Blame the Unfinished Afghan War

The Question: After Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Thursday, what's next for Pakistan?

The assassination of Bhutto is the consequence of an unfinished job started in 2001 by the international community in Afghanistan; it is also a blow to the war against global terrorism and to democratization in the region.

It is not hard to understand who is behind this terrorist act. Those that benefit most from chaos and the spread of instability in Pakistan and in the region are the al-Qaeda organization and the Taliban, or the intelligence elements who created both. It does not matter who conducted this criminal act since the wound is the same: it has endangered regional stability and peace.

al-Qaeda’s primary goal is to create political turmoil, sectarian violence, religious rivalry, and an atmosphere of fear and terror. It aims to alienate publics from their governments, and most importantly to show the failure of foreign powers’ policies to establish proper stability and security or move forward on democratization in the region.

Bhutto’s declared policies — such as promoting democracy, creating moderation, tackling militancy and Islamic extremists, and bringing stability in Pakistan’s domestic politics and foreign relations — all worked against the interests of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They also worked against those in the Pakistani military and intelligence services who, in their own self-interest, first supported the creation of both these organizations and are supporting them now behind the scenes.

While the global coalition to battle al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was broken and left unfinished, and after the war later turned into a self-interested war in Iraq, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have again found the grounds to reorganize their forces to endanger progress toward stability and democratization.

The Bhutto assassination also reveals that how much that progress had gotten off-course. After all, democratization will weaken the position of violent extremist groups. By creating chaos and insecurity as major obstacles to fostering democratization, these groups are trying to survive and justify their acts of terror.

The Afghanistan war is yet unfinished, and the Taliban and al-Qaeda are still there and still conduct operations. The substantial challenge today is that without a powerful central government to extend its power and control across the entire country, no appropriate security can be realized. Any power vacuum or condition of a “failed state” is essentially a breeding ground for chaos, not only domestically but regionally and internationally. The power vacuum provides the grounds for shaping, organizing, training and operating of al-Qaeda terrorism, which endangers the entire globe.

The Bhutto assassination has two main aims: first, affecting global security by showing the U.S.’s failure to bring stability in the region. In the view of extremist Islamic jihadists, Bhutto was an element of the United States and the West who sought moderation and western-style democratization — the two very elements of weakening Islamic traditions and fundamentals. The assassination’s second aim was to bring chaos and instability in the region. With the creation of chaos and political turmoil in Pakistan’s domestic politics, the first victim would be Afghanistan’s stability, the most favorite condition for al-Qaeda and the Taliban to survive. This act would, in turn, have a negative impact on the region’s stability on India, Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, Iran, Iraq, and the entire Middle East.

There are lessons, however, to be learned from this criminal act. One is the danger to global security of an unfinished job in Afghanistan. Another is that the revival of the Taliban and al-Qaeda could bring chaos and insecurity to the region and subsequently to global peace and security. With the 9/11 events and al-Qaeda’s global terrorism, the security of the Middle East has become the focal point of global security. There should be a global coalition with the cooperation of the regional countries to readdress how to battle al-Qaeda terrorism and how to finish the job in Afghanistan. The real threat to international and human security is the spread of al-Qaeda’s extremist thoughts and threats. Battling al-Qaeda requires the creation of a global movement.

Kayhan Barzegar is a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He teaches international relations and Iran's foreign policy in Tehran.