Javid Husain Afghanistan remains in turmoil 30 years after the Soviet Army marched into it to install in power a regime of Moscow's choice. The Afghan jihad finally succeeded in liberating the country from the Soviet occupation in 1989. However, even the fall of the Soviet installed Najibullah regime a few years later because of the continued armed struggle of the Afghan mujahideen did not restore peace in Afghanistan. Instead the country was thrown into a civil war in which basically the Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns communities in Afghanistan were arrayed against each other. The US occupation of Afghanistan following the overthrow of the Taliban regime in the aftermath of 9/11 has not ended this underlying internal armed conflict in Afghanistan. Thus, the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is defined not only by the fight between the coalition forces led by the US and the local forces spearheaded by the Taliban but also by the internal armed conflict between the Pashtuns and the non-Pashtuns. During the pre-9/11 period, the internal armed conflict in Afghanistan was complicated by the support given by Iran and Pakistan to the non-Pashtuns and Pashtuns respectively. The situation was further aggravated by the involvement of India and Russia with Iran in supporting the Northern Alliance. The short-sighted policies of Iran and Pakistan during the 1990's prolonged the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Afghanistan policies of both Iran and Pakistan during this period were driven by their security establishments whose lack of comprehension of the situation in Afghanistan was matched by their misplaced zeal to promote their narrow national interests at the cost of peace in Afghanistan. The political leaders on both sides showed a remarkable inability to rise above narrow national considerations and promote a peace settlement in Afghanistan on the basis of mutual accommodation. The greater responsibility for this failure lay with the Iranian leadership when the Rabbani regime was in power in Kabul and later with the Pakistan leadership when the Taliban took over control of most of Afghanistan. The net result of the short-sighted policies of Iran and Pakistan was that both of them lost in Afghanistan which is now occupied by non-regional forces led by the United States of America. Although Iran welcomed the fall of the Taliban regime in the aftermath of 9/11, the presence of the US forces on its eastern frontier with Afghanistan should be a cause for concern to it. As for Pakistan, it has suffered even more than Iran subsequent to 9/11. On the one hand, it has lost influence in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime which it had supported at the cost of regional and international isolation and at the risk of encouraging religious extremism within Pakistan. On the other, the reversal of its pro-Taliban policy after 9/11 under the US pressure has not only earned it the enmity of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan (in addition to that of non-Pashtuns in Afghanistan because of its earlier pro-Taliban policies) but has also pitted it against the Pashtuns in its tribal areas, who are linked through tribal and ethnic ties to their brethren in Afghanistan. The resultant battle against the Taliban in Pakistan has badly destabilised our nation through acts of terrorism perpetrated by the former. The instability in Afghanistan is thus leading to instability in Pakistan. The leadership of Pakistan's security and foreign policy establishment, particularly during the period from 1997 to 9/11 in 2001, must be held accountable for this debacle. The US is now essentially faced with the tasks of the elimination of Al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan to prevent any further attacks on it and the restoration of peace in that country. The successful completion of these tasks should enable it to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan in an honourable manner. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration broadened its goal to cover also the establishment of a government of its liking in Afghanistan in total disregard of the ethnic and tribal realities of the country and its conservative character. The new political dispensation imposed in Afghanistan after the Bonn agreement on the debris of the Taliban regime alienated most of the Afghan Pashtuns, the ethnic community to which the overwhelming majority of the Taliban belonged, and dragged the coalition forces led by the US into an armed conflict with them. Considering that the Pashtuns constitute almost half of the population of Afghanistan, the US set for itself an impossible task of imposing a government of its choice in defiance of the wishes of the Afghan Pashtuns. The US task was made more difficult by cross-the-border links of the Afghan Pashtuns with their brethren in Pakistan's tribal areas. Consequently, the coalition forces have been bogged down in an unending war in Afghanistan. Instead of recognising the indigenous character of the armed inflict in Afghanistan and finding a solution for it through a judicious combination of the use of force and political initiatives to accommodate the Afghan Pashtuns within the framework of an inclusive political system, the US has relied on the use of force to bludgeon the Pashtuns into submission with disastrous results so far. Its pressure on the Pakistan government to prevent the Taliban Pashtuns in our tribal areas from going into Afghanistan to the help of their tribal brethren has resulted in increasing the frequency of terrorist incidents in Pakistan. The US is now at a crossroads. The ongoing review of the Afghan strategy by the Obama Administration provides Washington with a useful opportunity to change course with a view to eliminating the threat of terrorism posed by Al-Qaeda to the US security and taking political initiatives to bring the conflict in Afghanistan between the Pashtuns and the non-Pashtuns to an end. The use of force against Al-Qaeda and its allies should continue to overcome their threat to global and regional security. At the same time, the US should open lines of communications to the Taliban to engage the moderates among them and to isolate and weaken the extremist elements. One way to achieve this objective would be to convene a conference of the leaders of the various Afghan communities, tribes and political groups under the UN auspices to evolve a political framework which has the consensus support of the different Afghan political forces. This political framework should be inclusive in character so as to establish a just formula for power sharing among the various Afghan communities and political groups. The new political framework should have the endorsement of the regional countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran, and the UN to enhance its legitimacy and chances of success. The US failure to take a political initiative on these lines to ameliorate the conflict in Afghanistan will condemn it to prolonged fighting in that country with the growing risk of destabilising the whole region. The writer is a retired ambassador. E-mail: javid.husain@gmail.com