U.S. Weighs Future Afghan Policy : Debates What Role to Play in Shaping New Kabul Regime

The Reagan Administration has begun to confront a new series of foreign policy questions about the future of Afghanistan after Soviet troops complete their withdrawal.

The central issue is to what extent the United States should become involved in shaping and supporting a new Afghan government if the current Soviet-backed Najibullah regime collapses in the way that U.S. officials expect.

For the moment, at least, the Administration seems inclined to keep its hands off, arguing that any U.S. effort to become involved in internal Afghan politics would fail.

“We believe that Afghanistan’s future political course must be left to the Afghan people themselves to decide,” Undersecretary of State Michael H. Armacost said recently. “ . . . The experience of the British in the 19th Century and the Soviets in this one suggests that the Afghans do not take kindly to efforts by outsiders to choose a government for them.”

However, this policy of non-involvement is being attacked by critics on Capitol Hill, within the Administration and elsewhere.

The critics note that Pakistan, through which all U.S. aid to the Afghan resistance is funneled, has been backing Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fervent Islamic fundamentalist. If the United States does nothing to counter Pakistan, they say, Hekmatyar, who heads only one of the seven resistance groups, may come to power.

“On the surface, (the U.S. policy) sounds nice,” says one U.S. official who disagrees with the current policy. “But the Pakistanis are not sitting back. They are pushing for Hekmatyar, who is their creation. He is anti-Western in his rhetoric, and his organization is highly authoritarian.”

Underlying this debate are fundamental disagreements about how much the United States should care what happens to Afghanistan after the Soviet Union finishes withdrawing its troops.

U.S. Strategic Interest

Some U.S. officials argue that the only strategic interest the United States has in Afghanistan has been to prevent the Soviet military from occupying Afghan territory from which it can threaten the Persian Gulf.

“Once the Soviet (troops) are out, Afghanistan is zerosville,” says one State Department official.

However, those who urge the Administration to play a more active role contend that landlocked Afghanistan remains strategically important because of its location adjoining Pakistan and Iran.

“That (U.S. policy) is extraordinarily shortsighted,” says Rosanne Klass, director of the Southwest Center of Freedom House. “We should be interested not only in getting Soviet troops out but in getting Soviet control out. . . . As long as there is a Communist regime in Afghanistan, it will serve the purposes of Soviet expansion in Afghanistan and it will destabilize the region.”

This spring, the Soviet Union pledged to remove half its troops, estimated at 115,000, from Afghanistan by Aug. 15 and the remainder by next Feb. 15. U.S. officials say that so far the Soviet pullout is proceeding on schedule.

The prevailing view within the Reagan Administration is that the Soviets clearly intend to complete their troop withdrawal.

“To stop this (pullout), they’d have to take steps that would be discernible, and so far they haven’t,” said one State Department official. “(Soviet leader Mikhail S.) Gorbachev has a long domestic agenda. They’d (hurt) themselves if they tried to pull any funny business.”

Both the United States and Pakistan have urged the Afghan guerrillas to leave the Soviet troops alone as they leave, spokesmen for both governments say.

“We have talked to some of the leaders of the resistance,” says a State Department spokesman. “We told them, ‘It’s not in your interest to attack these guys. Your purpose is to get rid of them.’ But nobody has any direct control over these resistance groups.”

The Reagan Administration now seems to take it for granted that the current regime in Kabul will fall apart as the Soviet withdrawal goes forward. “Only the Soviet military presence enables it to survive,” Armacost declared. A State Department Afghan expert raised the possibility that Afghan leader Najibullah might be overthrown by rival hard-liners seeking to make a last-ditch stand in Kabul.

One skeptical U.S. official, who spoke on condition that neither his name nor government agency be identified, said the Administration’s forecasts concerning Afghanistan are too optimistic.

“What the Soviets are doing now is consolidating,” he said. “They and the Afghan army are pulling back to the major cities. The moujahedeen will have a very hard time taking those cities.”

Some congressmen have been urging the Administration to close its embassy in Kabul and to begin establishing formal, governmental ties with the Afghan resistance groups. “What little valuable intelligence we get from the (American) embassy in Kabul can be provided by other Western embassies that will remain open,” says Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.).

Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) recently sent a joint letter to Secretary of State George P. Shultz, urging him to appoint a special ambassador to the Afghan resistance. Such action would “send a needed” signal that the United States intends to remain active in Afghan affairs, they argued.

Shultz Rejected Request

Shultz turned down their request, saying that he would instead appoint a new special assistant to the U.S. ambassador in Pakistan who will be assigned to deal with the resistance groups.

One State Department official explained that the United States does not want to do anything in its Afghan policies that will undercut Pakistan. The Pakistani government of President Zia ul-Haq has provided a base for the resistance groups, serves as home for about 3 million Afghan refugees and has been an important U.S. ally. “We can’t do anything separate from the Pakistanis,” this State Department official said.

In Congress, Rep. Charles Wilson (D. Tex.) said he believes that the fears of a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan are exaggerated and unrealistic.

“You have to accept the possibility that it will be a fundamentalist regime. I’d say the chances are better than 50-50 that it will be. I don’t think the United States should accept anything else,” Wilson said. “A democracy is not in the cards, and I don’t think we should expect that they (a future Afghan government) will apply for NATO membership.”

Another U.S. official said that the situation within the Afghan resistance is so fluid now that the Reagan Administration could not possibly decide which leaders or factions to support. Not only are there seven different resistance groups based in Peshawar, Pakistan, he said, but the field commanders fighting inside Afghanistan are gaining ever-greater influence.

“Things are in flux,” this official said. “If you support the moujahedeen , then who do you support? The Peshawar seven? The field commanders?”

Still, critics of the Administration--their ranks include a curious mixture of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans--complain that it is wrong for the Reagan Administration to continue giving aid and supplies to the resistance and, at the same time, to adopt a hands-off policy toward the question of who should lead the resistance groups.

But a senior State Department official disagreed. He conceded that the United States has “some marginal leverage” over Afghanistan because of its continuing supplies of arms to the resistance.

But he said the United States cannot try to determine Afghanistan’s future. “The Soviets couldn’t do it with 150,000 troops,” he said. “We should have a modest view of our own capabilities.”