The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

by Frankopan, Peter

  An ambitious assault followed, with troops drawn from a broad coalition of countries led by General Norman Schwarzkopf – whose father had helped secure Iran for the Allies during the Second World War and had played a role not only in Operation Ajax, which deposed Mossadegh, but also in forming the Savak, the Iranian intelligence service that terrorised its own population from 1957 to 1979. Allied airstrikes targeted key defence, communication and weapons facilities, as land forces advanced into southern Iraq and Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm. The expedition was spectacular, but it was also rapid. Six weeks after the start of operations in January 1991, President Bush declared a ceasefire, noting in a television address on 28 February that ‘Kuwait is liberated. Iraq’s army is defeated. Our military objectives are met. Kuwait is once more in the hands of the Kuwaitis, in control of their destiny.’ This is ‘not a time of euphoria, certainly not a time to gloat’, he went on. ‘We must now look beyond victory and war.’5

  Bush’s approval ratings soared, rising above the stratospheric levels reached by President Truman on the day of the German surrender in 1945.6 Part of the reason for this was that the aims of the war had been clearly defined and quickly achieved, with mercifully few lives lost by coalition forces. The US had excluded the goal of toppling Saddam himself, unless the latter used ‘chemical, biological or nuclear weapons’, sponsored terrorist attacks or destroyed Kuwaiti oilfields – in which case, President Bush had said, ‘it shall become the specific objective of the United States to replace the current leadership of Iraq’.7

  The decision to end military action at the earliest opportunity was widely admired across the Arabic-speaking world and beyond – despite the fact that Iraqi forces did sabotage many Kuwaiti oilwells and set them ablaze. This was ignored, partly because it was felt that moving on the Iraqi capital would have been unacceptable ‘mission creep’, wrote the President in a book co-authored with his National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft in the late 1990s. Apart from antagonising allies in the Arab world and elsewhere, it was recognised that extending the ground war into Iraq and ‘trying to eliminate Saddam’ would have come at too high a price.8

  ‘We made the decision not to go to Baghdad,’ agreed Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense, in a speech at the Discovery Institute in 1992, ‘because that was never part of our objective. It wasn’t what the [United States] signed up for, it wasn’t what Congress signed up for, it wasn’t what the coalition was put together to do.’ Besides, he went on, the US did not want to ‘get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq’. Removing Saddam would have been difficult, ‘and the question in my mind’, he conceded, ‘is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.’9

  Seeking to contain Saddam Hussein rather than overthrow him was the public position. Privately, it was a different story. In May 1991, just a few weeks after the ceasefire had been called, President Bush approved a plan to ‘create the conditions for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power’. In order to effect this, he set aside a substantial sum for covert operations: $100 million.10 Ever since the 1920s, the US had been actively involved in propping up regimes that suited its wider strategic interests. Washington was now showing once again that it was willing to consider regime change in order to impose its vision on this part of the world.

  The muscular ambition of the US at this time was partly fired by the profound geopolitical changes witnessed in the early 1990s. The Berlin Wall had come down not long before the invasion of Kuwait, and in the months after the defeat of Iraq the Soviet Union collapsed in on itself. On Christmas Day 1991, President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union and announced the dissolution of the USSR into fifteen independent states. The world was seeing ‘changes of almost biblical proportions’, President Bush told Congress a few weeks later. ‘By the grace of God, America [has] won the Cold War.’11

  In Russia itself, transition sparked a furious battle for control that ended in a constitutional crisis and the deposition of the old guard after army tanks had shelled the White House in Moscow, the seat of the Russian government, in 1993. This was also a period of major transition in China, as the reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping and others following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 began to take effect – transforming the country from an isolated, regional power into one with escalating economic, military and political ambitions.12 The oppressive politics of apartheid were also winding down at long last in South Africa. The drums of freedom, peace and prosperity seemed to be beating loudly and triumphantly.

  The world had once been divided into two, President Bush told a joint session of the Senate and the House of Representatives. There was now ‘one sole and preeminent power: the United States of America’.13 The west had triumphed. Cutting a few moral corners in Iraq was warranted when the overriding evangelical purpose was to accelerate the spread of the hallmark and gift of the American Empire: democracy.

  Over the course of the decade that followed the invasion of Kuwait, therefore, the US pursued a policy that was both ambiguous and ambitious. It repeated the mantra of liberating countries like Iraq and fostering the concept and practice of democracy; but it also jealously, and at times brutally, sought to protect and promote its interests in this rapidly changing world, almost no matter what the price. In Iraq, UN Resolution 687 applied sanctions to ‘the sale or supply . . . of commodities or products other than medicine and health supplies’, with ‘foodstuffs’ likewise excluded.14 These measures were intended to force disarmament, including the termination of biological and chemical weapons programmes, and to force agreement on recognition of the sovereignty of Kuwait. With blanket restrictions on Iraqi exports and on financial transactions, the impact was devastating – especially on the poor. Initial estimates in the Lancet suggested that 500,000 children alone died from malnutrition and disease as a direct result of these policies in five years.15 In 1996, Leslie Stahl interviewed Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, on the TV programme 60 Minutes and stated that more children had died in Iraq as a result of sanctions than in Hiroshima in 1945. ‘I think it is a very hard choice,’ Albright replied; nevertheless, she went on, ‘we think the price is worth it’.16

  Sanctions were not the only steps taken against Iraq following the ceasefire. No-fly zones were imposed to the north of the 33rd parallel and to the south of the 36th parallel soon after the ceasefire was agreed – patrolled by nearly 200,000 armed overwatch sorties flown by US, French and British warplanes in the 1990s.17 These no-fly zones, which between them covered more than half of Iraqi territory, were ostensibly established to protect the Kurdish minority in the north and the Shīite population in the south. That they were imposed unilaterally, without a mandate from the UN Security Council, showed that the west was willing to interfere in another country’s internal affairs and take matters into its own hands when it suited it.18

  This was demonstrated again in 1998, when President Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act which made it the formal ‘policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime’.19 Clinton also announced that $8 million was being made available for ‘the Iraqi democratic opposition’, with the express aim of enabling the dissonant voices opposed to Saddam to ‘unify [and to] work together more effectively’.20

  The attempts by the US and its allies to get what they wanted were not limited to Iraq. President Clinton made overtures to the Iranian leadership, for example, in an attempt to open dialogue and improve relations that had spiralled downwards in the aftermath of the Irangate scandal and following the catastrophic shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet in 1988 by the USS Vincennes. Although the full extent of the reprisals taken by Teheran is still unclear, multiple evidence trails suggest an extensive series of terrorist attacks were made against US targets – possibly including the downing of Pan Am 103 over Loc
kerbie in December 1988, and also the bombing of a US base near Dhahran in Saudi Arabia in 1996.21

  After Iranian involvement in the latter had been strongly suggested by a US investigation, President Clinton protested to President Khatami in a letter delivered by an intermediary in the late 1990s. The Iranians responded aggressively, dismissing American claims of Iranian complicity in the deaths of nineteen servicemen as ‘inaccurate and unacceptable’. Moreover, it was disingenuous, the response asserted, for the US to claim outrage over terrorist attacks given that it had done nothing at all to ‘prosecute or extradite the readily identifiable American citizens responsible for the downing of [the] Iranian civilian airliner’ a decade earlier. Nevertheless, Teheran did offer hope for the future. The President should rest assured, the reply stated, that Iran had ‘no hostile intentions towards Americans’. Indeed, ‘the Iranian people not only harbour no enmity but [also] have respect for the great American people’.22

  This step forward was echoed in Afghanistan, where channels of communication were opened with the hardline Taliban regime in Afghanistan after the Supreme Leader, Mullah Omar, made contact through an intermediary in 1996. Once again, the early signs were promising. ‘The Taliban think highly of the US,’ one senior Taliban leader said, according to a confidential report of the first meeting that was prepared by the US embassy in Kabul; moreover, support provided by Washington ‘during the jihad against the Soviets’ had not been forgotten. Above all, ‘the Taliban want good relations with the United States’.23 This conciliatory message gave grounds for optimism, as did the fact that the US had contacts and old friends locally who might prove useful in the future. One such was the warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani, a long-term CIA asset since the Soviet invasion, whose (relatively) liberal attitudes towards social policy and women’s rights were noted in a memo that highlighted his growing importance within the Taliban.24

  The US was primarily concerned about Afghanistan’s role as a hotbed for militants and terrorists. The Taliban had gained control of Kabul in the course of 1996, sparking growing alarm in neighbouring countries about possible regional instability, the rise of religious fundamentalism and the prospect of Russia becoming drawn into a region from which it had only just stepped back following the collapse of the USSR.

  These concerns were set out at a high-level meeting with senior Taliban figures in Kandahar in October 1996. American officials were given assurances that militant training camps had been closed and that access would be provided to allow inspections to prove this was the case. Taliban officials, who included Mullah Ghous, the de facto Afghan Foreign Minister, responded encouragingly when asked about Osama bin Laden, whose activities had been of mounting concern to US intelligence. The CIA linked bin Laden to attacks on US soldiers in Somalia in 1992, to the bombing of New York’s World Trade Center in 1993 and to the creation of ‘a network of al-Qaida recruitment centres and guest houses in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan’. As one intelligence report put it, he was ‘one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world’.25

  ‘It would be useful’, American officials told Afghan representatives, ‘if the Taliban could tell us where he is located and ensure that he cannot carry out [terrorist] attacks.’ The Afghan officials replied that bin Laden was ‘with us as a guest, as a refugee’, and as such there was an obligation to ‘treat a guest with respect and hospitality’ in keeping with Pashto culture. ‘The Taliban’, they said, ‘would not allow anyone to use [our] territory for terrorist activities.’ In any event, bin Laden had ‘promised he would not commit [terrorist attacks]’ while living in Afghanistan, and furthermore had complied when the Taliban had become suspicious of him living in caves south of Jalalabad near Tora Bora and had told him ‘to move out [and] live in an ordinary house’.26

  Although this was superficially reassuring, it was not as emphatic as the Americans wanted, prompting a change of tack. ‘This man is poison,’ the US officials told the Taliban emissaries emphatically. ‘All countries, even as big and powerful as the US, need friends. [And] Afghanistan especially needs friends.’ This was a warning shot: the implication was that there would be consequences if bin Laden was involved in any further terrorist attack. The reply by Mullah Rabbani, a high-ranking figure in the Taliban leadership, was clear, repeating what had been said before. His response was quoted in full in a cable that was sent back to Washington and copied to US missions in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Riyadh and Jeddah: ‘in this part of the world there is a law that when someone seeks refuge, he should be granted asylum, but if there are people who carry out terrorist activities, then you can point these out; we have our senses and will not permit anyone to carry out these filthy activities’.27

  These assurances were never fully tested. Nor were they taken at face value. By the spring of 1998, the CIA was working on a capture plan that involved gaining the support and co-operation of ‘the tribals’ in Afghanistan for what was described by planners as a ‘perfect operation’. By May, ‘planning for the [Osama bin Laden] rendition is going very well’, according to a heavily redacted CIA report; a scheme had been developed that was ‘detailed, thoughtful, realistic’, although it was not without risks. Whether the plan would get approval was another matter: as one involved put it, ‘odds the op will get the green light [are] 50–50’. Senior army officers took a less optimistic view. The commander of Delta Force was reported as being ‘uncomfortable’ with details of the scheme, while the commander of Joint Special Operations thought that the CIA plan was ‘out of [its] league’. Although there was a ‘final graded rehearsal of the operation’ – which went well – the plug was pulled.28

  Before any definitive attempt to deal with bin Laden could take place, events took a decisive turn. On 7 August 1998, al-Qaida carried out simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, the largest cities in Kenya and Tanzania respectively, killing 224 people and injuring thousands more. The finger of suspicion pointed immediately at bin Laden.

  Within two weeks, the US took action, launching seventy-eight cruise missiles against four suspected al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan. ‘Our target was terror,’ President Clinton said in a televised address on 20 August. ‘Our mission was clear: to strike at the network of radical groups associated with and funded by Osama bin Laden, perhaps the preeminent organiser and financier of international terrorism in the world today.’ Clinton – at that point in the midst of a sex scandal relating to the intern Monica Lewinsky that threatened to bring down his presidency and had required a separate television address three days earlier – did not consult with the Taliban prior to trying to eliminate the plot’s mastermind. In an attempt to pre-empt criticism, he said in his announcement that ‘I want the world to understand that our actions were not aimed against Islam.’ On the contrary, continued the beleaguered President, Islam is ‘a great religion’.29

  It was bad enough that the attempts to deal with Osama bin Laden proved unsuccessful. But they also antagonised the Taliban, which immediately expressed outrage at the attack on Afghan territory and against a guest who had not been proven guilty of involvement in the attacks in East Africa. Mullah Omar declared that the Taliban would ‘never hand over bin Laden to anyone and would protect him with our blood at all costs’.30 As one US intelligence assessment explained, there was considerable sympathy for bin Laden and his extremism in the Arab world, where the message of ‘injustice and victimisation’ of Muslim peoples went hand in glove with the popular belief that ‘US policies prop up corrupt regimes . . . and are designed to divide, weaken and exploit the Arab world.’ Few endorse bin Laden’s terrorism, the report concluded, but ‘many share at least some of his political sentiments’.31

  These were views held by Mullah Omar himself, who in a remarkable telephone call to the State Department in Washington three days after the missile strikes stated that the ‘strikes would prove counter-productive and arouse anti-American feelings in the Islamic world’. In the course o
f this recently declassified telephone call, the only known direct contact between the Afghan Supreme Leader and US officials, Mullah Omar remarked on the ‘current domestic difficulties’ being experienced by President Clinton – a reference to the Lewinsky affair. With this in mind, and in order to ‘rebuild US popularity in the Islamic world’ following the disastrous unilateral attack, said Mullah Omar, ‘Congress should force President Clinton to resign.’32

  The US strikes were denounced meanwhile as an attack on the ‘entire Afghan people’ by a senior Taliban spokesman, Wakīl Ahmed Mutawakkil. Large anti-American demonstrations took place in Kandahar and Jalalabad following the assault, according to Ahmed, who discussed the attacks with US officials not long afterwards. ‘If [the Taliban] could have retaliated with similar strikes against Washington,’ he stated, ‘it would have [done so].’33 Like Saddam Hussein when he found out that the US had been selling arms to Iran while claiming to support Iraq, it was the sense of betrayal and double-dealing that was damaging: the US gave friendly messages on the one hand and then acted brutally on the other.

  Wakīl Ahmed expressed his outrage over the flimsiness of the evidence that had been presented by the Americans after the US military strikes. The Taliban leadership had always been clear that if bin Laden were found to be conducting terrorist activities from Afghan soil, action would be taken against him.34 Indeed, Mullah Omar asked the State Department for substantiation almost immediately.35 Some believed that the charges were trumped up, the Taliban official said, while others pointed out that bin Laden ‘had once been a trained guerrilla supported by the United States’. What had been presented by the Americans amounted to nothing more than ‘some papers’ which hardly constituted proof; a video cassette handed to the Taliban that was assumed to ‘contain something new’ about bin Laden was simply embarrassing – it was worthless as a piece of evidence.