered across Iran, it's not just one long border area.

So my judgment is multidimensional issues of refugees, security and terrorism for a long time will be there, and Iran has come to the realization it has to play this and deal with this alliance with the regional players, Pakistan [inaudible] and de facto with Americans, to help rebuild this. If they can secure that, they can concentrate and focus on Iraq, which is the more troubling side of the story for them.

So in my sense, I would say at the end that the consensus is there in terms of regional development and it doesn't seem to be shaken by internal rivalries. That's my ultimate message, if you will.

Peter Tomsen: Thank you, Dr. Semati. In the question and answer period, I'm sure it's going to come up again that you're pressed on both sides - you have Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other, which you just mentioned. It's a trying time. Also there's the Caucasus and the Persian Gulf, which are always unstable too. Thank you very much for an excellent presentation.

Thank you, Dr. Semati. In the question and answer period, I'm sure it's going to come up again that you're pressed on both sides - you have Iraq on one side and Afghanistan on the other, which you just mentioned. It's a trying time. Also there's the Caucasus and the Persian Gulf, which are always unstable too. Thank you very much for an excellent presentation.

View from Central Asia

His Excellecy Baktybek Abdrissaev

Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the conference for inviting me to such an important forum. The very high-level representative level of this conference testifies once again to the importance of post-conflict development for Afghanistan, including the involvement of this country in the regional cooperation.

At the outset, I would like to recall the words of our President Akayev, who said at the international conference "Regional Cooperation of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Pakistan," which was held just a week and a half ago in Bishkek: "For the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as all the countries neighboring with Afghanistan, peace and stability in this country are no doubt widely important."

During many years, Afghanistan was a source of constant threats to stability and security for our region, in the forms of international terrorism, extremism, illegal drugs and arms trafficking. Two times, in 1999 and 2000, our country, at the cost of life of Kyrgyz warriors, rebuffed the terrorists which came from their Afghan bases through the Tajik territories, a known fact. Without any doubt and delay, our country offered its international airport at Manas for the antiterrorist forces after September 11. Air Force Base Peter Ganci in our airport became our practical contribution in the joint efforts and has played an important role in destroying the military infrastructure of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The Kyrgyz Republic during that period of time also has been taking an active part in providing humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan; more than 20,000 tons of humanitarian assistance has been delivered by Kyrgyz trucks through the Osh-Horog-Faizabad road.

The Kyrgyz Republic has been welcoming efforts of President Hamid Karzai aimed at setting up places for functional democracy in the country and steps in implementing the national development plan of the country and speeding up the process of demilitarization and disarmament.

Despite the progress achieved in promoting the political process in Afghanistan, recent increase of terrorist and extremist attacks on peacemaking forces and international organizations in this country and humanitarian missions create a big concern in our country, too. Alongside with issues related to assuring security, another very topical goal for the world community is the minimization of threats related to drugs. Unfortunately, we have to state that during the last year production of opium has increased dramatically in Afghanistan. Accordingly, the drug trafficking has also increased, and first of all through the so-called Northern Corridor via Central Asia. The increasing drug threat requires further consolidation of international efforts aimed at combating this peril. The Kyrgyz Republic is standing for full mobilization of institutional, international, regional and sub-regional agencies for the purposes of implementing the anti-drug strategy applicable to Afghanistan, as well as the wider regional context. Special attention should be paid to the need to support ordinary people of Afghanistan by providing alternative ways of gaining income.

Political stabilization and strengthening the state power in Afghanistan directly depends on speed and methods of resolving the social and economic problems. No peace can be achieved in Afghanistan without this economic growth and further progress in combating piracy and drug trafficking. That is why Kyrgyzstan also strongly supports strengthening the attention of the world community to the problems of Afghanistan. We think today that the fate of the entire nation depends on joint efforts of the world community.

The decisive factor for the implementation of the actual reconstruction programs is adherence of the main donor countries - the United States, Germany, Japan, the European Union and other countries of the world community - to the commitments they have taken. An important role in promoting and assisting the rehabilitation process can and must be played by Afghanistan's neighboring countries, including the Kyrgyz Republic.

In this regard, the international conference "Regional Cooperation of Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran and Pakista," arranged jointly by the government of the Kyrgyz Republic and the United Nations Development Program is our practical contribution to the reconstruction process. High-level officials and private-sector representatives from eight countries, as well as representatives from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Economic Cooperation Organization participated in this forum. I would like also to remind participants of the conference today that we asked the organizers to distribute here the Bishkek Declaration, which was adopted during the conference.

The Kyrgyz Republic is ready to cooperate closely with international organizations and various countries, and with the United States in particular, in the rehabilitation of communications systems, construction of residential buildings, health care and educational institutions, providing medical assistance, etc. We're also ready to place orders in our enterprises for the needs of Afghanistan and implement joint projects with the country. Our country can consider also an opportunity to send into Afghanistan our civil experts, and another prospective direction for cooperation is training national experts and specialists of Afghanistan in educational institutions of the Kyrgyz Republic. It is symbolic that some Afghan students now - I think it's about 30 such students - are educated in American University-Central Asia in Bishkek. However, they have opportunities to receive a much bigger number of them in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, we realize that problems of reconstruction of Afghanistan are multifaceted and complicated, and that should only give us stimulus to strengthen our joint efforts in reviving Afghanistan as an equal and successful member of the world community. We aim by the path of peace and progress. I hope the discussion of the conference is also our contribution to this noble activity.

Thank you very much.

Peter Tomsen: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Maybe when the question period comes, you could discuss to a certain extent whether or not IMU activity in Kyrgyzstan, also other Central Asian republics, has remained very low or whether you see that as a rising threat again, and whether you see if there's a connection with Afghanistan in that regard.

Our last speaker is Ambassador Haqqani, who will give the view from South Asia.

View from South Asia

Ambassador Husain Haqqani

Senior Associate at Carnegie at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Pakistani ambassador

Thank you very much. I realize I have very little time left, so I'm not going to start in the 12th century. I'm going to begin in 1947, to try to make it within the confines of time that has been allocated to me.

Let me just say that South Asia and Afghanistan are tied to each other through history, through geography and through culture. But the contemporaneous context of the relationship between the two major players in South Asia, which is India and Pakistan, is essentially that of the Great Game of the 19th century being brought into a new context after 1947, when British India was partitioned between Pakistan and India. Afghanistan objected to the creation of Pakistan, as some of you may recall, in 1947. It was the one country who refused to vote in favor of Pakistan's admission to the United Nations. Its argument was that the border that was settled between - or not settled between - the British and the Afghans, what is known as the Durand Line, has to be revisited. So this basically set the stage for Pakistan's concern about Afghanistan very early in Pakistan's history as an independent state.

On the other hand, and here I would of course be reflecting the Pakistani bias, from the Indian point of view it was a tremendous opportunity. Even though India had been denied direct land access to Afghanistan, which historically it feels it had, and of course that access usually was the source of invaders from the 12th century - I had to mention that - or in fact 10th century - coming into India. Invaders of India came through that area. The Indians always saw this as an opportunity to try and put pressure on Pakistan.

So when the Soviet invasion came and 5 million refugees from Afghanistan came into Pakistan, Pakistan was concerned not only about the Soviets and about communism, etc., enjoying the United States and all the benefits of being a US ally - Pakistan had another thing in mind, and that was that this was the opportunity to try and end the two-front situation that Pakistan felt it faced, India putting pressure in the East and Afghanistan - even though not necessarily a major military power, but definitely capable of putting political pressure, using the ethnic card. Because after all the Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Durand Line are basically interlinked. They are the same and similar tribes. They intermarry. They trade with each other. Transit trade to Afghanistan primarily operated through Pakistan. The anti-Soviet war brought 5 million refugees into Pakistan and these refugees did not remain confined to the border areas. I believe that almost 3-3.5 million have gone back, but I don't think the other 2 million are going back. You find Afghans in Karachi. Some of the best Afghan [food] I've ever had has been in Karachi, which is pretty far from Afghanistan. Of course, you can also have it in Baltimore, but that's another story.

So the whole situation has been that from Pakistan's point of view, they have been trying to find a settlement to the Durand Line issue. That explains Pakistan's sometimes erratic and sometimes misplaced policies towards Afghanistan. I think that if we are to have stability in the region and if Afghanistan and Pakistan are to be friends, and if Pakistan is not going to play any interfering role in Afghanistan - which I believe it should not, and should not have done, but which it has been accused of and it has done - then there would have to be some understanding of how to resolve Pakistan's insecurity vis-a-vis Afghanistan and vis-a-vis the Durand Line question.

Afghan leadership would turn around and say this is a national question, it hasn't been solved for so long - why should we solve it in a hurry? That was more or less the attitude of the Taliban, who even though the Pakistanis had sponsored them, supported them, more or less put them in power and maintained in power - Pakistan was one of three countries that recognized them and the one that remained friendly to them to the very end. I don't know if any of you recall the famous press conferences of the Afghan ambassador even after 9/11, many of which I attended in Islamabad. So Pakistan remained disposed towards the Taliban in a very friendly manner, and yet it could not get an affirmation, a clear affirmation from the Taliban that the Durand Line was now a settled international frontier and the subject is closed, there are no claims, and even though we have ethnic and cultural similarities on both sides, this is the price all Third World countries have paid in one form or another for colonial intervention. Many nations have settled on borders they are unhappy with - maybe we just need to settle and move on. That is not happening.

So what are the consequences? The consequence is there is a feeling in Pakistan that India is very close particularly to the non-Pashtun elements of Afghan authority. That is a point of view in Pakistan. From the Indian perspective, that's a very natural thing. They think that if Pakistan is to be prevented from installing - after America withdraws from the area, assuming it does, and the international concerns are less significant, then Pakistan may get involved again. So India wants to make the most of that opportunity, and that explains the ring of Indian consulates, et cetera, just along the Pakistani border.

I think it's in the interest of stability in Afghanistan as well as in the interest of the international community to prevent India and Pakistan playing a second-rate Great Game. The Great Game was bad enough, but a second-rate Great Game being played by second-rate operatives of India and Pakistan, Indian and Pakistani intelligence, I think is going to be even more disastrous. I think to prevent that, the international community has a stake in trying to persuade both India and Pakistan to actually not play that game and to encourage Afghanistan and Pakistan to come to a settlement of the Durand Line issue that is more or less a durable and permanent settlement, so that issue does not become an irritant. Then of course Pakistan remains Afghanistan's access to the sea. It's good to see that Iran and Afghanistan are close and therefore there is an alternative land route available too. But the historic land route remains through Pakistan. Karachi probably has the largest Pashtun population of any city in the world. It has a much larger Pashtun population.

Pakistan then has to accept Afghanistan and Afghans as a national identity for the Afghans instead of thinking in terms of Pashtun versus non-Pashtun, which is something Pakistan has done even during the anti-Soviet phase of the struggle. Pakistan always said its interests lay with the Pashtuns rather than the non-Pashtuns. I think now Pakistan has to come to terms with the fact that Afghanistan is one entity. Just as I was talking about post-colonial realities, this is also a modern reality that Afghanistan, despite its ethnic dissimilarities, is one nation and its integrity has to be guaranteed by all its neighbors, including Pakistan.

So that is how I see South Asia being involved in the future of Afghanistan. At the same time, of course, there are other concerns. Pakistan's Pashtuns are more prone to Islamist sentiment and we have seen the rise of the MMA [Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal] in Pakistan's Pashtun areas - in my view, quite clearly as part of a strategic design by the military government, partly to ensure domestic support, partly to shore up its international support. But that notwithstanding, the fact remains that the Pashtuns in Pakistan are more predisposed to an Islamist perspective. Therefore they are potential, if not already existing, allies of the Taliban. That is something Pakistan has to deal with.

The implications for Pakistan for drug trafficking and gun-running, etc., out of Afghanistan are things that the international community has to get interested in and assure Pakistan that it's not going to be a victim once again to destabilization that may originate, from Pakistan's point of view, in Afghanistan, and from Afghanistan's point of view, in Pakistan.

Thank you.

Peter Tomsen: Thank you, Ambassador Haqqani, for a very candid and instructive presentation. When we met in the embassy in Islamabad ten years ago, I wish you had told me the same thing - I might have done a better job.

Question & Answer:

Peter Tomsen: Why don't we have one panel-on-panel question and then move into the questions from the audience?

H.E. Baktybek Abdrissaev: You asked about IMU [the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan]. I think this is a really important question. For Kyrgyzstan, this still remains an external factor, an external threat, but now it's changed its approaches. Before it was sort of direct attacks through our southern parts; now they are trying to hide and create sleeper cells. In the two explosions last year, one in our market in Bishkek and the second in Osh, demonstrated that we have such sleeper cells. But again, it was rebels of IMU which came from neighboring territory. They were not our citizens. It's important to mention.

Peter Tomsen: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador

Question: Now we'd like to turn to Dr. Semati. The original question, to be more precise, was does Iran see it as more important now to quiet Afghanistan and to have a political process that works, that spawns stability and reconstruction, given all of the other problems in the other direction - not only Iraq but the Caucasus, which is usually unstable, and potential problems in the Persian Gulf.

Hadi Semati: Generally speaking, the whole neighborhood in which Iran lives - the post-Soviet state-building in Central Asia and the Caucasus and the greater movement that's happening there with interjection of certain agendas that Iran feels is aimed at eliminating it from the scene in Central Asia and the Caucasus and particularly the Caspian - it is a field that really is hard to imagine when people sit down together in Tehran and look around the strategic map. There are 135,000-140,000 US troops and NATO in Afghanistan. All of that creates an anxiety to the degree that people would have a very difficult time to think about long-term stability in which the US seems to be not quite sure of what it's trying to do. Iranians perceive that Afghanistan is essentially a place that they have cultural ties and it should be reconstructed and they are ready to help. I think Iranians probably feel, however, that given the fact that they constructively helped a lot during the Bonn process, they were left out and got "axis of evil" in return. That sentiment, that in response the reward was "axis of evil," has created this constant and lingering tension within the Iranian psyche.

But ultimately I think it is not just an instrumental use of strategic alliances that Iran wants to push inside Afghanistan right now. I think ultimately, substantively, Iran has come to the conclusion and is interested in securing the eastern border, at least to the degree that it's possible. Iran, in my judgment, is playing fairly good on its own national interest. But nonetheless, as I said, this is a game that I think Iranians believe Afghanistan is, even though there are positive news, but at the same time it's going to be a place where things will not be resolved in the short term.

So instability in Afghanistan is still there. In Iraq, it is still there. So the whole game is really deadlocked in a way. Iran probably feels it's more secure and stable than other countries in the neighborhood. So in a sense this is really amazing that Iranians feel that they are the most secure place in the entire neighborhood, but at the same time they feel that they are the ones being targeted in terms of being eliminated from the regional and international processes to think about regional political and economic reconstruction. I think the Iranian national security strategy is more and more economically informed, and the calculations are, for obvious reasons - population, the markets and all of that.

But I think for the most part Iran is very much, both domestically politically speaking and strategically speaking, interested in securing the eastern border and its unification - a national Afghan identity and nationalism that would not use Islamism or radical Islamist movements just to essentially create an instability in the border. Iranians actually in the mid-1990s, they were talking about the possibility of forecasting - I remember I read a paper in a panel in Tehran - where people were warning about Talibanization of Pakistan at that time. That was the concept that emerged from that conference in the mid-1990s. Maybe this is actually shifting to Central Asia.

So the neighborhood is pretty rough for Iran, but I think Iran is pretty much hoping that the eastern border could be secured.

Peter Tomsen: Well, you've done pretty well for the last 4,000 years.

Question: Let's move to two questions that relate to South Asia, thoughts on regional economic integration, including Afghanistan, under the framework of SAARC.

A few days ago, President Musharraf told his nation on a broadly publicized television show that radical Islamic views are damaging Pakistan's international image and is disruptive to national stability. Is this an accurate viewpoint and can the trend be stopped?

Ambassador Haqqani: On the first question, let me just say that SAARC, which is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, has so far been a victim of the India-Pakistan standoff. For it to evolve into some kind of a genuine economic cooperation, a free trade zone, etc., I think it would have to break that deadlock. There has been an agreement in the last SAARC summit. We have to wait, how it works out. Then of course we have to see whether Afghanistan can be part of that process. But Afghanistan cannot be a beneficiary of something that is not already happening.

So the real challenge in South Asia is for India and Pakistan to understand that they have to work out some kind of a free trade arrangement. India has wanted it for a long time. Pakistan has withheld normal trade relations or most favored nation status for India so far. When it comes through and SAARC moves on, then of course there will definitely be room for Afghanistan in SAARC. Again, there may be a potential for Pakistan thinking, if Pakistan sees Afghanistan as an ally of India, then Pakistan is definitely going to not want Afghanistan into the alliance as another source of pressure on Pakistan. But otherwise I think that if the move is towards India-Pakistan rapprochement, then of course Afghanistan being part of a free trade agreement or arrangement or more economic cooperation that involves both India and Pakistan - definitely will extend to Afghanistan.

On the question of General Musharraf's statement, of course no one disagrees with his statement, that Islamist terrorism or Islamist extremism is harmful for Pakistan, period. I think this business about image - it's saying that something is harmful in more ways than one. It undermines the unity of the state, it causes terrorism and violence within the state, prevents law and order, prevents the economy from taking off. So I cannot understand General Musharraf's emphasis on the image part, which basically somehow means, well, the reality isn't all that bad but we don't want the image.

There is this problem which General Musharraf faces, which is because of legitimacy questions about his own government, because of his inability and the inability of the Pakistani military to work with secular political parties (who have their own set of problems), I think that Pakistan's actual move against extremism - which is very marginal in Pakistan anyway, it's a small minority, it's not something that is the belief of 150 million Pakistanis. An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis does not support extremist ideas. But the fact remains that the evolution of the Pakistani state has been such that the state has emphasized the religious identity.

Now General Musharraf, even though he says - that's why he couches it all in terms of image, because he can't say that after twenty or thirty years of the military having peddled Islamist ideology actively that all of a sudden it has to now turn around and say, "By the way, that was all wrong." For that, he has to admit the error of his own institution and even of himself. He shows no signs of doing that so far. For example, I haven't heard him saying - even in a recent interview on ABC television with George Stephanopoulos, he argued still that he had not made a mistake in supporting the Taliban. For changing major strategic directions of a nation, you sometimes need to acknowledge mistakes. You have to say, look, we were trying to forge our national unity on the basis of a religious identity and that has gone out of hand and we're not going to do that. But to do that, you have to embrace people that you have already declared as the bad guys within the domestic context. Because you don't want to embrace them, then you don't want to give up that ideological paradigm. I don't think without doing that the major shift that Pakistan requires will be possible.

Peter Tomsen: Thank you.

Question: Let's move on to two questions on Iran. Does Iran's use of Afghanistan to increase its standing in the US, with the EU, make sense? I think at the Bonn conference, Iran got a lot of favorable publicity, as it did after the Tokyo conference, due to its pledges of assistance to Afghanistan. It got a lot of positive publicity in the West.

Second question: doesn't Iran's alliance with Ismail Khan, and to a lesser extent its support for development of the area bordering Iran, undercut its objective of a unified, centralized Afghan state?

A last question here. There has been a wide body of reporting that Iran continues to hold Al-Qaeda leadership which it won't turn over to the US government. What is the story behind this?

Hadi Semati: As I said in my short presentation, Iran for obvious reasons, I would say rationally, would not undercut itself when it feels that the intentions of great games, the US intentions and the possibility of future contingencies that the US might try - Iran is not going to simply abandon all its cards. As I said, strategically it has adopted a policy of supporting the transformation of Afghanistan into a stable, unified entity. But at the same time, in the process of doing so, tactically you would devise policies that would create opportunities for you if things go south. This is, I think, rational in terms of calculations of means and ends.

But for the most part, I would say Iran has been both politically and economically and otherwise constructive and helpful for the time being. I think if things go the same way it's been going, my suspicion is things will move positively. But its relations with Ismail Khan and others could be explained in this context of - the same sort of context that you have in Iraq essentially. You don't know what the big player is going to do with you or how it is going to actually embrace you in this political dialogue. If you have these suspicions and tensions and vacillation of policy from Washington -- in terms of regime change one day, cordial relations in other ways, tacit agreements in Geneva, Bonn process being reduced - so this sort of ambivalence out of Washington has created this tactical move by Iran to secure its most leverage, if it indeed requires to be used.

In terms of Al-Qaeda, who knows? In my judgment, you're talking about a long border. It would be very difficult for me to imagine, given the historical, ideological enmity and the fact that Iran almost went to war, that Al-Qaeda would have been actually transferred inside Iranian territory, across the border, knowingly. However, I would not eliminate the possibility that when they did actually go through the border, they would be used for political leverage in their longer, strategic encounter with the US But my suspicion is, to the best of my knowledge, what I read in the papers and makes sense of Tehran, my sense is it is essentially a very porous border, a border that is long and people will move, and actually some of them have been able to move around by just buying in this infrastructure in Iran. Along the border, there are just tons of opportunities. The routes for drug traffickers, people always using those routes can deliver a lot of things if you pay them.

So in a sense, Al-Qaeda is a problem within Iran and the US But I think it would be very difficult to imagine Iran would intentionally actually invite them to Iran. In a post-9/11 context, this is unbelievable.

Peter Tomsen: Thank You.

Question: There are two questions for Ambassador Abdrissaev. The first one is, how do Russian economic and military collective security efforts in Central Asia affect Afghanistan? The second question is, with the development of Afghanistan's transportation infrastructure, how will that help Central Asia?

Ambassador Abdrissaev: Secondly, I would like to say that the United States and Russia continue their joint efforts under the umbrella of the Joint Commission, which has regular meetings each half a year. For us, really it was surprising, because when the new administration came I had here several conversations with many experts about the fate of the Commission, which existed before. Some of the experts expressed the opinion that maybe it will no longer exist - but we can see, also as a result of such kind of continued cooperation.

Secondly, I would like to say that the United States and Russia continue their joint efforts under the umbrella of the Joint Commission, which has regular meetings each half a year. For us, really it was surprising, because when the new administration came I had here several conversations with many experts about the fate of the Commission, which existed before. Some of the experts expressed the opinion that maybe it will no longer exist - but we can see, also as a result of such kind of continued cooperation.

But I would say that Russia has an interest in having a secure and stable situation in Afghanistan, and Russia knows it is impossible to achieve now without active involvement of the international community and first of all the United States. That's why we are also eager to continue, especially in Kyrgyzstan, to work with the international community and with the United States on this matter. We think that the base which exists in our country also is evidence of such process. But another thing I would like to underline, that Russia has its own interests in having a secure and stable situation in Afghanistan.

We think that the development of infrastructure and transportation inside of Afghanistan, it will help greatly for our countries, first of all for Central Asia, because we are considering Afghanistan as one of the routes which provide for us an access to the ocean. Without such kind of alternative routes, for us it is impossible to talk about our independence and sovereignty. That's why we are interested in developing more such kinds of routes. Now we have, for example, one alternative through China, with difficulties through Pakistan. But Afghanistan routes will provide for us more possibilities to develop and to be integrated to the world community. That's why this works both ways.

Peter Tomsen: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, and thank you to the entire panel for a very instructive session.

Afghanistan: Promise and Fulfillment

About this Transcript:

"Afghanistan: Promise and Fulfillment" was a half-day conference co-sponsored by The American Institute of Afghanistan Studies and Middle East Institute. It was held on May 25, 2004 at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Attributions: Transcribed by Jennifer Mitchell, Assistant Librarian, Middle East Institute. Edited by David Chambers, Director of Programs, Middle East Institute.

Speaker Details:

The Honorable Peter Tomsen is the former US Special Envoy and ambassador to Afghanistan.
His Excellecy Baktybek Abdrissaev is the Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan. Ambassador Husain Haqqani is Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Pakistani ambassador. Dr. Hadi Semati is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace