NEGOTIATING WITH THE TALIBAN, PART II

A REMINDER that we're on the road and postings and reply to comments may be erratic.

When last seen Garry Trudeau's Red Rascal super hero in the Doonesbury comic strip seemed to have reinvented himself. Red Rascal came on the scene last year as a fighter against the "evil doers" in Afghanistan. Eventually he withdrew in resignation and weariness from his battles with the Taliban evil doers and government corruption, battles which would certainly tire even the most intrepid super hero. Recently he re-emerged unmasked but, sadly, this time as the rescuer of evil doers fleeing from revolution somewhere in the Arab world. But a recent article in The New Yorker magazine (Feb. 28) suggests that it is time for the Red Rascal to return to his roots and resume his quest against Afghan evil doers -- whoever they may be.

According to the article, the U.S. has decided to enter into direct secret talks with Taliban leaders to find a political way of extricating ourselves from a long and costly war that defies a military solution. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, himself an aider and abettor of evil doing, would lead the talks with the U.S. playing a supporting role. Karzai has had previous, intermittent meetings with some Taliban leaders but it is not evident what they have produced, unless it is the new round of negotiations. A core problem is that there are too many moving parts to any settlement.

The Taliban itself is not a monolithic organization. It has its hardline, bitter anti-American element such as the Haqqani group based in Pakistan (see last year's post "Negotiating with the Taliban") and a supposedly more moderate faction, the Quetta Shura, also based in Pakistan. There are also Taliban insurgent groups within Afghanistan who appear to act independently. On the other side, the Karzai government and the territory it supposedly controls is made up of different ethnic tribes, some of whom are both anti-Taliban and anti-Karzai. Tribally, the Taliban has its support base in southern Afghanistan with the Sunni Pashtuns, the largest single ethnic group in the country. Karzai himself is a Pashtun but in the last parliamentary election he lost his Pashtun/Sunni majority to opposition Shia ethnic groups, the loss attributable at least in part to Taliban threats against Pashtun voters.

Then there are the international players. The U.S. is an obvious participant in any political negotiations. No less a key player is Pakistan where so much of the Taliban leadership has found santuary and which has a history of supporting the Taliban. Then there is neighboring Iran (Shia) which at one time was strongly anti-Taliban but which now supports it in various ways as part of Iran's overall anti-U.S. policy (see post "The 800 Pound Gorilla"). And of course there are other interested neighbors such as China which is always concerned about anything happening on its borders and is particularly concerned about Islamic fundamentalists within and outside its borders. Add to that Russia which historically has involved itself in that region, most recently its failed l980s occupation of Afghanistan.

Then there are the substantive questions of what would a political settlement look like. Again refer to the "Negotiating with the Taliban" post. To capsulize that posting, two immediate issues arise concerning how the Taliban would participate in any political settlement. One would be a settlement that legally recognizes the factual situation of Taliban control in various parts of the country, most notably the Pashtun areas of the south and east. The second, perhaps in combination with the first, would bring the Taliban into the national government in Kabul, something likely to be opposed by the anti-Taliban, anti-Pashtun ethnic groups that have already established themselves in the capital.

Another possibility is one that has been proposed by Robert D. Blackwill, President George W. Bush's ambassador to India and later a national security council advisor. In an Article in Foreign Affairs (Jan./Feb. 2011)Blackwill says a military solution is beyond achievement so it's time to consider Plan B -- partition. Such a partition, akin to the first in the previous paragraph, would accept Taliban control/governance of the south and east regions where it is already deeply embedded. The northern and western areas would be governed by what is currenly the Karzai government in Kabul, with nation-building support from the U.S., the U.N., and neighboring countries. And looking farther down the road, Blackwill says perhaps the Kabul government would become sufficiently strong to reconsolidate the two parts. What Blackwill doesn't seem to consider is that it may be the Taliban that may do the reconsolidating, a possibility that could solidify the opposition of the anti-Taliban and anti-Karzai groups to such a partition.

The bottom line is that our military commitment in Afghanistan is not likely to result in defeating the Taliban and a political settlement is required. But don't look for a quick fix. There are too many moving parts to the problem -- a factionalized Taliban, a corrupt so-called central government in Kabul, a long history of decentralized ethnic/tribal warlord control, and a number of international players with their own self-interests who are either actively engaged now or waiting for the right time to demand a seat at the bargaining table. So Red Rascal, pump yourself up to this challenge and get your own early seat at the negotiations. We could surely use another set of eyes on the evil doers.