| | Offer the Taliban more than mere money FT.com
02/05/2010
By Michael Semple
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There have been some encouraging signs of late for those hopeful of a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan. But there is still a long way to go before politics really takes over from the guns and explosives.
Back in 2007 I flew to Helmand, along with a delegation from President Hamid Karzai’s Ministry of the Interior, to present a plan for a life skills training project for 2,000 Taliban fighters. It was to be a first step to their peaceful reintegration into society, and built upon several years of discreet contacts I had maintained with Taliban figures, in co-ordination with Afghanistan’s National Security Council.
Regrettably, the government staged an international incident out of this routine briefing and I was expelled for my pains. Now, better late than never, Mr Karzai has adopted the idea of reintegrating Taliban fighters as official policy. As ever in Kabul, much confusion prevails over what is meant by reintegration and reconciliation, and whether the Taliban are even interested.
What people now call reintegration is an offer to Taliban foot soldiers and local commanders to renounce violence, accept the authority of the Kabul government and receive a yet-to-be-defined amnesty. The reintegration idea is based on the notion that many active in the insurgency have little ideological commitment to the cause of re-establishing Mullah Mohammed Omar’s Islamic emirate or waging al-Qaeda’s global jihad. Provided with the right financial incentives and personal security it is hoped that many of the insurgents will be happy to come home. But reintegration has been on offer for some time. In 2005 Mr Karzai formed an “independent” commission to woo repentant Taliban. Since that time the commission has signed up thousands of Afghans. Unfortunately, only a tiny minority of them could realistically be considered to have played a role in, and exited, the insurgency. The main difference this time is in the trimmings (a Kabul government strategy document and lots of high-profile political support) and the increased budget.
My own contacts with Taliban fighters suggest that, handled correctly, some will indeed welcome the chance to quit the conflict, if the programme is better run than its predecessors. Reintegration is worth trying. But many Taliban are committed to their movement and not all are going to be bought off. Reintegration is not going to end the conflict. For that, a much more political approach that engages the Taliban leadership and convinces them that there is a viable alternative to their military campaign is needed.
To win international backing for a deal, the Taliban leadership would have to renounce ties to al-Qaeda and guarantee to exclude international terrorists from Afghanistan. Taliban would have to accept some of the recent social reforms, such as girls’ education. In return the Taliban could participate in the political system. That participation might be as ministers or judges or it might be as a recognised democratic opposition. But it would be a lot weightier than as mere ex-combatants on job placement.
If a political deal did end the insurgency, the international military operation could be wound down. It would only remain to define what residual international co-operation on counter-terrorism would be necessary.
It is important to understand why the Taliban have shown little interest in such a deal, sticking to their public position of no negotiations until foreign troops withdraw. The widespread interpretation is that Taliban strategists believe they can do better on the battlefield – that they can win the war of attrition. Garbled accounts of Barack Obama’s December 1 speech and the US president’s pledge to draw down troop numbers after 18 months have persuaded some Taliban and their backers that the US is essentially in exit mode, and that if they hang on a bit longer they will only have to contend with the puppet regime.
There are, however, signs that a significant body within the Taliban leadership is more pragmatic than suggested in the hardline official position. They realise that international commitment will last beyond the current surge and that the consequences of pursuing the war of attrition would mean remaining as a permanent armed opposition, confined to the mountains and rural hinterland. A deal might offer them much more.
Pragmatic is not the same as moderate. The people with whom any deal would have to be done, those Taliban prepared to contemplate accommodation, have a sense of their movement as a moral force that emerged to fight anarchy and corruption in civil war Afghanistan in an honourable tradition of jihad. They are deeply suspicious of apparent US support for the commanders and warlords against whom they were pitted well before 2001. Reluctant to accept that it was the alliance with al-Qaeda which turned the world against them, they resent their labelling as terrorists. They have a host of grievances, from persecution of Taliban who stayed in Afghanistan to the Guantánamo experience and the United Nations blacklists, which they point to as evidence that neither the US nor the Kabul government can be trusted.
Nevertheless, Taliban pragmatists claim they have little problem with an eventual break from al-Qaeda, that they will accommodate other Afghan political forces and that their stance on social issues is unlikely to be a block to agreement. Quizzed on justice and impunity, they protest that their record is no worse than the current Kabul government. The pragmatists do not expect to renounce jihad but to redefine it. They will not surrender but they hope that the Taliban movement might be rehabilitated as a moral Islamic force inside the Afghan political system.
Much political dialogue and choreography are required before the trust deficit can be overcome. However, some of the current strategic communication is helpful, such as General Stanley McChrystal’s careful comments that the fighting must give way to politics and the announcement of the removal of a handful of former Taliban from the UN sanctions list.
On the long road towards reconciliation in Afghanistan it is not only Taliban intentions that will be scrutinised. US ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s leaked cables point to the Kabul government as the weak link in the chain. The vaunted government policy on national reconciliation and reintegration is wholly inadequate, with only the vaguest ideas of what reintegration packages might be offered. The government says that it will convene another Loya Jirga tribal gathering to work out the terms to offer the Taliban. But experience suggests that any such exercise would be little more than political theatre, and the Taliban will not engage.
The war in Afghanistan may indeed drag on with no grand bargain, and Afghan institutions funded to defend themselves after the main western military contingent leaves. But we should aim for better than that. A real peace process will require a diplomatic approach that goes a lot further than anything yet on the table, and trumps spoilers on both the Taliban and government sides.
The writer is a fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. He was deputy EU special representative for Afghanistan between 2004 and 2007.
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