A dangerous proposition: negotiating with the Taliban
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While this week's London summit on Afghanistan failed to produce anything dramatic, it was not without drama. The announced reconciliation plan has raised concerns that a revamped negotiating style with Taliban insurgents will undermine the international community's political and military missions, two senior Afghan policy analysts have told Xinhua.
Daniel Korski, with the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to the Afghan government, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Friday that the reintegration policy outlined in London means engaging with various insurgent leaders on an equal footing and being ready to negotiate a compromise.
"It's not trying to break up the insurgency by hollowing it out, " said Korski, "but rather engaging with them as if they were equal parties in a peace process."
This is not without its pitfalls. The United States and the Afghan government will have to be ready to make certain political concessions, possibly over Afghanistan's constitution, a power- sharing agreement between tribal and national authorities, and even on women's rights.
"If you're trying to make a peace deal, it's about coming to some kind of an agreement where you also sacrifice some of your positions," said Korski. "But so far the international community doesn't seem to be too interested."
What the international forces are interested in, apparently, is a graceful exit strategy. The sheer amount of money pledged at the conference and fresh political momentum flaunted at London's summit appears to have been carefully stage-managed to allow U.S. and NATO troops to start scripting a withdrawal.
But perceived in a certain light it could be counter-productive.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on Afghanistan at the Brookings Institution, warned that framing the reconciliation process as part of the exit strategy will likely prove detrimental to U.S. strategic objectives of increasing security and will undermine the recent U.S. surge of 30,000 troops before it ever fully begins.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants the 70,000 U.S. troops to start leaving Afghanistan by the summer of 2011. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the London conference that Afghan forces will take "greater and greater responsibility, province by province, beginning this year," according to local media reports.
There are two problems that come by linking the reconciliation process with an exit strategy: The extreme elements of the Taliban will either wait out U.S. and NATO troops or they will wait to enforce their position because they know the commitment and resolve of the other side is in short supply, said Felbab-Brown.
"I would be much more comfortable if the talks were framed as a part of stabilizing Afghanistan, part of bringing peace to society, and not indicated because we want to cut and run," she told Xinhua during a telephone interview.
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