Tallking with the Taliban

The main consensus from the London conference on Afghanistan seems to be to go talking to the Taliban.

I find these developments quite amazing. On the one hand Afghanistan is full of people who once served the Taliban and who now support its government. So I can't see why we should do as if it is something special when we can turn a few more Taliban supporters around. The conflict in Afghanistan is to a large extent an ethnic conflict and support for the Taliban is not only determined by support for radical Islam but also by tribal affiliations. This is a kind of conflict where people easily switch sides and we should be prepared to play the game. To continue with the idea that the Taliban is Al Qaeda and as such is bad and must be destroyed is just lunacy.

On the other hand I hate to see how much stress is given to talking with the Taliban. This smells like desparation and reminds me of Vietnam. I think it is extremely unlikely that there will be any grand agreement with the Taliban and if there is such an agreement it is likely that the Taliban will break it just like the Vietnamese communists did.

The AfPak ethnic border

In this blog entry I want to look at the Afghan conflict from a distance. We are regularly told about the fissure in Afghanistan between the Pasthuns and the other tribes (mainly Tajiks). But they speak closely related Persian languages. The real ethnic border is further east between the Indian and the Persian world. It is the Indus.

Pakistan can be divided in three parts. The thinly populated north houses a diversity of tribes, most of whom speak Tibetan languages. The Eastern half speaks Indian languages and the Western half speaks mainly languages related to Persian (Pashtu and Beluchi). The border between east and west is the Indus. Although there live much more people in the east (150 million) than in the west (30 million) the areas have a comparable size. Geographically too the Indus is a border: the area west of it is called the Iranian Plateau. Being a minority the Pashtuns and Beluchi are discriminated somewhat in Pakistan.

This raises the question whether Pakistan has really an interest in a stable Afghanistan. A prosperous Afghanistan might seduce the Pashtun to demand to join Afghanistan (the Beluchi are already fighting for secession). It would result in a more prosperous Western half of Pakistan that would be more oriented towards Kabul then towards Islamabad and Karachi. Pakistan's Afghanistan policy centers on religion for a good reason. Religion is the main thing they have in common and it is also the main thing where Afghanistan (mostly Sunni) differs from Iran (Shiite). However, when you focus on religion you end up supporting religious hardliners like the Taliban. An additional advantage of the Taliban for Pakistan is that its primitivity helps to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a prosperous country.

This raises the question why we ignore culturally more related Iran and Tajikistan and rely on Pakistan in our Afghanistan policy. Iran has good reasons to stabilize Afganistan that is major source of drugs, crime and unrest. Yet the religious division makes it rather certain that Iran never will have real close control over Afganistan. Iran is also a much richer country that has much more to offer to the Afghans than Pakistan.

Involving Iran in Afghanistan would have as an additional advantage that it would reduce Iran's fear for being surrounded and threatened by the US. This could result in more cooperative policies towards Iraq and regarding nuclear matters.

Ethnic traps in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan

I have recently reading a lot about Afghanistan and Iraq and what strikes me is the similarity between America’s problems there and in the Balkans. Americans keep making the same mistakes based on their misunderstanding of ethnic dynamics.

What strikes one in the Balkans first is that the Americans have no idea how compromises are made. As long as the US is supporting one faction one can be sure it won’t compromise, but somehow that doesn’t register in the US and they keep playing favorites. Even more amazing is that those favorites are largely historically determined and have little to do with present US interests. Yet they keep being promoted because somehow it is supposed to be humiliating for the US if a former ally suffered a defeat. Another US addiction is to borders. Partitioning of both Bosnia and Kosovo is taboo. Why? Because somewhere in the past the US committed itself to those borders. In the mean time it keep deceiving itself that within those borders the conditioned for a peaceful multi-ethnic society are present.

What brings me to Iraq. One of the hottest items it Kirkuk. Should it be controlled by the Arabs or the Kurds. Here too the taboos abound. Kirkuk is a province that should not be partitioned. Let alone that one should look for a comprehensive solution that concerns all the borders of Kurdistan. To make the discussion even more abstract the subject of ethnic cleansing by the Kurds is taboo. Just as in the Balkans the pretense must be maintained that no ethnic cleansing happens under US control. And so we see that the discussions about Kirkuk are about abstract voting rights instead of the real issues.

In Afghanistan the absurdity of US ethnic thinking becomes even more visible. Afghanistan is divided between the Pashtus who constitute some 43% of the population and have traditionally ruled Afghanistan and the other tribes who nearly all speak Dari, a Persian dialect. Afghanistan is relatively recent creation that comes from conquests by the Pashtu rulers. The other tribes have rather mixed feelings about Pashtu rule that has included ethnic cleansing and the Taliban.

The US conquered Afghanistan with the help of those other tribes, but then turned its back to them and offered the Pashtus the governance of Afghanistan. To add injury to insult they imposed a hugely centralized government system. This system was imposed by the American diplomat Khalilzad – himself of Pashtu descent. In its defense we are told that otherwise the Pasthus would become angry and not support us. But don’t expect the Pashtus to be grateful. Many of them sympathize with the Taliban and even president Karzai is pushing for negotiations with the Taliban. They know that Taliban rule means Pashtu rule.

A very basic strategy in Afghanistan would be to give the non-Pashtu provinces the tools to get rid of the Taliban. Many would jump at the chance. It would leave us with only the Pashtu provinces in the need of counterinsurgency. But it doesn’t fit in the US imposed system where only national institutions are reinforced. It looks like the US is incapable to discern its friends from its enemies. This reminds one of the dubious US friendships with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Taliban's Winning Strategy in Afghanistan

Gilles Dorronsoro of the Carnegie endowment has published a report "The Taliban's Winning Strategy in Afghanistan". I think it is the best report on Afghanistan so far. Key points are:

• The Taliban have built a parallel government in areas they control to fulfill two basic needs: justice and security. An almost nonexistent local government and the population’s distrust of the international coalition allowed the Taliban to expand their influence.
  
  
• Focusing resources in the South and East, where the insurgency is strongest, is risky, especially since the Afghan army is not ready to replace U.S. forces there.
  
  
• The Taliban have opened a front in the northern provinces, having consolidated their grip on the South and East. If the International Coalition does not counter this thrust, the insurgency will spread throughout Afghanistan within two to three years and the coalition will not be able to bear the financial and human costs of fighting.
  
  
• The insurgency cannot be defeated while the Taliban retain a safe haven in Pakistan. The Taliban can conduct hit-and-run attacks from their refuge in Pakistan, and the North remains open to infiltration.
  
  
• The United States must pressure Pakistan to take action against the Taliban’s central command in Quetta. The current offensive in Pakistan is aimed at Pakistani Taliban and does not indicate a major shift in Pakistani policy toward Afghanistan.

Here is a a direct link to the report. US admiral Mullen seems to agree with much of the report.

Some progress in Afghanistan

There is some progress in Afghanistan. The US and Britain have finally attacked Helmand. Helmand is the most important source of Afghan heroin and as such a major source of Taliban finance. It find it amazing that the US left it so long alone. The other news is that the US has finally decided to use UAVs (unmanned planes) against the Taliban. Until now they used them only against Al Qaeda. Problem is that they don't have enough of them at the moment. But as they are cheap that won't take long. Read here how UAVs helped the US to conquer Sadr city in Iraq.

But the biggest problem stays: Afghanistan's government. I wonder whether this sudden attention to Karzai's incompetence covers a push to have a new president after the coming elections. It is my hunch that the decision to create a strong central government in Afghanistan was wrong. Afghanistan never had a strong central government. The country is nearly evenly divided between two big groups (Pashtuns and Tadjziks) and a couple of small ones. It might be better to have locally elected provincial governors responsible for a local police force.

Afghanistan and Vietnam

I was in favor of the American troop increase in Iraq, because I thought there was a good chance of winning the war. I considered the fundamentals ok: the Sunnites (the main rebels) are a minority and can't dominate the country. The other troublemaker - Al-Sadr - had gotten some prominence because of his use of violent militias. He had gotten some prominence only because nobody confromted him. The main trouble had been that until the Surge the US had not been committed to winning: arbitrary measures like the debaathification showed that the US didn't consider loosing as an option. With the Surge the US finally got serious. I consider that more important than the troop increase itself.

For Afghanistan I am much less optimistic. The situation feels more similar to Vietnam. Both the Vietcong and the Taliban have wide support among the population and have a strong ideology. On the other hand Karzai and his supporters are seen by many as a bunch of opportunists who care more about enriching themselves than about winning the war. The government in South Vietnam had a similar image.

Obama's and Clinton's latest idea is talking with the Taliban. It is good to see that they finally take some initiative and don't let Karzai determine what they do (Karzai didn't want the US to talk with the Taliban - while he himself did talk with them). But I don't expect much from those talks - except for co-opting some local Taliban commanders.

My solution would rather be to bring government closer to the people:
- after the US invasion Afghanistan has become a rather centralised country - much more centralised than it has historically been. This should be turned back.
- Local government should be close to the people. No more "women liberation" and other projects to please the liberals in the West.
- I am not in favor of warlords. But it should be regional police instead of the national army of Afghanistan that does the main fighting against the Taliban.
- The national government should derive its power mainly from its possibility to distribute money for development projects in the different provinces. It should protect this power with a strong anti-corruption policy.

Newsweek has an article about this too.