JOHN HUMPHRYS:                                      So what are we to 
make of all that?  Well Fred Halliday is the Professor of International 
Relations at the London School of Economics.  He's got a book coming out 
this week as it happens on the implications of September the eleventh. 


                        Professor, the chances 
of success for that meeting in Germany - great, non-existent - what?

PROFESSOR FRED HALLIDAY:        Well, I think the fact that it's 
happening is a success on two levels, one is enough Afghan parties are 
going to talk, nobody's trying to take victory for themselves, nobody thinks 
they can create a strong central government and simply run Afghanistan 
like the Communists did, or indeed the Taliban did.

HUMPHRYS:                    Not even the Northern 
Alliance.

HALLIDAY:                    No. The Northern Alliance 
know they can't rule the rest of the country and of course then we come 
to the second point.  The problem in Afghanistan in the last ten years 
hasn't been the cold war which ended a decade ago, it's been the regional 
states, particularly a proxy conflict between Pakistan on the one hand 
backing the Taliban, Iran on the other hand backing the Northern Alliance. 
 Now Iran and Pakistan have done some sort of deal for the time being, 
they've agreed to let this go forward and one of the purposes of the Bonn 
conference, one of the purposes of the whole UN diplomatic effort is to 
make sure that the regional states who've been messing Afghanistan up will 
co-operate in the process and I think that's a good sign.  

                        People will bargain - 
that's politics, but the fact that so many people are willing to go there 
and again if you compare it to Yugoslavia, no-one is trying to ethnically 
cleanse anybody.  Nobody is trying to secede, there's nobody saying we 
want to leave Afghanistan.  People talk about nation building in Afghanistan. 
There is an Afghan nation, it's a very decentralised one but there is one. 
 So some of the omens are good.

HUMPHRYS:                    But I note you say in 
that answer  'for the time being'.

HALLIDAY:                    Well, I don't think any 
outside power, neither the Russians nor the Americans, nor any of the regional 
powers, are going to start arming and stoking up a war in Afghanistan, 
which has been going on for twenty years.  Even before the Communists came 
to power Pakistan was doing it in the seventies.  And I think secondly 
the people of Afghanistan are tired and even the leaders realise they've 
got to do some kind of deal.  So if you can find a mechanism to set up 
a transitional government, put in some international money, then the chances 
of stabilising it are reasonably great.  Then all sorts of problems of 
real life and politics like landmines, like rights for women, like the 
drugs trade - those problems will be there, but you will have a reasonably 
coherent government with a bit of international support and that would 
be a step forward from twenty years of war.

HUMPHRYS:                    But that's making the 
assumption is it that the Northern Alliance will agree to give up some 
power.  I mean I was talking to the Foreign Secretary there and I put it 
to him then as you'll have heard, that it is........

HALLIDAY:                    .......he's not the Foreign 
Secretary.

HUMPHRYS:                    ....former Foreign Secretary. 
 Good Heavens alive, I'm a wee bit out of date there, aren't I.  Leader 
of the House and a member of the War Cabinet..

HALLIDAY:                    ..fine man but not the 
Foreign Secretary..

HUMPHRYS:                    ...fine man but not the 
Foreign Secretary.  Making the point that they see themselves as - the 
Northern Alliance now see themselves as the government of Afghanistan. 
 So they've got to give way?

HALLIDAY:                    They've got to give way. 
 But look, let's face it, they got what they did because the Americans 
and the Brits came in on their side and they know that very well.  Secondly 
if they're going to get international money from this trust fund, we're 
talking five - ten billion US dollars is being offered, they're going to 
have to compromise.  Thirdly, they know what I don't think they knew before 
and the Taliban didn't realise which is that you can't run Afghanistan 
representing only half of the country, so they've got to work with people 
from the Pashtun area like Hamid Karzai who you had on and even perhaps 
some people who were associated with the Taliban, provided these people 
don't want to lock up women, provided they don't want to export terrorism, 
provided they don't want to run the country on their own.  So I think there 
is a basis for a compromise there.   But the other problem is that the 
Northern Alliance are not agreed among themselves.  You see General Dostum 
is trying to claim the capture of Konduz for himself, so he's got his own 
Uzbek agenda there.  So there are problems within the Northern Alliance 
which may create further difficulties.

HUMPHRYS:                    And if the Northern Alliance 
does split, if they start to fight each other, then what - how does that 
get sorted out?

HALLIDAY:                    I don't think they'll 
start to fight each other in a major way.  I'd be surprised.  There' a 
lot of guns there, but people are in a bargaining mood, they're in a political 
mood if you like.  And then the people who control them, the Americans, 
the Iranians and others are pushing them towards a compromise, so I'd be 
optimistic there.  There may be the odd clash, but they won't hang on to 
every ministry in Kabul and at the end of the day you decentralise in Afghanistan. 
 This is a country with no great population problems, which has got a large 
amount of water and cultivatable land. If you let the people get back to 
agriculture and let them get back to trading, the government will look 
after itself.

HUMPHRYS:                    And might we see some 
element of the Taliban in that government?

HALLIDAY:                    We will see Pashtuns 
who were associated with the Taliban, but they're not going to be Taliban. 
 A bit like reformed Communists in Eastern Europe.  They're not going to 
export terrorism to Central Asia, they're not going to give harbour to 
Bin Laden, they're not going to try and impose this very rigid and un-Afghan 
version of Islam on the women of Afghanistan, they're not going to do that.

HUMPHRYS:                    You sound reasonably 
optimistic.

HALLIDAY:                    I know you're not an 
optimist, but....

HUMPHRYS:                    No, no!

HALLIDAY:                    I think there's reason 
to be ..

HUMPHRYS:                    I just ask questions. 
 That's all. But you are reasonably optimistic?

HALLIDAY:                    Yes, and I think the 
regional states above all are willing to go along with it for the time 
being.

HUMPHRYS:                    Professor Halliday, many 
thanks.