The Missing Argument for Peace in Afghanistan: Decoupling the Taliban and Al Qaeda

I’d written earlier with some thoughts on how to cut apart the Taliban in Afghanistan from their Al Qaeda counterparts. Broadly, I’d argued that one needed to separate out the incentives and motivations (en bloc) of the Taliban from their foreign, multi-national, globalist counterparts.  Separated out– as hanafis (nationalist jihadis)  and salafis (globalist jihadis)– NATO and its military arm in Afghanistan ISAF needed to wedge out differences that leaders on the field could exploit, so that the Taliban disinvite their foreign and overly bossy guests.

More policy-makers need to think about how to uncouple these two groups that most Americans take to be interchangeable entities.  It is therefore a welcome happenstance (though a far too belated one), that the Times recently published a very interesting op-ed piece by the Anthropologist and expert on transnational terrorism, Scott Atran.

Now, in the midst of the noted hub-bub about the midterm election in the United States, this piece has gone unnoticed.  No one seems to pull out the arguments therein to marshal some argument for or against the War in Iraq.  As my colleague Pat Frost noted, the War has fallen off the purview of most American voters, even though this past week or more has offered the interested reader more than a fair share of troubling news about Afghanistan.  So it is troubling that even as reasonable and rational an argument as Atran’s has become a whisper in an empty.

But I ask you, my reader, to see the problem as Atran argues. This is the recent news about Afghanistan.  The War is going badly; the U.S Af/Pak strategy is going badly.  And this is why:

“In truth, the real pressure to show that there is light at the end of the tunnel is not on the Taliban, but the United States, so it can start drawing down troops next year as President Obama has pledged. This is why NATO and Washington are only now openly discussing the talks, although they have been going on in fits and starts for years. True, some senior Taliban leaders are playing along — but this is not so much because they fear defeat at the hands of the Americans, but because they worry that their new generation of midlevel commanders is getting out of control.

“Washington’s goals officially remain those stated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: to strengthen Afghan Army forces and to “reintegrate” the supposedly “moderate” Taliban, that is, fighters who will consent to lay down arms and respect the Afghan Constitution, including its Western-inspired provisions to respect human rights and equality of women in the public sphere. Yet in nine years of war, no significant group of Taliban has opted for reintegration (a few individuals have come in, only to return to the Taliban when it again was in their interest). Moreover, coalition military personnel know that there isn’t a single Afghan Army brigade that can hold its own against Taliban troops.”

“Ten months into the new NATO push in Afghanistan, 2010 is the bloodiest year yet of the war. Insurgent attacks are up more than 60 percent compared with last year, according to the United Nations. The estimated number of Taliban has increased some tenfold since the aftermath of their defeat by coalition forces in 2001. Taliban troops now roam large areas in northern and eastern Afghanistan, far beyond the traditional Pashtun provinces of the south.

This is terrible news for any one willing to think about the situation in Afghanistan.  Whether a proponent of the war or not, the current regime and the strategy to maintain it in whatever form seems to have decreasing dividends.

Now Atran suggests that the tradition ties that enjoin hosts to their guests in Afghan traditions lies behind teh Taliban relationship with Al Qaeda.  Uncouple that and the Taliban and Al Qaeda split apart.  Indeed, deliberate in such a way that a nationalist leader like Jallaluddin Haqqani gives up on his ultra-ambitious, globalist guests, the petulant Al Qaeda leadership, hosted and housed in Pakistan.

Here’s Atran’s suggestion:

“The smarter move would be to turn the current shadow-play about talks into serious negotiations right now. The older Taliban leaders might well drop their support for Osama bin Laden if Western troops were no longer there to unite them. The Haqqanis, too, are exclusively interested in their homeland, not global jihad, and will discard anyone who interferes in their lives. No Haqqanis joined Al Qaeda before 9/11, because they couldn’t stand Arabs telling them how to pray and fight.”

Here’s to hoping that something like this happens by design.  Alternatively one would accept this outcome even if through chance.  No doubt the U.S and its NATO allies would come up with a justification for that piece of luck.