Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses

[Dayuhan]

Showing up in troubled places with a more neutral agenda that is more about empowering the locals to work out their issues short of warfare, and not seeking to control the outcome will lead to much fewer incidences of coming in with an agenda, recruiting local groups to support our agenda, and then bailing on them to deal with the consequences when our agenda either doesn't work out, or we simply change our mind.

When we impose the constraint "short of warfare" we are coming in with an agenda and seeking to control the outcome.

It's all very well and noble to say we should not try and control the outcome, but if we have no specific interest in the outcome - at least in preventing certain outcomes - we wouldn't be involved in the first place, would we? If we're there, there's an agenda.

There is no need to throw the populaces supporting the Northern Alliance under the bus in order to re-open negotiations with the Taliban. To bring the parties together in a truce that we set up and secure to work through these issues. The Karzai/Northern Alliance is an unsustainable model, and their constitution guarantees oppression and conflict. It is time to stop supporting tyranny that supports our interests, and begin embracing more neutral, less controlling approaches.

Does anybody think the Karzai regime suits our interests? As far as I can see they suit their own interests, rather predictably.

Do you really believe that the Taliban and the Karzai crowd, the Pashtun and the non-Pashtun minorities, the drug lords and the religious leaders are all going to stop fighting, participate in governance together, share power, hold hands and sing "kumbayah" if only they get the right Constitution? I wish I could believe that, but I don't. A Constitution codifies consensus, it doesn't create it. If there's no consensus to codify, a Constitution means nothing. If they pursue a Constitution because we want it, it means nothing.

I would expect that as soon as we leave, there will be a fight. The fight will go on until somebody wins, the winners will stomp the losers, and the losers will become insurgents. The winners won't control all of Afghanistan, but given that Afghanistan is a pretty abstract construct to begin with, that hardly matters. This will happen no matter what deals are made and what documents are signed. If the Taliban make a deal to throw out AQ they will break the deal as soon as they think they can get away with it... probably they will never comply with the deal in the first place. How would we verify compliance anyway? This is the nature of the place: we will not change it, we might as well accept it. Jungle Rules apply, as Stan would say, though Desert Wasteland Rules might be more accurate.

The Afghan Constitution doesn't guarantee conflict and oppression, the prevailing political culture does. A new Constitution will not change that culture. Time and evolution might, but the process is likely to be violent, and we cannot simply circumvent that process by imposing a deal that happens to suit our interests, our our idea of what their interests ought to be. We talk about empowering them to make peace... but what if they want power more than they want peace, or if they think peace can only come when they have their boot on the other guy's throat and their hand in the other guy's wallet?

This is a no-trust environment. We need to provide the neutral presence to allow them to sort out how to work together in such an environment until such time as they develop "new guards for their future security" together.

Agree on the no-trust environment, but how do you think we're going to change that? The only "guard for future security" that means anything in that environment is having lots of men with guns and doing unto others before they have a chance to do unto you... can we change that?

Or we can keep surging in more troops and ramp up for the next fighting season, Clear more terrain, Develop more progjects, kill more Taliban squad leaders (the bulk of what the Ranger's bag), and fire more drone-borne rockets into FATA bedroom windows. Just because we are good at doing the wrong thing is no reason not to attempt to do the right thing.

Or we can forget about pursuing goals we cannot accomplish - and installing an inclusive, cooperative democracy in Afghanistan is certainly in that category - and accept that Afghanistan is what it is, Afghan political culture is what it is, and our agenda is what it is. Then we get down to the specific question of how to achieve our agenda (it is, after all, why we're there) within that culture and that environment, instead of trying to change that environment to suit ourselves.

A "peace agreement" would have one great virtue: it would give us a face-saving exit point. It would not create peace, nor would it keep AQ out. We'd probably end up back in, though at least maybe if we go back we might be able to do it sensibly from the start. There's something to that, I suppose...