An Open Letter to President Obama

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot.com/

Curiously an item which I've not seen in the usual media places I visit. Even with the signatories, several of whose work has featured here, for examples Gilles Dorronsoro, Bernard Finel, Antonio Giustozzi and Ahmed Rashid.

Link to the cached edition, as the website fails to load:http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=uk or via:http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot....emics-and.html

The arguments are well made IMHO and I've refrained from selecting choice passages. Read yourself.

[tequila]

The list of attached experts is quite formidable. However the clutching for the straw of Taliban negotiations as a way out strikes me as just as unrealistic and engaging in similar wistful thinking as those who argue for night-raiding our way out of the problem.

If the authors of the letter are correct and the Taliban hold the military momentum, then there absolutely no incentive for them to negotiate at all.

Even if the Taliban wished to negotiate, the authors do not show a clear delineation of how Pakistan could also be brought to the table - as they must be, given the spoiler's hand they hold over both the Taliban and the coalition.

The authors also place a great deal of faith in the Taliban leadership's maturity and willingness to put aside their short-term interest in the interests of Afghanistan's future as a whole. I'll just say that if the Taliban leadership was willing and able to do so, that would indicate a level of political maturity and control far beyond that of any Afghan political actor in last 50 years. However I don't anticipate Mullah Omar becoming Nelson Mandela anytime soon, and putting our hopes behind him doing so is at least as foolish as anything else in this war.

[kotkinjs1]

not to be snarky, but the current campaign plan of 'clear-hold-build' isn't "clutching at straws?" Which seems more of a pipedream given 9 yrs of recent history and the realities of Afghan politics?

[tequila]

I'm sorry, but negotiation is no more realistic given just those constraints.

What seems more the pipe-dream, you ask? Negotiation is much more the pipe-dream for the reasons I listed above.

I find it far more plausible that the U.S. can build and fund an Afghan military and associated militias capable of holding several provinces against the Taliban than to believe that the Taliban will voluntarily negotiate a politically viable diplomatic solution to the war with Western nations, the Afghan government, and Pakistan.

I note that those advocating negotiation have never yet been able to envision even the broad outlines of what such a settlement might look like. I posit that there is no such settlement to be had - the priorities of the factions within the Afghan government, the Western nations, the Taliban, and most of all Pakistan are incompatible. Too many of the current parties get more out of the current situation than they would if the war came to a negotiated end. The incentives for nearly all the major players (excepting the U.S.) are all for victory, or at the very least playing out the string.

[carl]

Tequila:

I would like to add two things to your arguments. At least I hope they will add.

The first one is I think advocates of negotiations forget that the Taliban are totalitarians. That word has gone out of fashion but that is what they are. The history of the 20th century shows that totalitarians don't negotiate anything but the surrender of their targets. This is important.

Second, if I were the Pak Army/ISI/Taliban & company, I would find it very advantageous to start negotiations. It would open up another front against the US. Lots of people would expect negotiations to produce results...fast. The only people who could give something to produce fast results would be us and some of our people would push very hard for us to do just that; and force various Afghan segments to give whether they wanted to or not. We would be opening this new front against us, ourselves.

I have question for you and anybody else. Do you think Americans and American military culture has reached the point where we put the same blind, gullible faith in SpecOps to solve all problems that we have in technology to solve all problems? It is almost as if they are viewed as biological machines that will do it all. That is something that strikes me when I see us clinging to night raids even when many people who know the area say they don't work.

[JJackson]

I find it far more plausible that the U.S. can build and fund an Afghan military and associated militias capable of holding several provinces against the Taliban than to believe that the Taliban will voluntarily negotiate a politically viable diplomatic solution to the war with Western nations, the Afghan government, and Pakistan.

While I believe it would be possible to fund an army the question is ‘for whom would they hold the territory?’ Create a dominant military force and someone will arise to wield it and I see no reason to have any faith that they would use it in a way the funders would approve of. The funding would also need to be sustained indefinitely as the type of force being created is not one Afghanistan can afford or - even on the rosiest estimates – look likely to become able to afford for at least a generation or two.

As to the ‘viable diplomatic solution’ I agree that seems unlikely at present as the occupying coalition’s domestic audience has been sold an unrealistic dream so a reality based outcome is not politically acceptable. I think abandonment of an alien top down, secular, democratic government in favour of a bottom up Islamic Sharia/Shura system has a chance if there is no overwhelming central military force and only a weak central government that is stripped of the ‘Vichy’ taint so it is acceptable to Pakistan, China, the resistance and regional/tribal leaders. This kind of arrangement might be acceptable to the Asian stakeholders but is probably a bridge too far for the occupation.

[carl]

As to the ‘viable diplomatic solution’ I agree that seems unlikely at present as the occupying coalition’s domestic audience has been sold an unrealistic dream so a reality based outcome is not politically acceptable. I think abandonment of an alien top down, secular, democratic government in favour of a bottom up Islamic Sharia/Shura system has a chance if there is no overwhelming central military force and only a weak central government that is stripped of the ‘Vichy’ taint so it is acceptable to Pakistan, China, the resistance and regional/tribal leaders. This kind of arrangement might be acceptable to the Asian stakeholders but is probably a bridge too far for the occupation.

That sounds to me like the restoration of the Taliban to power. That may be palatable to "Pakistan, China, the resistance and regional/tribal leaders" but what about the rest of the world and the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and the Pashtuns who want their daughters to graduate high school?