Barnard Professor Kimberly Marten Zisk

"If we are serious about winning the war on terrorism, U.S. and British troops can't go home once the current fighting in Afghanistan is over," says Kimberly Marten Zisk, professor of political science at Barnard College and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Instead, troops should stay in the region and be ready to go back in to restore order on behalf of the international community, since order in Afghanistan will inevitably deteriorate in coming months. Failure to achieve stability in Afghanistan will tempt terrorists to set up shop there again, reinvigorating the Al Qaeda networks that are now in disarray, according to Zisk.

As the United Nations sponsors negotiations among the warring Afghan factions to establish a coalition government in Kabul, Zisk points out that to expect warlords who have been fighting for 30 years to settle their disagreements peacefully anytime soon is naïve.

She argues that whatever arrangement is reached is unlikely to hold for long. When fighting erupts again, someone will have to intervene to prevent Afghanistan from reemerging as a safe haven for terrorists.

Zisk, whose teaching specialites include the United Nations, international politics and international security, says that the UN plan is to support the new Afghan government with a peacekeeping force from Islamic countries, led by Turkey.

Current discussions do not include a major role for the American military. Zisk does not agree with Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the UN, who argues that the U.S. should play a very limited role in Afghanistan's future security, providing at most logistics and communications support for a Turkish-led UN force.

"The UN learned in the 1990s, in areas ranging from Bosnia to East Timor, that difficult peace missions only succeed if they are backed by large numbers of well-armed troops, authorized to use force to protect both civilians and the UN mission when they are threatened by violence," says Zisk

"Turkey is not a good choice for this peace enforcement role. The Turkish army is too secular and politicized. In fact, a coup almost took place in Turkey in the late 1990s when Turkish generals intervened in politics to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from influencing policy," she adds.

Many of Afghanistan's powerful warlords, who are already arguing against a UN mission for their country, are conservative Muslims who will suspect that Turkish troops have an ulterior, secularizing motive for enforcing the peace. Therefore, any Turkish use of force to restore order could provoke violence against the UN mission, according to Zisk.

"Turkey is also undergoing an economic crisis, one that threatens the popularity of the government and will worsen with the global recession. We cannot count on Turkey to sustain the complex peace enforcement mission that is likely to be required in coming months. Whoever takes responsibility for this mission must have both the resource base to support a sudden expansion in military activity, and the political will to keep forces abroad under difficult circumstances," Zisk further comments.

According to Zisk, no other Islamic country has the military resources to lead a peace enforcement mission. But the United States and Great Britain do have unique capabilities that could help make the UN plan work.

"Our stable economies will weather the recession better than most. Our governments have large military reserve forces to call on if needed, and immense popular support for the anti-terrorism campaign. We can deploy forces quickly to quell small problems, without becoming a threatening occupation force. Most important, we have both the military assets and the security motives necessary to make a peace enforcement mission in Afghanistan effective, since our own safety depends on stability there," she states.

As for the role of the U.S. and British forces, Zisk says that many voices from within Afghanistan in recent days have credited the U.S. military presence for the quick reemergence of normal life in the country. Zisk also says that the skeptics argue that U.S. troops in Afghanistan will become a target for terrorist attacks. Zisk contends that the solution is not to keep American forces permanently on the ground.

Instead, U.S. and British forces should continue to train together nearby, perhaps using the facilities of our NATO ally Turkey, and be ready to go in if called upon by the UN.

A rapid reaction force prepared to use the kinds of tactics that have worked so well in recent weeks would be a powerful deterrent to any warlords tempted to disrupt the peace. The creation of such a force alone might even guarantee that it never has to be used.

"We cannot afford to withdraw behind our borders and ignore Afghanistan again. Instead we need to work with the UN to create an American-supported peacekeeping force that will truly keep the peace until stability in the country is solidified. Otherwise, Al Qaeda will use disorder in Afghanistan to regroup for another round of terrorism," Zisk concludes.