Diplomacy imitates confused reality
Yesterday’s Bonn conference on Afghanistan reflected all too starkly the war. Lots of countries showed up, but Pakistan–certainly among the most important–did not. The Taliban weren’t there either. Iran was, but sounding out of tune with both the Americans and Afghans, who emphasized the need for continuing assistance and foreign military presence. Tehran blames the whole mess on foreign intervention. Afghanistan was looking for long-term commitment, not specific pledges. There was no progress on the country’s confusing current reality.
The best I can say for the event is that Hillary Clinton knows what is important: she emphasized rule of law, including the fight against corruption, and underlined the importance of being realistic about what can be achieved. Some might claim that these two points are mutually contradictory, but that’s the confusing reality.
I am surprised that the pressures for withdrawal from Afghanistan are not stronger than they are. I guess having an opposition devoted to “winning” gives a Democratic president a free hand to remain longer, if he wants to do so and can keep his own party in line. But it is hard to see how we’ll make it to 2014, when most of the U.S. troops are supposed to be on their way home, unless there is progress in negotiating with the Taliban.
No one seems to think that is happening, but I admit it would be hard to tell from outside. Negotiations of this sort go slowly and badly until suddenly they go well. It is worth trying, if only because success in is so important to rescuing the overall effort from failure.
Today’s sectarian attacks on Shia targets, which are unusual in Afghanistan, can be interpreted at least two ways: either there is a Taliban splinter group (or Al Qaeda) that is trying to wreck ongoing negotiations, or the Taliban have decided to widen their war in a sectarian direction, hoping to bring more chaos to Kabul and Afghanistan generally (one of the attacks took place in the usually quiet northern town Mazar-i-Sharif). More confused reality.
PS: The Taliban have joined in condemnation of the attacks. A Pakistani group with ties to al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, has now claimed responsibility.
PPS: Those asking for the U.S. to complete the job in Afghanistan seem to me to be asking for more than we are likely to give.
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