“Grandmasta” revives a meme I thought had been put to bed, but I worry it is only in its early ascendancy. Why not allow the Taliban to rule Afghanistan?
Grandmasta doesn’t claim to have deep knowledge about Afghanistan, but it seems to him that the current US approach is destined for failure. Over the past year violence has gotten worse and the US continues to lose soldiers and waste money there. But here’s Grandmasta’s question: Why is it important that we destroy the Taliban? Why is the Taliban being treated as an inevitable enemy that has to be eliminated in order for security to be achieved?
Afghanistan becomes a security threat to the US and its allies when it serves as a sanctuary for Al-Qaeda types to use as a base to plan and launch attacks against the US. For what other reason is Afghanistan important to the US? The situation that existed in Afghanistan before 9/11 was clearly a security threat to the US as Al-Qaeda could do whatever they wanted, and as we well know, they did just that. But why is the Taliban being lumped together with Al-Qaeda as an implaccable enemy that must be destroyed?
Remarkably, very smart people, like NYrinDC, voiced their agreement, saying that the Taliban is a local movement and al-Qaeda is a global movement, so they’re not really good allies so why can’t we support one while opposing the other?
In short, this argument is ignorant of history (“Grandmasta” admits to not having much knowledge of Afghanistan), and requires, in my view, willful ignorance to think it appropriate.
In a comment to the post, “Grandmasta” writes:
I am mostly basing this on the fact that I almost never come across anyone or any signifigant Islamist group in the Arabic press that argues that 9/11 helped their cause.
I just posted on Sayyid Imam and put up a link to a translation of an interview he gave which takes up this topic. The sentiment he expresses about Bin Laden’s recklessness being responsible for the end of Taliban rule is fairly common.
Of course, this would imply that the Taliban’s presence as the government of Afghanistan had significant global implications for Islamist terrorism, but whatever. I posted a challenge with the following comment:
“We’ll leave you to govern Afghanistan as you wish, as long as you do everything possible to keep all Arab Al-Qaeda types out. Oh and the second we find that you’re not doing that, we’ll attack.”
You mean kind of like the 90s? We tried this. It didn’t work. We tried it again after 9/11. It didn’t work. Right now, the Taliban is reliant on al-Qaeda’s network for weapons and transport funding — a network that can’t be easily broken, since they’ll need it to rule the country should we allow them to govern.
Basically, consenting to Taliban governance is admitting an enormous counterterrorism failure. I’m really surprised this seems like such a good idea.
“Grandmasta” replied:
No, we never tried that in the 1990s. In the 1990s the US government didnt care at all about Al-Qaeda or Afghanistan. As a result, the Taliban leadership, fighting a Civil War, felt that inviting Al-Qaeda types such as Bin Laden into the country (with the material aid they could provide) was worth it because there werent any serious consequences for this type of behavior.
Obviously, now the Taliban knows that there are new strategic realities. And the Taliban is a local Afghani organization that is solely concerned with Islamic rule in Afghanistan. In their eyes, they had the first real modern Islamic government from 1996-2001. This they lost after the US invaded and sponsored a new pro-American gov. That, and not any special loyalty to Al-Qaeda is why they are fighting an insurgency against the US.
I disagree that the Taliban would be reliant on Al-Qaeda for the weapons it needs to rule the country should we allow them to govern. Simply let Pakistan arm them as they were doing before 9/11.
How is consenting to Taliban governance a counter-terrorism failure? When has the Taliban ever participated in terrorism? Has a member of the Taliban or even an Afghani ever attacked the US outside of Afghanistan?
Yikes. For someone so up front about his lack of deep knowledge of the country, he sure is certain he can manipulate and predict events in it.
I neglected to answer how this is a counterterrorism failure. Aside from the decades of history of using Afghanistan as a staging ground for global terror, allowing the regime even “Grandmasta” admits was once tightly associated with al-Qaeda as a sort of hybrid movement to gather itself and force out another major world power would be absolutely devastating. It would not only cede any initiative we would have in preventing the 1990s all over again, it would be the greatest boost al-Qaeda could possibly hope to have. To pretend the two movements can be easily distinguished is to vastly overestimate both how easily we distinguish between them, and our ability to influence that relationship at all (it is worth nothing that most of our actions have thus far driven the two groups closer together).
But there’s more in those comments. Let me just suffice it to say that people who thought the U.S. either did not know about, did not care, or did not “really” try to do anything about al-Qaeda before 9/11 have not done their homework. Just as those who say the Taliban are not dangerous in charge of Afghanistan, or that they don’t pose a regional threat, or that Afghans have never attacked the U.S. have clearly not read any accounts of the country in the 1990s. These were New York Times bestsellers and Pulitzer winners, people—this isn’t secret knowledge I’m drawing from.
It is very obvious that not giving Afghanistan sufficient focus dramatically affected our well being seven years ago; to advocate abandoning it to its fate, and pretending we can do a damned thing about al-Qaeda once we do is just, for lack of a better word, ignorant. We can do better for advice.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust
{ 5 comments }
Remarkably, very smart people, like NYkrinDC, voiced their agreement, saying that the Taliban is a local movement and al-Qaeda is a global movement, so they’re not really good allies so why can’t we support one while opposing the other?
I guess I deserve that. I think here I should clarify that what I was referring to in my comment at Arab Media Shack, was the recognition of Pakistan’s interests in the country, which the ISI can be seen as pursuing through their continuing support of the Taliban. With that in mind my comment perhaps should have been edited and expanded as follows:
I agree with you on this,I’ve argued before that in Afghanistan, we need to take Pakistan’s interests into account in understanding the ISI’s continued support for the Taliban.The current Afghan government, as seen from Islamabad, is too close to both India and Iran, who traditionally ally against Islamabad and Riyadh. That’s been one of the failures in addressing the insurgency in Afghanistan by this administration.The Afghan government for its part, has at times made this more difficult by refusing to allow former Taliban elements into the government, which would go a long way toward bringing them into the political process;hence, addressing Pakistan’s concern and ultimately moving to reduce support for the insurgency in Pakistan and within the Pashto majority. Given the political realities on the ground,
thatneither Iran nor India would allow the fall of the current Afghan government, and hence heavy fighting would ensue as it did prior to the ascendancy of the Taliban in the 1990′s.That being the case, to reintegrate the Pashto into power structure of the country, the Karzai administration must be pushed toward deeper reconciliation with the those elements of the Taliban that can be reconciled, while continuing our strikes against al Qaeda and irreconcilable Taliban elements, thereby dividing the alliance of convenience by giving at least some Taliban a way out. This is another one of the things that has made the Taliban stronger, the failure to recognize the fact that the Pashto do not like being ruled by what used to be the Northern Alliance.
Hope that clarifies this.
Absolutely, and I’m glad I was right to be skeptical of you buying that argument wholesale. And when it comes to fully recognizing Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan, and the way that brings in all of South Asia’s security complex, you have a strong friend on this blog.
I’m curious how you’d distinguish between Taliban that need killin’ and Taliban that need reconcilin’. So far, neither has really come to the fore much, at least publicly, but that is to be expected since any public show of support for the government or the U.S. would fatally undermine any commander’s power base. Which is a real pickle, don’t you think?
Side note, however: Pakistan’s pressing urge to have a pliant government in Afghanistan also puts us in an impossible situation: we cannot really counter Iran’s influence, nor can we realistically tell India to reverse its diplomatic maneuvers in the country. But neither can we really punish Pakistan in any noticeable way without jeopardizing our only supply route in and out of the country.
That’s a major bind, and it gets at some of the very haphazard thinking that went into the start of the war and, coincidentally, is helping it become more and more difficult to fight by the day.
I don’t recall seeing it in any discussion of ‘let the Taliban rule’, but one obviously salient reason for this being an ill-conceived idea is what will happen to about half the people in the country who already suffer human rights abuses. Or to be plain, the Taliban is bad for women and women’s rights. But perhaps in all the fun of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency and international politics, women just aren’t that important?
Hey Josh,
Sorry, I just got a break to respond.
I’m curious how you’d distinguish between Taliban that need killin’ and Taliban that need reconcilin’. So far, neither has really come to the fore much, at least publicly, but that is to be expected since any public show of support for the government or the U.S. would fatally undermine any commander’s power base. Which is a real pickle, don’t you think?
This is mostly of the top of my head, so if it sounds a bit general, I apologize in advance. The first thing I think we would need to do is a wholesale review of our current strategy in the country, particularly how our anti-narcotics efforts are strengthening the insurgency by providing them with a population willing to finance and accept them, as a means of protecting their livelihoods (i.e. poppy crops). Can we allow poppy cultivation wholesale? No, but we can at least use better methods including a kind of reverse farm subsidization. Under such a program, the US and Western Europe commit to purchase alternative crops from Afghan farmers, at double or triple the market price, for a period of up to ten years to not only reduce the incentive to grow poppies, but also give them enough revenue for a stable life.
In this manner, we can do away with an unpopular program, while also taking the high ground in terms of trying to provide Afghans a way forward. At the same time, you’d probably have to move to better integrate tribal elders better into the governing structure of the country, even when that erodes some of the rights given to people in the new constitution. That would likely be a hard sell here in the states, as Frances comment above illustrates, but the truth is, one of the mistakes we’ve made is the same one the Soviets did when they went into the country, they tried to impose foreign concepts and ideas on a population that was not ready to accept them. The same holds true today. Some elements within the country are more open to the reforms, but others still are not, and the US should not put itself in a position where it forces the Afghan gov to push or protect unpopular measures. We have to let them move at their own speed. If we do the economy right, these things should follow, particularly as education and prosperity increase. India and Iran can be allies in that process, but first, as the US we have to move to resolve our dispute with Iran.
I mean, Iran was one of our most important allies during the Shah’s rule and many of the same reasons still hold for such a partnership (in terms of interests, not the same relationship as the Shah).
Also, recognizing Pakistan’s interests in the region, we can move to have them better represented in the country, so long as they understand that this will only be possible through their decreasing support for the Taliban insurgency. Here we can use the IPI, as well as other proposed pipelines from Central Asia southwards, as a tool for getting Iran, Pakistan and India together in recognizing all of their interests in a stable Afghanistan.
To be sure, this is an extremely complex issue, and these are only initial thoughts on the subject.
It is indeed complex, but I think you’re on the right track. Finding a legitimate use for poppies is one of the big bugaboos I can’t see an easy solution to. Up to medium term, I don’t see how we can avoid costly and risky eradication measures without also funding the very drug lords helping to drive the insurgency (don’t forget that the drug lords and the Taliban are separate, but still incredibly violent, groups).
One thing I read recently was about the ethanol value of poppies. That strikes me as much more promising than opiate drugs, but I haven’t researched that in any depth.
Anyway, that balance, between India, Iran, and Pakistan will be tough. None are much used to compromise, and all have made it a habit of funding client militias. That’s going to be hard to break, but balancing that will require a lot more brainpower than I have.