Afghan soldiers are killing American contractors and British troops. The recent news from the field is causing no less than rushed panic in strategy and policy circles: How can we draw down when the team we’re supposed to be handing off to in 2014 is infiltrated through with the enemy?
It’s no surprise then that President Obama is losing his patience. He’s sent in every available share holder to wrench his Afghanistan policy back on track. Not a day goes by that some talking head isn’t busy parsing out what Vice President Joe Biden meant when he told Jonathan Alter that the U.S would be drawing down in 2011, “Bet on it”, he said.
So, yes, President Obama is looking for a robustly engineered, settled peace. The trouble is: that is not likely to happen, at least not in the way we want it to happen. The Guardian published an excellent piece–though no one in the U.S. seems to know this– that lays out the road ahead if the Obama administration were to sit down, in any capacity, with members of the Taliban:
“The Guardian has learned that while the American government is still officially resistant to the idea of talks with Taliban leaders, behind the scenes a shift is under way and Washington is encouraging Karzai to take a lead in such negotiations.”
First off, just imagine what this would mean for women’s rights in those parts of Afghanistan ceded to the Taliban. Consider that any settled negotiation means that the U.S. and NATO alliance are giving up on all those people who might not stand easy with the Taliban. This is one cut of the moral argument against negotiation. Everything, of course, turns on whether negotiating with the Taliban is the most sensible option in strategically pursuing the outcome assessed to be the best one, given the conditions on the ground. All signs point to the likelihood that negotiation is not the best strategy; in fact it’s not at all obvious what the best strategy is. (I’ll soon have some thoughts on this.)
So the ends are far off. Let us talk about means. In this drowning bee buzz, one of the more interesting published commentary on the current track in negotiating with the Taliban comes from Thomas Barnett, the sometime Esquire magazine columnist. Though it reads like something of a throwaway piece, all of his points are worth considering, twice, thrice, four times.
For instance, take just 2 of the” 7 Things to Remember When We Talk to the Taliban”:
“This kind of outreach [to the Taliban] transmits neither strength nor staying power. It says, frankly: You’re winning this round, and President Obama is desperate to end the bout as soon as the next bell rings. Worse, floating it just as General Petraeus steps into the right says the fix is in.”
And again:
“By all expert accounts, we might be able to rope in former Afghan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his crowd — assuming, that is, that we lift the State Department’s designation of him as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” (Details!) And Pakistan should be able to deliver Sirajuddin Haqqani’s crew from south of the border (for how long is any optimist’s guess). But Mullah Omar — the kind of man who can spiritually turn the entire Taliban movement on its head with one video, the kind of man who can harbor bin Laden, the kind of man who helped orchestrate the September 11 attacks — will remain beyond the pale, and in the fight. Remind me why we’re talking to these people again?
The point in all this? It’s more than likely that sitting down to negotiate with the Taliban will send a signal that they are likely to see us out of the field of battle, a move that they’re likely to leverage against the U.S, Kabul and every other allied party for future, maybe final, negotiations. Moreover, in order to gain anything at all, we have to bet on Pakistan turning against the Haqqani network and that the designated terrorists –who are in fact regional king makers– will work together to strengthen Kabul. For now, this does seem to be a winning bet.
The argument on a feasible exit strategy does not turn on whether we should draw down or whether we should negotiate; rather, that, it matters when we draw down, negotiate. Where do we go from here then? If we negotiate with the Taliban, it can only mean that we are ready to consign some part of Afghanistan to their own grim sovereignty. In his rough shod musings, Barnett brings up this point as well.
Former Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill recently wrote in Politico that partition is the only solution consistent with domestic politics and current national interests for homeland security :
“After the administration’s December Afghanistan review, the U.S. polity should stop talking about timelines and exit strategies and accept that the Taliban will inevitably control most of its historic stronghold in the Pashtun south. But Washington could ensure that north and west Afghanistan do not succumb to jihadi extremism, using U.S. air power and special forces along with the Afghan army and like-minded nations. “
Let us be certain that when we talk about negotiating with the Taliban we are in effect talking about something like partitioning Afghanistan into two enclaves. We are ceding to them real estate they are likely to win in any case. Hence there are serious costs to partition, even if– short of the wholesale takeover of Afghanistan–partitions turns out to be a stable equilibrium outcome for all our troubles. Then, at that turn, we might find the normative argument come rushing back, the one that that we had earlier pushed onto the side-lines, challenging us to reconsider our “best” strategic moves. What good is settled peace when the people concerned with peace are at war? What good is partitioned sovereignty in those places where women are put to death for infractions that we, in the United States, consider grounds for a week-long argument?
