After the Taliban, all hopes for peace rest with UN

The urgent question now is how can Afghanistan be protected from the fratricidal bloodshed that has so often accompanied changes of government in the past? Step forward the United Nations? Well, yes and no. Everyone is now calling upon the UN. Tony Blair has spoken of its key role. French President Jacques Chirac said this week that the entry of Northern Alliance troops into Kabul made a political solution all the more pressing. The UN must get in there, he said.

A senior Mujahideen commander, Pir Sayed Ahmad Gallani, made the same call for the UN to create a broad-based government. "We hope that the United Nations as quickly as possible moves in and starts laying out a system for a transition."

UN officials are quick to point out that they have been deeply involved in Afghanistan for 20 years. They have had a political office there for 10 years since Soviet withdrawal, trying to facilitate an agreement between warring factions. That was a vain effort until 11 September because no one, least of all such neighbours as Pakistan, would co-operate. Suddenly all are co-operating, especially Pakistan, which, having created and supported the Taliban, is now helping the United States and the UN's chief envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi.

On Tuesday Brahimi, a widely respected Algerian diplomat, spelled out to the Security Council the UN's blueprint for the future, saying: "Time is of the essence. Things are changing fast on the ground."

He announced that his deputy, Francis Vendrell, would go to Kabul as soon as his security could be guaranteed to begin talks on a political solution to the crisis. Afghan factions should be brought together as quickly as possible in a single meeting; they should establish an ethnically-balanced provisional council, around which all groups could rally; a grand assembly of tribal elders, known as a loya jirga, should set out a national programme of action and security goals; the provisional council could set up a transitional administration to last up to two years - it would produce a constitution. A second loya jirga would then approve this constitution and "create a government for Afghanistan".

Brahimi realises that a first essential is a security force to protect all these complicated processes. His first choice, which seems overoptimistic to many, is for an all-Afghan force. Failing that, a multinational force provided by a coalition of the willing, will have to go in. This could include the US, Britain, and others, who may include Turkey, New Zealand and Indonesia.

What about a traditional peacekeeping force? The UN has all but dismissed that idea. A UN report on peacekeeping written by Brahimi himself stated there were things the UN cannot do and places it cannot go. UN peacekeeping in Afghnistan today is one of these forbidden areas. In the best of all possible worlds it would take three months to put together a peacekeeping force. No such time is available.

Peacekeeping aside, the UN will be deeply involved in post-conflict reconstruction. After Brahimi addressed the Security Council he was given assurances that this time - unlike after Soviet withdrawal - the world has the will and the crucial staying power to help Afghanistan in the long term. The country will need enormous financial and technical resources after 20 years of war and three years of drought.

The Security Council has given its blessing to Brahimi to organise a reconstruction conference - to get all the Afghan groups together, including the Pashtuns, who form more than 40 per cent of the population, to select a transitional administration which is acceptable to the majority of the population.

Once blessed by a loya jirga, this new administration will run the country with no international interference, but with the UN as a facilitator not an administrator, pouring in assistance. UN agencies now need to rush in food, shelter and clothing as winter sets in. Brahimi has suggested using the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif as a hub. Airlifts would then get food to inaccessible areas. Neighbouring countries should open their borders to refugees and other nations should be prepared to grant them asylum.

The extreme difficulties of such a rational solution are shown by the fact that the Northern Alliance broke both an agreement with the US and a commitment to exiled Afghan king, Zahir Shah, who has been trying to organise a broad-based government of national unity, not to enter Kabul at once. Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Alliance leader, has said the king can return, but only as an ordinary citizen.

What is to stop the Northern Alliance now defying the world and ruling as arbitrarily as it did before? Money and muscle. They know that they would never have got to Kabul this week but for the military support of the US and Britain. They can only stay there with such support. And Afghanistan can only be rebuilt and governed with massive outside material assistance.

"They will have to sit up and listen when the world says, 'We are here for the long-term and will give you massive support but only if ...'" said a UN official. The best hope for Afghanistan is that since 11 September the world has realised the terrible danger of allowing terrorists such as Osama bin Laden to have a failed state as an adventure playground. Afghanistan must be rebuilt as a better society - because there is no alternative.

? William Shawcross is on the board of the International Crisis Group and is the author of Deliver Us From Evil, Warlords, Peacekeeper, and A World Of Endless Conflict.