Amir Taheri, Arab News Staff

PARIS, 7 January 2004 — What do Afghans do when they hear some good news? They fire their guns in the air. And this is precisely what many have been doing over the past week to celebrate the approval of a new draft constitution by the Loya Jirga, a high assembly of tribal chiefs, religious leaders and other notables that has always been called to lead the nation out of a tight spot.

The latest session of the Loya Jirga lasted 22 days, instead of the 10 initially planned, and produced more drama than expected. But the assembly, which ended its latest session last weekend, did its job.

It has provided the war-ravaged nation with a new constitution that seems to enjoy widespread support. At the same time it signalled its own definitive end. The first Loya Jirga was convened over two centuries ago to create the Afghan kingdom. There will now be no more jirgas as Afghanistan, although renamed as an Islamic Republic, is, in fact, transformed into a parliamentary democracy.

Much of the credit for the jirga’s success goes to the behind-the-scenes efforts of the Bush administration and its point man in Kabul, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. The United Nations, and its special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, also deserve credit, for efforts to neutralize attempts by some regional powers, notably Iran and Russia, to split the Loya Jirga. The Afghan experience shows that, provided it is not used for demagoguery, the UN can play a positive role in specific crisis situations.

Credit is also due to Karzai, the interim president who, backed by the ex-king Muhammad Zahir Shah, managed to sooth many ruffled feathers among Pushtun tribal chiefs.

The Loya Jirga resisted, and ultimately defeated, efforts by politicians and ideologues to turn Afghanistan into a theocracy exclusively based on the Shariah. The new constitution clearly shows that political power belongs to the people and will be exercised through elected representatives, on the basis of the Basic Law and not any metaphysical principle. Islamic principles will be respected, but law-making will be the task of the Parliament and not of any clerical establishment.

Also defeated at the Afghan Loya Jirga were efforts to keep women out of political life and relegate them to a position of second class citizenship. The future Afghan Parliament is now sure to have at least some female members, to the chagrin of those who believe that women, “lacking wisdom and judgment”, are unable to choose right from wrong. This, too, will send a message to other Muslims countries that deny political rights to women.

The Loya Jirga also resisted attempts by Pushtun tribal chiefs and muftis (religious dignitaries) to impose their native language, spoken by some 38 percent of the population, as the sole official language.

Under the new constitution, Afghanistan will have two national official languages, the Dari (Persian) and the Puhstu, and at least two regional official languages, the Uzbek and the Turkmen.

In that sense, too, Afghanistan is sending a message to several Muslim states where linguistic diversity is regarded as a threat to national unity.

The 502-member Loya Jirga did something even more important, at least in immediate political terms.

It rejected a draft under which Afghanistan would have had a highly centralized government, based on a powerful executive headed by a directly elected president.

The draft, inspired by a superficial understanding of the American system of government, ignored the federal structure of the United States and provided for a president answerable only to the electorate.

The final text, however, provides for a president who, although elected by universal adult suffrage, is equally answerable to the Parliament. There will also be two vice presidents, with the understanding that they would be chosen from ethnic communities other than that of the president.

Karzai, who hopes to win the presidency in next June’s election, fought hard to impose the original draft. His opponents, however, pressed for a parliamentary system that, while allowing for greater power sharing in a multi-ethnic nation, would have weakened the central authority.

In the end, both sides had to abandon their respective maximalist positions. The future president will not have all the powers that Karzai wanted. But nor will he be the mere figurehead that his opponents wanted.

A week of good news, however, does not mean that Afghanistan, a nation torn by a quarter of a century of war, is out of the woods. Several forces are still at work to destroy the fragile peace imposed by the United States and its allies after the fall of the Taleban two years ago.

The first threat comes from the Pushtuns who, like the Sunnis in Iraq, find it hard to abandon their traditional hold on power. And, again like the Iraqi Sunnis who draw support from sister communities in neighboring Arab countries, the Afghan Pushtuns look for support to their kith and kin in Pakistan.

The second threat comes from the estimated half a million armed men, divided into dozens of private armies, some of which are linked to local and international drug barons. Despite repeated promises by Washington, recently relayed by NATO, the task of disarming these dangerous groups has not even begun.

The third threat comes from regional powers, especially Iran, Pakistan and Russia, which though not a neighbor, exerts influence through its military presence in Tajikistan. Afghanistan was created in the 18th century as a buffer state to separate Tsarist, Persian and British Empires. Attempts at undermining Afghanistan’s neutrality always led to war, and could do so again in the future.

The most aggrieved neighbor of Afghanistan at present is Pakistan that, having backed the Taleban to the bitter end, finds itself with no friends or clients in Kabul. The new Afghan government must find some means of reassuring Islamabad and thus ensuring genuine Pakistani support for the destruction of what is left of the Taleban, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the wild frontier lands of southeastern Afghanistan. Right now the Pakistani government is less than enthusiastic in helping end the low intensity war waged by the terrorists against the Karzai regime and its American sponsors.

Since there are more Pushtuns in Pakistan — where they are known as Pathans — any attempt at solving Afghanistan’s Puhtun problem would have to enlist Islamabad’s support.

In fact, many experts believe that a majority of the Pushtuns engaged in current attacks in south-eastern Afghanistan are Pakistani Pathans, including many “volunteers for martyrdom” trained in Pakistani cities such as Peshawar and Quetta.

The fourth, and possibly the most important, threat to future peace and stability in Afghanistan comes from the slow pace of reconstruction.

In the past two years much has been promised but little has been done. The standard excuse is lack of security, used like the chicken-or-egg argument. In the case of Afghanistan the egg and the chicken come together, reconstruction breeds security and vice versa.

The fifth threat comes from the uncertainty of the American commitment to long-term support for Afghanistan. Almost all the politicians seeking the US Democrat Party’s presidential nomination have hinted, or openly promised, a quick end to Washington’s involvement in Afghanistan. And that sends jitters down many spines in Kabul.