Is the Northern Alliance an Acceptable Partner?
Few Western strategists and politicians have faith in the Northern Alliance, whose reputation for brutality and internecine feuding does not make it a promising partner for peace in post-war Afghanistan. Competing ethnic and military strands within it are just as likely to destabilise Afghanistan as they are to create a workable settlement. The alliance is likely to use the seizure of Mazar-i-Sharif to demand the right to take Kabul. Before any such development is allowed, the West must secure a means of monitoring this process. The Northern Alliance cannot be trusted not to carry out a bloodbath against the Pashtun population of the south and east. The West has an urgent responsibility to ensure that its dubious set of allies in this conflict are constrained by humane standards of behaviour.
