Tag: Afghanistan
Sometimes at odds, sometimes not
I owe a debt of gratitude for this piece to Dennis Kux, author of The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000, a retired State Department South Asia specialist, and currently a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He writes:
Osama bin Laden died in a fashion that could not have been better from the American standpoint or worse for Pakistan. For Americans, the end to the man who organized 9/11 and other deadly, if less bloody, Al Qaeda operations was like the script of a Hollywood movie. The good guys–the Navy Seals–swoop out of the sky, get their man, suffer no casualties, and return to base. The only hitch, the loss of a helicopter, provides suspense, but is not a game stopper since there is fortunately a back-up chopper available.
The episode brought a sense of closure over the horrors of 9/11. In a victory lap, President Obama symbolically visited Ground Zero in New York City and then flew to Fort Bragg, Kentucky to salute the Navy Seals who performed so flawlessly. The US admittedly carried out the operation inside Pakistan without the knowledge, let alone permission, of the government of Pakistan. Indeed, as CIA Director Leon Panetta told the media, informing the Pakistanis in advance would have risked operational security.
So it was a great day for Uncle Sam. Osama is no more. The master terrorist has gotten his just reward. Furthermore, the present occupant of the White House revealed himself a cool and decisive Clint Eastwood not, as many previously thought, a distant intellectual who had trouble making up his mind.
For Pakistan, the episode was a major disaster. Even Pakistani liberals who applauded the death of bin Laden were embarrassed by way it happened. They were irate that the al Qaeda leader could have been hiding almost next door to their country’s West Point in a city full of military installations and supposedly tight security. If Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI, did not know that bin Laden had been in Abbottabad for five years, it was woefully incompetent. If ISI knew who lived in the high-walled compound, it was guilty of hiding the world’s most wanted terrorist.
Either way, it was enormously embarrassing. This observer is skeptical that something as conspicuously different as the bin Laden compound from the rest of the neighborhood would not have attracted the attention of the omnipresent ISI, especially over half a decade. In turn, Pakistan’s security establishment, and a large section of the public, were infuriated by the US’s blatant disregard for their country’s sovereignty and were red-faced that the Americans were able to fly across more than a hundred miles of Pakistani territory undetected by the vaunted air defense system.
Thus, while there was enormous satisfaction and pride in the US, for Pakistan, the response was very conflicted. This was reflected in the stark contrast between President Zardari’s op ed in the May 2 Washington Post applauding the US action and the querulous statement issued the same day by the Foreign Ministry. The latter mentioned bin Laden’s death almost in passing, waxed indignant about the violation of Pakistani sovereignty, and said menacingly that any repetition would shake the relationship between Washington and Islamabad. The Pakistan military leadership issued a similar warning after a meeting of the powerful corps commanders and the army chief General Kayani. The army leadership further announced that US military personnel in Pakistan would be reduced to the “bare minimum.”
Many Pakistanis, while unhappy about the unilateral US action and the violation of sovereignty, directed their ire against the security establishment, alleging that the army and the ISI were guilty of either incompetence or complicity. To counter these charges, pro-military media outlets tried to place the blame on the wobbling civilian government, generally regarded as having little say in national security matters. The opposition Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) predictably joined in the chorus of voices calling for the president and prime minister to resign.
On Monday, Prime Minister Gilani, speaking in the National Assembly, stoutly defended Pakistan’s record. He said that many intelligence agencies failed, not just Pakistan’s, blamed the US for allowing bin Laden to flee into Pakistan, warned that any attack on the countries “strategic assets” (i.e. its nukes) would be answered with a robust riposte, and stated that Lt. General Iqbal (an officer supposedly close to Kayani) would lead an inquiry into the episode. Gilani announced that parliament would meet in camera on May 13 to consider the report. At the same time, the prime minister also stressed the importance of good relations with the US. Someone obviously less concerned about US-Pak ties leaked the name of the CIA station chief to an English-language newspaper considered close to the ISI.
So how will this all play out for the US-Pak partnership against terrorism? In Washington, the Obama administration has made clear its belief that a cooperative relationship with Pakistan is important for a satisfactory outcome in the war in Afghanistan. The president chose his words carefully in his lengthy interview with 60 Minutes last Sunday. While not blaming the Pakistani authorities, he pressed for answers regarding the support network that helped bin Laden during his lengthy stay in Abbottabad. Irate Congressmen have called for slashing US aid to Pakistan, but administration supporters have argued that this would hurt, not help, US interests in the region. Washington hopes that a chastened Pakistan will prove more, rather than less, cooperative in the days ahead.
It remains unclear how events will play out in Pakistan. Possibly, the military’s embarrassment will lead to a stronger civilian voice over national security matters. Although the military is more vulnerable now than in many years, it is very uncertain that the wobbly civilian leadership will be able to take advantage of the situation. The jury is also out whether Pakistan will agree to crack down on the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network (seen as useful proxies to defend Pakistan’s interests in Afghanistan) and the Lashkar-i-Toiba and related groups that have in the past served as proxies against India. Public pressure by US officials will not sway the Pakistanis, but perhaps private persuasion may prove more effective in the post bin Laden era. Reportedly, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry will be on his way in a few days to try his hand.
Until such a change occurs, the basic contradiction in the US-Pak relationship will continue: specifically that while Pakistan and the US see the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as a common foe, only the US considers the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network and the Lashkar-i-Toiba as enemies. To Islamabad, these groups remain potentially useful instruments to promote Pakistan’s policies in Afghanistan and against India. This kind of strategic disconnect has periodically undermined US-Pakistan alliance relations ever since Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the mutual security agreement with Pakistan in 1954. In 2011, as in the past, US and Pakistani interests and policies in part coincide and in part conflict.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Tangible progress meets lack of capacity
The April “1230” Department of Defense progress report on Security and Stability in Afghanistan summarizes its findings this way:
…International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its Afghan partners have made tangible progress, arresting the insurgents’ momentum in much of the country and reversing it in a number of important areas. The coalition’s efforts have wrested major safe havens from the insurgents’ control, disrupted their leadership networks, and removed many of the weapons caches and tactical supplies they left behind at the end of the previous fighting season. The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) continued to increase in quantity, quality, and capability, and have taken an ever-increasing role in security operations. Progress in governance and development was slower than security gains in this reporting period, but there were notable improvements nonetheless, particularly in the south and southwest. Overall, the progress across Afghanistan remains fragile and reversible, but the momentum generated over the last six months has established the necessary conditions for the commencement of the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces in seven areas this summer.
Can we trust this qualified optimism? Or should we join veteran Afghanistan watchers like Joshua Foust in thinking this is “insane wishful thinking”?
This what ISAF portrays as tangible progress that is breaking the momentum of the insurgency. Their own data says the exact opposite. Whether you think this is deliberately misleading on their part—basically, whether you think they’re lying—or just insane, legitimately insane wishful thinking, is up to you. I’ll be up front say I can’t tell which I think, and which I find more worrying.
I confess I lean towards scepticism, but for reasons different from those Foust gives. He notes that the violence figures are higher than ever before and that insurgent ops tempo has not declined. I imagine he would point to the ongoing Taliban offensive in Kandahar over the weekend as further evidence that their momentum has not been broken.
This angle of criticism I find unconvincing. The 1230 report is correct in thinking that increased efforts by the Coalition will necessarily increase violence temporarily, as it did in Iraq during the “surge.” The deeper critique of the 1230 report lies in its own indications of the difficulties the Afghanistan campaign is facing beyond the immediate realm of “safe and secure environment.”
The problem here starts with the President, who has made it clear that he wants to “defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten the United States and U.S. Allies in the future.” But he has not made clear how Afghanistan is to be governed, or even what kind of government would be capable of preventing al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan and threatening vital U.S. interests. Like all post-Cold War presidents before him, Mr. Obama is trying to avoid what George W. Bush pejoratively called “nationbuilding,” which would better be termed “state-building.”
The trouble is that it can’t be avoided if we want to get out of Afghanistan with even a modest degree of confidence that it won’t in the future again become a haven again for al Qaeda. Digging deeper into the 1230 report, it becomes quickly apparent that the governance dimension is presenting serious difficulties. The Ministry of Defense is making progress, but the Ministry of Interior (which controls the police) is not. Here is a hint of the depth of the problems (p. 20): “Literacy training is now mandatory in every initial entry training course, with the goal to graduate each new trainee at a 1st grade level.” And further on: it is estimated “the 1st grade literacy level of enlisted soldiers and policemen will rise from 14 percent to over 50 percent in the next ten months.” In other words, 86 per cent of enlisted soldiers and police are currently no more than literate at the first grade level.
No wonder they are having problems. And there is competition out there:
The Taliban developed a code of conduct in 2009 to serve as a guide for insurgents in Afghanistan, particularly in areas of strong government influence, in an effort to win the hearts and minds of the population. Insurgents have been setting up local commissions to collect taxes and attempt to provide more attractive governance options, such as providing conflict resolution via shadow governors and judges trained in sharia law. In spite of this guidance, ISAF and ANSF security gains and operational tempo have forced the insurgency to change its approach by shifting to more intimidation and assassination tactics. Insurgents employ these tactics to create the perception of deteriorating security and to demonstrate to local residents, as well as the media, that the Afghan Government and ISAF are incapable of providing security.
Somehow I doubt that forcing the Taliban to shift to intimidation and assassination is seen by the locals as bringing credit to the Coalition. The fact is that Afghan government capacity to deliver services at the local level or to provide justice or conflict resolution is still small to nonexistent. “Slow” and “measured” is the kind of progress reported on these issues.
Therein lies the problem as I see it. I am willing to believe that the Coalition has arrested the insurgents’ fighting momentum. But “build” has to follow “clear” and “hold.” There is ample indication in the 1230 report that “build” is lagging, even that it is falling farther behind as the military side of this campaign makes some “tangible progress.” But what good is that if we and the Afghan government lack capacity to take advantage of progress to establish the kind of governance that will keep al Qaeda out?
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
While we weren’t watching
I admit it is hard to shift attention away from the consequences of Osama bin Laden’s death. America and Pakistan have embarked on a great debate. Sticking with the claim that they knew nothing about either OBL’s whereabouts or about the American operation to kill him, Pakistan’s government now has to explain its apparent incompetence. The Obama Administration has to explain why we should provide billions in assistance to a country that incompetent, or worse, one that harbored OBL.
These debates will go on for some time but is unlikely to change much. Congress will fulminate, but President Obama will not want to reduce aid, for fear of making the situation worse, and he will stick to his drawdown schedule in Afghanistan, starting small. Maybe in Pakistan the debate will have a broader impact: its military and intelligence services deserve a thorough airing out, though they are likely to survive with their prerequisites intact.
More interesting for the long term are the things that were, and were not, happening in the Arab world while we weren’t watching.
In Syria, the crackdown is proceeding, with hundreds more arrested in apparently indiscriminate security sweeps of major provincial centers of unrest. Bashar al Assad shows every sign of continuing. Aleppo and Damascus, Syria’s two biggest cities, remain relatively quiet. Friday will tell us whether the repression is succeeding.
In Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has managed to slip out of an agreement negotiated with the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia plus other oil-rich gulfies) to step down in 30 days. It is unclear whether the GCC, the political opposition or the protesters can do much at this point to resurrect the agreement, so it is likely both demonstrations and repression will continue.
In Libya, a kind of tottering stalemate has developed, with Gaddafi continuing to pound the western town of Misrata and to hold off the rebels in the east. Turkey has turned against the Colonel, but it is unclear whether that will make much difference. For all the much-vaunted rise of Turkey as a regional player, Ankara seems to have trouble making its weight felt with either Bashar al Assad or Muammar Gaddafi.
In Bahrain, repression is also in full swing, with the Americans seeming to bend to Saudi pressure not to object too strenuously. The regime there, in the past one of the milder ones, has been arresting doctors and nurses who provided medical treatment to protesters.
So it looks as if counter-revolution is succeeding for the moment across the region. It would be ironic if OBL’s death were to coincide with failure of the protests that showed promise of harnessing the discontents that used to be channeled into terrorism. Mr. Obama, where was that right side of history last time we saw it?
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Slippery slope, moral hazard and tall order
The big questions for me in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death are how it will affect America’s relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as the Arab Spring. I leave it to others to consider the impact on Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and the terrorist enterprise in general, but I have to assume that the already weakened enterprise will suffer some further fragmentation and demoralization, even as it tries (and occasionally succeeds) to exact revenge.
Pakistan has got some explaining to do. It seems likely someone in the Pakistani government knew that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in a garrison town not far from Islamabad. There is no sign they tipped off the Americans, their putative allies. How come? How many other Al Qaeda principles harbored in Pakistan? And if no one in the Pakistani government knew that OBL was there, that would suggest true incompetence, no? So too would failure of the Pakistani government to intervene to block the American operation, if the Americans are telling the truth about not having informed the Pakistanis.
My best guess is that some Pakistanis (army? intelligence service?) knew where bin Laden was hiding. They likely also knew about the American operation, or at least knew something was “going down.” So they both hid him and allowed him to be captured. That sounds like the kind of duplicity we’ve witnessed for years, practiced to our detriment. Glad it was at someone else’s expense this time. The unexcited and even congratulatory reaction of official Pakistan to the news suggests this was the case.
So what do we do now? Is it business as usual with the Pakistanis? Or is it time for a shift toward a more demanding stance? Should we make military assistance conditional on greater cooperation? Surely someone in the Congress will push that idea. The problem is we would then have to be prepared carry out the threat, which would surely reduce military and intelligence cooperation further. That’s a slippery slope. Are we really reduced, as Madeleine Albright suggested on the PBS Newshour this evening, to “working with” the Pakistanis?
Maybe. With OBL out of the way, Al Qaeda is a lot less interesting to the Pakistanis, whose purposes inside Afghanistan might just as well be served by the Taliban without all the international complications OBL necessarily engendered. Besides, they’ve now got lots of homegrown jihadis to throw against India when the need arises. OBL wasn’t so good in that direction anyway.
What about Afghanistan? President Karzai, in his usual uncharitable mood, took the occasion of OBL’s death to suggest that the Americans and their allies have been wasting a lot of time and Afghan lives looking for him inside Afghanistan. Meanwhile, American senators were suggesting that OBL’s death might make it possible to draw down American troops in Afghanistan faster than currently contemplated, leaving Karzai to his fate. Of course the two ideas are compatible: Karzai would like less U.S. military effort, and so would the Americans.
This “beggar thy ally” approach on both sides does not bode well for continuing anything like the current level of effort in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are proving resilient and resurgent. I confess to temptation: maybe we should try withdrawing faster than had been anticipated, making it clear to Karzai that we are in part responding to his pressure. He pushes us out because he has been pretty sure we wouldn’t take him up on it. If he thought we might, he would be getting his act together faster.
This is what is called “moral hazard.” Leon Panetta, about to become Defense Secretary, was big on the idea of giving the Iraqis a quick time line for U.S. withdrawal when he served on the Iraq Study Group (I’m not breaking confidence–he said so publicly on many occasions). I wonder if he might adopt the same posture on Afghanistan. Of course David Petraeus, whether in his current job or his future one, is likely to be on the other side of that argument.
As for the Arab Spring, it seems to me that OBL’s death should reduce the fear some have of Al Qaeda exploitation of the demonstrations and weaken the argument that we need autocrats to repress international terrorists. Those arguments have not gained much traction with me these past few months, but I hope those who believe them will reexamine the situation and come to the obvious conclusion: the faster we can help get something like democratic regimes up and running in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria the better off we will be. I wish I could say the same about Bahrain, but it seems to have fallen hostage to the regional sectarian standoff. We’ve already got what most would consider a tall order.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
What is Afghanistan good for?
Americans, weary of the war in Afghanistan, are doubting that anything good can come of it, and wondering if it will ever be over. Two recent reports reminded me of what Afghanistan is good for.
The first is “Afghanistan’s Drug Career: Evolution from a War Economy to a Drug Economy” from the Afghanistan Analysts’ Network (AAN). The second, “Afghanistan Beyond the Fog of Nation Building” from the Silk Road Studies Program here at Johns Hopkins/SAIS, is about the importance of transit routes across Afghanistan and their potential to contribute to building peace there.
Like it or not, Afghanistan is remarkably good for the production of opium poppy. The AAN report is interesting on the political economy of the drug trade, which implicates President Karzai and other “political upperworld” figures in protecting and profiting from it. But it is remarkably tame in its recommendations. Twenty or thirty years will be required, it says, for its “holistic” approach to work. The initial steps recommended are modest adjustments of current policies: eradication should be applied to all poppy fields in a given district, interdiction should target bigger traders, and alternative livelihoods should encompass rural development in general and not just crop substitution. I suppose any long journey starts with just a few steps, but it is hard for me to picture that these recommendations will really carry us through several decades.
More interesting is S. Frederick Starr’s enthusiastic endorsement of transportation as the key to economic development in Afghanistan:
The reopening [of] all these age-old transit routes across Afghanistan is the single greatest achievement of U.S. foreign policy in the new millenium. It was unintended, unrecognized, and, by most Americans, unacknowledged, even thought they paid for it with the lives of loved ones and with hard-earned tax money. Nonetheless, this development offers the most promising solution to the U.S.’ present strategic dilemma and the key to possible success in Afghanistan and the region….Whatever its larger geopolitical significance, the reopening of continental transport and trade to, from, and across Afghanistan is the single most important determinant of the future of Afghanistan itself….This is not a scheme devised by GS-12 bureaucrats in Foggy Bottom for some generic distant land. It is the logic of Afghanistan itself and has been validated by the experience of 3000 years.
So who stands in opposition to 3000 years of experience? According to Starr,
At a series of meetings held throughout the autumn of 2010 representatives of the State Department were, to say the least, reserved about a strategy based on the opening of transport corridors, presumably out of concern that it might be taken as an alternative to the development of agriculture or the exploitation of mineral resources rather than the essential and unavoidable measure for achieving them.
Starr goes on to suggest that resistance is softening, and there is enthusiasm in military and some other circles. But the high-level support he sought has not yet emerged. That is what is needed to drive what Starr suggests: a regional Coordinating Council on Continental Transport and Trade to pursue the strategy of reopening the corridors of transport and trade that war has done much to clog in recent decades.
Of course when it comes to cross-border trade, nothing moves more expeditiously than drugs. That is the trick here: helping the Afghans to create a border regime that will allow legitimate trade and block the illegitimate version. It will not be easy–in fact, it requires just the kind of state Afghanistan lacks, and that the AAN report suggests will be difficult to construct because of the interaction of the drug economy with top levels of the Karzai government. We’d all like to avoid the daunting task of state-building in Afghanistan, but few good things can happen if we don’t embrace the requirement.
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
Why it’s time to negotiate with the Taliban
This went up on theatlantic.com this morning:
By Daniel Serwer
Apr 7 2011, 7:00 AM ET
Peace talks won’t be easy, and may be likely to fail, but they’re worth the risk
Delegates of an Afghan peace jirga in Kabul discuss negotiating with the Taliban. By Ahmad Masood / Reuters
News that the U.S. may negotiate with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan raises many questions, the most important of which is, should we, or shouldn’t we? That question has generated a small cyberspace library of its own in recent weeks, with the consensus so far in favor. It is widely believed that there are at least informal official talks about talks going on behind closed doors. But should we harbor any continuing doubts? And what can we expect from negotiations?
The arguments in favor are often based on the explicit proposition that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, with the implicit understanding that the U.S. will want to get out as soon after 2014 — the date fixed by NATO for turnover of security responsibilities to the Afghan government — as possible. If we really believe there is no military solution, why bother fighting to what conflict management experts call a “mutually hurting stalemate,” a condition in which neither side can improve its position by further military effort? If we want to get out, why not make the arrangements now rather than waiting for what we believe to be inevitable? Much blood and treasure can be saved and little of value lost.
This line of thinking has been bolstered recently by research suggesting that at least some of the Taliban can be divided from Al Qaeda. The Taliban is an Afghan movement with national ambitions to establish an Islamic state. Al Qaeda has much broader international goals that go far beyond Afghanistan, to recreating a supra-national caliphate encompassing the entire Muslim world, in some interpretations the entire globe. These two objectives are not only different; they are incompatible. Maybe we can keep Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan, even if we agree to let the Taliban back in.
<blockquote> A skilled negotiator will discover more in two days of conversation with an adversary than all the intelligence we’ve collected so far in ten years of war</blockquote>
However, the Taliban have now been fighting for a generation without serious signs of fatigue, at least until recently, and may believe they can get what they want by fighting on. If the Taliban feel they are winning, they will have little incentive to negotiate. They may also doubt that the U.S. is really prepared to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans, at least with respect to Al Qaeda. President Karzai’s talk about permanent U.S. bases will have given them doubts as well.
There are other points of potentially irreducible contention. The Taliban, who are not experienced democrats and lack confidence in democratic processes, would naturally expect a guarantee of a share in political power, both at the local level and in Kabul. Many Afghan women, who were not even allowed to go to school under their rule, could suffer dearly under a strong Taliban role in governance. Nor would the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, and other minorities who fought against and defeated the Taliban be likely to welcome their return.
Many advocates of negotiations therefore want to make the talks “inclusive” — bringing in not only top government officials but also civil society (especially women’s organizations) as well as local leaders. After all, the Karzai government has little real control of rural areas, and many of the more contentious issues involve local disputes that will need to be settled by local leaders if the Taliban are going to reintegrate peacefully. As one advocate put it, negotiations must be run “by, with and through the Afghan people” in order to work.
But is forging a peace deal “by, with and through” Afghan leaders really possible? A multi-faceted, multi-level peace process that includes women and minorities may be far more than the Karzai government is able to manage. Most Kabul officials lack the capability even to identify, much less understand or work to solve, local problems. If they did, they might have already won the war. And how much concern has Karzai shown for the plight of Afghan women? He has only appointed a sprinkling of women and civil society types in the High Peace Council, assigned to deal with the Taliban. Most of the members are male, with a heavy representation of warlords. If Karzai and company are beyond redemption, negotiations are unlikely to save them.
Even though a successful deal remains unlikely, negotiations may still be worthwhile. The Pentagon plans to spend about $120 billion on the war in 2011 alone. If there is only a tiny chance — let’s say one in a thousand — that negotiations would eliminate that expenditure, a rational gambler would say it is worth spending $120 million on negotiations. There is no way negotiations will cost a fraction of that sum. The largest possible expense would be the Afghan government providing housing and jobs for defected Taliban.
What you find out about the enemy can be well worth whatever commitment is required in negotiations. In my experience, there is nothing like staring a military commander in the face, asking him what his war objective is, and discussing alternative means to achieve it.
I asked the commander of the Bosnian Army that question in 1995, having been told by both the State Department and the U.S. intelligence community that his objective was to conquer 100 percent of the country’s territory, at the time two-thirds occupied by the Bosnian Serb Army. He responded that his president had told him to fight until all the refugees and displaced people could go home. This was significantly different from the consensus understanding in Washington. His objective was achieved in principle at the Dayton peace talks later the same year by negotiation.
A skilled negotiator will discover more in two days of conversation with an adversary than all the intelligence we’ve collected so far in ten years of war. Of course the effect is mutual: the enemy will also discover how committed and unified the Afghan government and the coalition are or are not, and what we might be willing to trade off to achieve early withdrawal.
Such mutual discovery does not always improve matters. I once asked a presidential advisor in Kabul whether it would help relations with Pakistan if Afghanistan were to recognize the de facto border — the Durand Line — as the legal boundary between the two countries. He responded that he would not want to close off options for future generations. I can’t imagine that people in Islamabad react positively when they hear this suggestion that Afghanistan may have designs on Pakistani territory.
Bottom line, negotiations are a good bet even if they don’t end in a deal. But Afghan political leaders are unlikely to be able to lead a complicated process and may be more likely to cut a deal behind closed doors, without the involvement of women or anything resembling civil society. Such a deal would not resolve underlying drivers of conflict and would require — like the deals Washington cut behind closed doors on Bosnia and Kosovo — a massive international implementation effort. Even though peace talks are certainly worthwhile, there are no easy solutions to these dilemmas. Negotiations may be a good idea, but they are not a short cut out of Afghanistan.
PS: Peter Bergen comes to similar conclusions, six weeks later.
RSS - Posts
