Others simply viewed Rabbani and Massoud as ineffectual,
although the irony of Pushtuns blaming Tajiks for not suppressing
predatory warlordism amongst Pushtuns – especially when the
Tajiks were themselves being attacked by a Pushtun extremist –
was not lost on all observers. A more frequent charge, not made
only by moderate Pushtuns, was that Massoud showed a lack of
political judgment to match his military skills, with the rift with
Wahdatespecially in mind (Griffin, 2000: 30). However, it is not
otherwise clear what alternative strategy the critics would have
recommended for a Defence Minister confronted by an externally
backed total spoiler in circumstances of state collapse. There are
rarely magic solutions to such problems.
The Rabbani-Hekmatyar rapprochement
One way notto proceed was illustrated by Rabbani. Although
Rabbani in 1992 had called Hekmatyar a dangerous terrorist, at
times he seemed willing to treat him as if he were little more than
a wayward Kabul University student. May 1996 was one of those
times. In that month, the two reached an agreement at Mahipar
(BBC Summary of World Broadcasts FE/2685/A/1–2, 8 August
1996; BBC Summary of World Broadcasts FE/2686/A/1, 9
August 1996), providing for Hekmatyar once again to become
Prime Minister, an office he duly assumed on 26 June. The archi-
tects of this rapprochement were the Pakistani politicians Qazi
Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-e Islami, and General Hamid Gul.
The agreement caused fury among various Jamiatsupporters, and
the Taliban welcomed Hekmatyar to Kabul with a ferocious rocket
barrage during his swearing-in ceremony (Gélinas, 1997: 118–19).
Rabbani seems to have felt that bringing Hekmatyar into the gov-
ernment would ‘broaden its base’ through the granting of a key
position to a Pushtun. But Hekmatyar was not the kind of Pushtun
Rabbani needed, since his base had never been regional or tribal.
Hekmatyar could be brought back only because he was weak
(Rubin, 1997b: 287), too weak to function as a ‘total spoiler’. The
agreement was attractive for Hekmatyar, since it rescued him from
The Rise and Fall of the Rabbani Government, 1992–1996 215