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CNN Live At Daybreak

America's New War: Looking for Change of Government in Afghanistan

Aired September 25, 2001 - 08:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me again right now -- Joshua Cooper Ramo, who is the world editor of "Time" magazine.

First of all, let's talk about what is being described as an unstated goal of the U.S. administration right now, and that is perhaps the change of government in Afghanistan.

JOSHUA COOPER RAMO, "TIME": That's right. There is no formal acknowledgment of regime change desires by the U.S. government. And part of this is they learned a lesson from Saddam Hussein, which they spent a better part of a decade talking about wanting regime change in Iraq and not getting it and seeing the political costs of that. So even though they want regime change in Afghanistan very, very badly, you won't hear them articulate that formally.

The challenge then...

ZAHN: How will they accomplish that?

RAMO: Well, this is the challenge, is how do you do it? And they're trying to do it in a variety of ways. The first is that they're going to try to undercut everything that supports the Taliban regime, which means removing the diplomatic support. We saw that today with Saudi Arabia deciding to migrate out of this whole issue.

ZAHN: That is a key move?

RAMO: Absolutely very important. They'll try and limit financial support. Pakistan has been providing fuel and weapons and other things to the Taliban. That's not likely to continue very much longer.

But the third thing that they're going to do is try and increase the pressure on the Taliban regime from inside Afghanistan itself, and that means support for the Northern Alliance, or as they're calling themselves now, the United Front, trying to turn that into a credible opposition group that can put military pressure on the Taliban.

ZAHN: All right. Is there any evidence that is happening? I know Steve Harrigan, in one of the last reports he did for us here, said that the Northern Alliance had successfully captured some 200 members of the Taliban, and he confirmed that, in fact, they had had some intelligence support of the United States. But there is no evidence to this date -- is there -- that we have anyone on the ground there?

RAMO: No, at this point it looks very unlikely -- from what we're hearing from our people in Afghanistan and what we're hearing from other sources -- that the U.S. has somebody who is actively providing military assistance to the Northern Alliance inside Afghanistan. They may be making occasional phone calls. They may be providing a little bit of support from satellite photos from time to time, but there is not active U.S. engagement on the ground.

A second thing to keep in mind: We are going to hear, over the coming days, a number of reports of successes, probably by the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. These are not initially probably as important as they may seem. The Taliban...

ZAHN: Why is that?

RAMO: ... the Taliban has changed its force posture inside Afghanistan. They have shifted -- we don't know the exact number, but anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 troops away from the Frontier, where they were battling the Northern Alliance, and over towards the Pakistani border. And so that means it's going to be easier for the Northern Alliance to advance into territory that they weren't able to get into over the last three or four months, because there's nobody there defending it.

So you'll see incremental steps forward by the Northern Alliance. That doesn't mean that they're in any position to take Kabul.

ZAHN: So it is quite clear to you this morning why Russian has taken the position it has taken to help the United States.

RAMO: Absolutely. I mean, I think there's a number of things motivating them. But one of them is if there is going to be regime change inside Afghanistan, the Russians want to make darn sure that that regime is friendly to Moscow.

ZAHN: All right. Joshua, thanks for much -- see you a little bit later on this morning.

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