In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan

McNeill, a stockily built man with gray hair and slight southern accent, described an incident in 2007 in which several vehicles were monitored crossing from Iran into western Afghanistan. A straight shooter who spoke bluntly in both public and private, McNeill said that NATO forces, after engaging the vehicles, found that one contained small-arms ammunition, mortar rounds, and more than 300 kilograms of C4 demolition charges. Other convoys from Iran carried rocket-propelled grenades, 107-millimeter rockets, and improvised explosive devices.⁵⁸

Some of these shipments may have come from international arms dealers. But NATO and Afghan officials claimed that elements of the Iranian government, especially the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, provided small arms and limited advanced-technology weapons to the Taliban and other insurgent groups.⁵⁹ One of the most disturbing trends was the export of a handful of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), which send a semimolten copper slug through the armor of a Humvee and then create a deadly spray of hot metal inside the vehicle. EFPs were used against Israeli forces in Lebanon in 2006 and against U.S. forces in Iraq beginning in 2005.⁶⁰ In addition, there is some evidence that units of the Iranian government may have assisted —or knowingly allowed—the transit of jihadists moving between the Pakistan-Afghanistan front and the broader Middle East, especially Iraq.⁶¹

Though Iran had a strategic motive, its support for the Taliban was somewhat surprising, since Iran’s historical relationship with the Taliban was not a good one. Iran, which is predominantly Shi’ite, viewed with deep concern the rise of the Sunni Taliban in the 1990s. In October 1998, for instance, nearly 200,000 regular Iranian troops massed along the border with Afghanistan, and the Taliban mobilized thousands of fighters to thwart an expected Iranian invasion. Only a last-minute effort by the United Nations prevented a war between the Taliban and Iran. Despite those tensions, however, Iran had a fairly close relationship with the Afghan government.⁶² Iran and Afghanistan cooperated on drug enforcement across their shared border and conducted trade, energy, investment, cultural, and scientific exchanges. Iran also played a helpful role at the 2001 Bonn Conference. According to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN worked well with Iran in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban regime.⁶³

But the prospect of conflict with the United States appeared to temporarily change Iran’s strategic calculations. And there was some precedent for Iranian support to Sunni extremist groups. According to Defense Intelligence Agency estimates, for example, Iran joined the United States in providing rifles, land mines, shoulder- fired antitank rockets, heavy machine guns, and nonlethal assistance to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other Sunni leaders against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.⁶⁴ Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns was quoted as saying that there was “irrefutable evidence” of arms “from the government of Iran.”⁶⁵ In addition, the Iranian government provided aid to Tajik, Hazara, and Uzbek commanders in northern, central, and western Afghanistan, as they had done during the 1980s and 1990s.

But Iran and Pakistan weren’t the only external supporters of the insurgency. There were reports that China sent arms to the Taliban, including ammunition and small arms.⁶⁶ The EFPs that seem to have arrived from Iran also may have included Chinese technology. Yet the Chinese government’s role was not entirely clear. One NATO soldier, who specialized in information operations, told me that China’s most important role in Afghanistan was more accidental than purposeful. “Virtually every soccer ball or toy that I purchase and hand out to Afghan kids,” he noted, “says ‘Made in China.’ How’s that for information operations?”⁶⁷ China’s historical role in Afghanistan was minimal compared with that of many of Afghanistan’s other neighbors, though China did provide small arms such as AK-47s and 60-millimeter mortars to Afghan mujahideen during the 1980s.⁶⁸

Finally, there were reports that wealthy donors from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and other Gulf states provided support to insurgents and other militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan, though it was not entirely clear to what degree these governments were directly involved. At least one European Union and UN assessment held that “[c]urtailing Taliban financing—from Saudi Arabia and UAE—was also key.”⁶⁹ Saudi Arabia had been among the first countries to recognize the Taliban regime in May 1997, despite the fact that Osama bin Laden, a committed enemy of the Saudi regime, had returned to Afghanistan a year earlier.⁷⁰ But after the Saudi government’s fallout with Osama bin Laden and then the Taliban in the late 1990s, its support for Taliban fighters dwindled. After the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001, zakat (almsgiving) was a key funding source for the Taliban and its allies. Saudi money was especially important for the Taliban because it helped fund mosques and madrassas in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the most important centers of community support and recruitment for the Taliban.

The Razor’s Edge

The challenge of borders had perhaps best been evoked by Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who served as viceroy of India and British foreign secretary in the early twentieth century. While riding horseback as a teenager, he incurred a spinal injury that required him to wear a metal corset under his clothes. This gave him a formal air of rigidity and haughtiness. In January 1899, he was appointed viceroy of India and had to deal with insurrection in the tribal areas, along the border with Afghanistan. In a 1907 lecture at All Souls College, Oxford University, that regal bearing was on display during his speech, in which he famously remarked: “Frontiers are indeed the razor’s edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war and peace, of life and death to nations.”⁷¹

As for the most recent insurgency, external frontiers and support were critical at the onset. Of particular significance was the use of Pakistan by insurgent groups; after the overthrow of the Taliban regime, there was a massive exodus of Taliban, al Qa’ida, and other fighters across the snow-capped Hindu Kush mountains. Over the next several years, these fighters regrouped and began their sustained insurgency to overthrow the Afghan government. The solution to this problem was to have the Pakistani government, or tribal proxies—with U.S. support—target groups operating out of this sanctuary. A U.S. State Department document averred that the United States needed to “move against the Taliban in Quetta” and other areas of Pakistan:

Actions to support this would include detaining Taliban leaders, financiers and operational support cells; pressing Pakistan to close madrassas whose students participated in the recent Pashmul/Panjwai fighting; seizing Taliban-linked financial assets in Quetta; interdicting courier movement between Quetta, the FATA, and Afghanistan and closing arms bazaars in the Quetta area. While Pakistani-led action is ideal, we may need to consider unilateral action, or the threat of it, to encourage a sufficiently energetic Pakistani response.⁷²

Most of these steps, however, did not occur. In 2007, for example, an American military proposal outlined an intensified effort to enlist FATA tribal leaders in the fight against al Qa’ida and the Taliban. It was part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy. The proposal came in a strategy paper prepared by staff members of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The planning at SOCOM had intensified after Admiral Eric Olson, the SOCOM commander, met with President Pervez Musharraf and senior Pakistani military leaders in late August 2007 to discuss how the U.S. military could increase cooperation in Pakistan’s fight against the extremists. The briefing stated that U.S. forces would not be involved in any conventional combat in Pakistan but that elements of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite counterterrorism unit, might be involved in strikes against militant leaders under specific conditions.⁷³

But there were no sustained operations. The vast majority of U.S. planning was on paper, not in practice. The United States refused to take concerted action against the Taliban and other insurgents in Pakistan—especially in Baluchistan Province, where the Taliban’s inner shura was located—or to put serious pressure on Pakistan to do it. At least one White House official acknowledged that the U.S. government did not place any serious conditions on its assistance to Pakistan. It did not request a quid pro quo in which the United States provided money and equipment and Pakistan helped capture or kill key Taliban and other militants.⁷⁴ Several Western ambassadors—especially those from countries whose troops were fighting and dying in Afghanistan—became frustrated at America’s apparent unwillingness to confront Pakistan.⁷⁵ At the same time, a resurgent al Qa’ida on Pakistani soil became an increasingly acute threat.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Al Qa’ida: A Force Multiplier

SINCE ITS CREATION IN 1973, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) has provided U.S. policymakers with