put his faith in the Peshawar-based party leaders to craft a govern-
ment (Nojumi, 2002). But the turmoil after the collapse of the com-
munist regime was fundamentally rooted in the collapse of the
state, in the exposure of Afghanistan’s domestic politics to external
manipulation, and in the rationality of the spoiler. In a penetrating
analysis of this period, Gilles Dorronsoro corrected some of the
misreadings of what was going on: ‘This new war’s frequently shift-
ing alliances give the impression of irrationality and chaos, but
everything that has happened since 1992 has been the result of a rig-
orous political logic. The Afghan civil war is not “primitive” or
“tribal,” but strongly political’ (Dorronsoro, 1995: 37).
This chapter is divided into five sections. In the first, I discuss the
attempt to provide a new foundation for political power through the
crafting of elite settlements, and show why these various endeavours
failed to bear fruit. In the second, I discuss the battle for Kabul, its
twists and turns, and its consequences. The third briefly examines the
situation beyond Kabul. The fourth deals with efforts made by the
new ‘UN Special Mission to Afghanistan’ to contribute to a settle-
ment, and shows why these efforts failed. The fifth, without going
into great detail about the nature of the Taliban movement, traces the
undoing of the Rabbani government, culminating in its retreat from
Kabul as the Taliban closed in on 26 September 1996.
THE FAILURE OF ELITE SETTLEMENTS
The nature of elite settlements
In the aftermath of the collapse of the communist regime, the need
for a functioning political system was considerable. The task of
reconstruction was enormous, and the end of communist power
had triggered the largest and fastest spontaneous repatriation of
refugees in modern history. By the end of 1992, fully 1.4 million
refugees had returned to Afghanistan since the beginning of the
year (Ruiz, 1992). Yet the search for workable political institutions
remained in its infancy, and one of the reasons was that the new
Afghan political elite was severely divided.
The Rise and Fall of the Rabbani Government, 1992–1996 195