BW,

As SWC regulars (and irregulars) appreciate I am a big believer in the criticality of reconciliation of the issues of poor governance that are at the heart of causation for the Taliban Leadership in Pakistan. This to be followed up by Constitutional Loya Jirga that is focused on producing a constitution that prevents any one organization, ethnic group or office from gaining too much power (create trust) and identify and protect key individual rights, and defining a trusted, certain and legal construct that makes sense to these people for selecting leaders and enacting laws at all levels.
You often bring up the US Constitution as a model for bringing about good governance. I agree to a point - however, I (and others) have often tried to point out to you the problem of irreconcilable divisions within a nation or society and this is a point you've pretty much ignored in your responses. So let me illustrate this position by looking at the US and the US Constitution.

While I agree that US Constitution is a great model for governance in the United States we need to remember that it failed, spectacularly, in preventing a civil war. We had a civil war because the Constitution was unable to peacefully reconcile the deep, irreconcilable divisions within this country. Lord knows we tried and the Constitution was instrumental in delaying the day of reckoning by allowing a host of political compromises - however, all of them proved to be temporary and inadequate. All the features of the Constitution that were carefully and specifically crafted to satisfy the diversity of interests in America failed and the consequence was war.

My skepticism of your faith in a Constitutional and "good governance" solution to Afghanistan's many internal problems stems in part from this history in the US. A good Constitution is no guarantee that differences within a political structure can be resolved peacefully. This is especially the case with Afghanistan, whose borders are the unnatural result of colonial ambitions that arbitrarily divided ethnic groups. Consequently, Afghanistan's neighbors and outsiders have plenty of incentive to intervene in Afghanistan's internal affairs which only makes governance more difficult. What, exactly, makes you think that an agreeable construct is presently possible, much less the specific fix you have in mind? Your advocacy seems to be based solely on your theory of governance and insurgency which doesn't account for conditions where good governance is not possible, nor does it account for weak states that are kept weak thanks to constant foreign meddling.

In my estimation, the differences in Afghan society are deep enough to at least give one a measure of skepticism regarding the potential for mutually-agreeable power sharing in a "nation" as dysfunctional and broken as Afghanistan. My skepticism is further deepened by the consideration that these ideas about how Afghans should govern themselves come from foreigners with different cultural traditions and mores who are pursuing their own interests and are likely engaging in cultural mirror-imaging.

On that last point, advice to Afghans should be tempered by an appreciation of the circumstances, culture and history of Afghanistan. I studied Afghanistan both professionally and personally pretty much non-stop for about six years and the one thing I learned from that effort is just how much I still don't know. In other words, studying Afghanistan taught me just enough to scratch the surface and understand the depth of my ignorance - ignorance which was previously hidden to me. For me, the result was that I finally knew enough to put aside all my paternal presumptions about how Afghan's ought to organize their society. It finally put to rest the little remaining sympathy I had for the idea that the US has the power to create democracy and rearrange societies through force of arms. It made me very skeptical that we in the US can determine what is best for them, much less the process required to get them where we think they should be. On this point I am in 110% agreement with Dayuhan, who, legitimately in my view, brings this point up time and again in response to your solutions for fixing other people's governance problems whether that's Tunisia, Saudi or Afghanistan.

So to me the idea that Karzai, the Taliban or whatever faction within Afghanistan can be pressured by an outside power to create some semblance of what we would consider fair and equitable governance is unlikely to succeed. The entire notion that one government can successfully pressure another government to fundamentally alter its governance structure is wishful thinking to me. When has such an effort ever succeeded? Karzai will do what every leader in that position will do and has done in response to similar US pressure.

And Afghanistan is only part of the problem - the governance issues are almost as bad in Pakistan. Are we next to pressure the Pakistanis to hold alter their constitution to address the lack of governance in the tribal and border areas? We can try and they will laugh at our arrogance and then tell us politely to sod off.

In short, we need to quit trying to change the governance structures of other nations and instead deal with them as they are.