A Federation of Afghanistan and a Congressman’s Dream

“How dare Karzai deny a U.S. Congressman entry to his fucked country,” burst Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican lawmaker in the U.S. Congress, over the telephone from Dubai to an aide in Washington, DC.

It was 20 April 2012 and the Californian representative was on his way, along with several other fellow lawmakers, to Kabul when Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, called him to say President Karzai had declared him persona non grata.

Dana wanted his aides and friends in Washington’s powerful lobby system to riddle the media with this sentence: Karzai has blocked entry to Afghanistan of a U.S. Congressman who wants to cripple Karzai’s massive corruption enterprise.

Over the next two days Mr. Rohrabacher had a mic on at his disposal in over 15 high-profile interviews in each of which he lampooned President Karzai worse than the world’s worst criminal.

Participants of a meeting in Berlin, Jan 2012

Over a year later Rohrabacher’s insults are gone but his plan for Afghanistan - because of which Karzai refused to let him into Kabul - is gaining momentum.

The Kurdistan model

“They’re just like Kurdish Peshmergas,” Dana told a fellow Republican lawmaker after his inconclusive trip in April 2012. By “they” the Congressman meant the Afghan Northern Alliance.

Dana’s interests in Afghanistan blossomed in 1980s when the landlocked country was invaded by the Red Army and when he travelled to the region and made friends among the anti-Soviet Afghan Mujahideen factions.

In late 2001 the U.S. Government - Pentagon and CIA in particular - ousted the Taliban and brought Dana’s Afghan friends, now the Northern Alliance, into power in Afghanistan.

Over the subsequent decade as the Northern Alliance warlords garnered enormous wealth, institutional power and political legitimacy, Dana was invited to numerous meetings in Afghanistan, UAE, Germany and elsewhere.

It was during these meetings that a consensus came into existence - to break up parts of Afghanistan into independent federal states.

For centuries Afghanistan has been manipulated by Pashtuns and a central and presidential political system enables them to maintain the status quo, Dana was told.

During a meeting in January 2012 in Berlin, Congressman Rohrabacher distributed a white-paper in a meeting which included Mohammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara warlord, Gen. Dostum, an Uzbek warlord, Amrullah Saleh, a translator of the late Ahmad Shah Masoud who at 30 was appointed to run Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, and Ahmad Zia Masoud, a brother of commander Masoud.

The paper summarily illustrated how the Iraqi Kurdistan became an autonomous governing sphere.

It impressed the Afghan participants.

Dana and a U.S. Senator also explained to the Afghans that under the Truman Doctrine, the U.S. government supported minorities in other countries where their political rights were compromised.  

Afghanistani states

Dr Abdullah and Mohammad Muhaqiq, backed by several Northern Alliance leaders, have teamed up and are running for the top political office in Afghanistan. The two men are running on a ticket which has Dana’s stamp - a federally-administered Afghanistan.

They want to swap Afghanistan’s traditional system of central governing with the one which will devolve greater autonomy to the country’s specific regions. Under the plan, Afghanistan will be divided into a handful of federal zones per ethnic, religious and linguistic lines and each will have its executive, legislative and judicial branches.

“We envision an Afghanistani Hazaristan” a confidant and advisor of Mohaqiq told me in Kabul asking for anonymity given the sensitive nature of the issue. He said the Afghanistani Hazaristan will encompass central and south-central parts of the country which, in his words, were mostly populated by ethnic Hazaras.

In the north, there will be an “Afghanistani Khorasan” where the official language will be Farsi and the populace will be mixed ethnically i.e. Tajiks, Pashtuns and Hazaras.

“In the south and east, we believe an Afghanistani Pashtunistan would be very attractive to the local people,” the advisor said adding the official language there would be Pashto.

While Kabul and its immediate surroundings will be kept as the capital of the new federation, the west of the country will be offered a referendum to either join the Pashunistan, the Khorasan or the Hazaristan.

Abdullah-Mohaqiq’s electoral platform appears to have strong backing from their lawmaker friend in Washington, DC - Mr. Rohrabacher.

The Obama Administration has publicly vowed that it would not seek a favorite in Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election. Politically this might be correct and Washington may not back any of the 11 men running for President Karzai’s position.

In terms of U.S. foreign policy, however, support for the minorities to achieve their political rights is an imperative.