New York Post
February 12, 2010
Negotiations Only Boost The Taliban
By Elise Jordan
Afghan President Hamid Karzai is proceeding with his plans for high-level negotiations with Taliban leadership -- and the Obama administration seems willing to go along. Yet such talks damage US efforts in Afghanistan and harm the Afghan people.
If Afghans are to continue to ally with our troops, they must be able to trust that the Taliban won't return. Negotiations send the opposite message.
And the move is a distraction from the real issues Karzai must confront -- cleaning up his government and building a broader base of support among the vast majority of Afghans who oppose the Taliban and its murderous ideology.
The administration has responded uncertainly to Karzai's outreach to the Taliban -- even though it flies in the face of what top US officials were saying just two months ago.
"The separation of the Taliban from al Qaeda is not currently on the horizon. The leaders of the Taliban and the al Qaeda are deeply intermeshed," US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke told a Council on Foreign Relations audience in mid-December. "It is our judgment that, if the Taliban succeed in Afghanistan, they will bring back with them to Afghanistan al Qaeda."
By the end of January, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was reduced to insisting that Karzai's talks with the Taliban won't include "really bad guys." What makes her so sure?
Making the talks even more foolish is the fact that they're guaranteed to yield nothing of value. As Michael Rubin deftly outlines in this month's Commentary, the United States spent most of the '90s engaging the Taliban -- a strategy that only protected al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.
Using declassified State Department cables, Rubin traces US diplomacy with the Taliban from 1995 through 2001, demonstrating that it was "engagement for its own sake -- without any consideration given to the behavior or sincerity of an unambiguously hostile interlocutor."
The United Nations just provided more proof. When reports recently surfaced that outgoing UN Envoy Kai Eide had met with the Taliban in Dubai, the Taliban quickly denied it, with a prompt press release calling rumors "futile and baseless." Indeed, a Taliban statement strongly condemned any alliance with the United Nations, urging "continuation of Islamic Jihad against all invaders."
Why is everyone but the Taliban showing weakness?
Last year saw setbacks in Afghanistan, but President Obama is deploying another 30,000 US troops there to strengthen the 68,000 Americans and 39,000 allied troops in theater.
There are already good signs at the local level: The Shinwari tribe in eastern Afghanistan has pledged to join the cause, reportedly the first Pashtun tribe to declare outright war on the Taliban (albeit in expectation of $1 million in US aid).
"The Taliban have been trying to destroy our tribe, and they are taking money from us, and they are taking our sons to fight," one Shinwari elder told The New York Times. "If they defy us now, we will defeat them."
Unlike in pre-surge Iraq, Afghans are still on the coalition side. In a BBC/ARD Germany/ABC poll conducted in December, 69 percent of Afghans polled held the Taliban responsible for causing instability -- a shift from accusing foreign forces that can be credited to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties. An almost equal number of Afghans -- 68 percent -- supports US forces.
Security gains from the increased troop presence could create the space necessary for Karzai to mend his ways. After all, Afghans' expectations for their national government are so low that minimal improvement can have an impact.
The Taliban are likely as strong as they can ever get. They will never hold major population centers. Why the haste to enter negotiations with this enemy?
Talks with the hated Taliban will turn most Afghans against Karzai's government -- and any move to reintegrate this enemy into Afghan society could lead to civil war. Obama has sent every possible signal that all foreign troops will withdraw in 18 months: That's not a long time for the Taliban to wait, so they can retake Kabul when US troops have gone home.
President Obama should strongly reiterate that we do not support reconciliation and negotiation with the Taliban leadership. He should stress non-negotiable principles of US involvement in Afghanistan -- namely, our commitment to the rule of law and equality (especially for women).
Every time the Taliban throw acid at little girls on the way to school, or blow up schools, they remind us of what they stand for. Our president should insist that America won't bargain with such evil -- lest we lend this enemy further undeserved legitimacy and become complicit in building up the Taliban and bolstering al Qaeda.
Elise Jordan, a director for communications at the National Security Council from 2008-09, spent eight months in Afghanistan over that year.


