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Policy Battle Over Afghan Peace Talks Intensifies
WASHINGTON - The struggle within the Barack Obama administration over Afghanistan policy entered a new phase when the president suggested at a meeting of his "war cabinet" Friday that it might be time to start negotiations with the Taliban, according to a report in the New York Times Saturday.
A US marine is pictured at a military camp in Marjah city of Helmand province on March 1. Thirty-five people were killed in a Taliban assault on Kandahar described by rebels as a pre-emptive response to Western plans to eradicate them from the strategic city. (AFP/POOL/File/Massoud Hossaini) Obama said that the success of the recent operation to take control of the "insurgent stronghold" of Marja, combined with the killing of insurgent leaders in Pakistan by drone attacks, might be sufficient to "justify an effort to begin talks with the Taliban", two participants in the meeting told the Times.
That proposal puts Obama directly at odds with key members of his national security team, especially Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both Gates and Clinton have argued in recent months that attempting to negotiate with Taliban leaders would be fruitless unless and until they have been convinced by U.S. military operations that they are losing.
In an indication that Gates and Clinton intend to resist Obama's proposal to start talks soon, the Times reported that two unnamed officials who attended the meeting said any plans for "reaching out" to the leadership of the Taliban are likely to be delayed until after U.S. forces launch a major military offensive in Kandahar province.
That, of course, is the Gates-Clinton position on the issue, which is also held by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
By suggesting that Obama's suggestion is not likely to prevail, the opponents of early negotiations were expressing confidence that they will once again force him to back away from a position that is unacceptable to the military leadership and the field commander. They succeeded in getting Obama to retreat from his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq in March 2009 and from his initial resistance to a large troop increase in Afghanistan last November.
The argument that will now be made by Clinton, Gates and McChrystal that the administration should wait until after the Kandahar operation is launched before taking any negotiating initiative is evidently aimed at giving McChrystal's command as much time as possible to show successful results against the Taliban before negotiations begin.
The offensive in Kandahar is not expected to begin until this summer, according to military officials, and it could take several months before U.S. troops even get into the city itself. The military and its allies in Obama's war cabinet would certainly argue for delaying talks until the operation could demonstrate clear success. That could mean waiting until well into 2011.
Obama identified mid-2011 as the trigger point for the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. But Obama will also need to show the U.S. public that he is making progress on an exit strategy by 2012 - the biggest single prod for starting peace negotiations much earlier.
The question of when negotiations with the Taliban might begin has been hanging over the administration's national security team for weeks. As one official told the Times, starting negotiations "is now more a question of 'when' than a question of 'if'."
Gen. McChrystal has been worried that Obama would agree to a negotiated settlement with the Taliban involving a relatively short timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Contrary to the public position voiced frequently by Gates that the Taliban would not negotiate seriously under present conditions, McChrystal understands that there are indications the Taliban leaders would try to use their present strong territorial position as bargaining leverage on a settlement. That was the gist of what an official of McChrystal's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) told IPS in late January.
The Taliban would presumably offer formal guarantees that it would sever all ties with al Qaeda in return for withdrawal of all foreign troops, based on the signal conveyed in an article on the website of the Taliban's Islamic Caliphate of Afghanistan website Dec. 5.
The Washington Post's military correspondents reported Feb. 22 that "senior military officials" had decided to target Marja mainly to convince U.S. public opinion that the U.S. military can be successful in Afghanistan. That shift in perception about military success, in turn, would be expected to translate into a slower troop withdrawal, according to the Post report.
That reasoning implied that a shift in public opinion toward support for military operations in Afghanistan would discourage Obama from agreeing to a short timetable for withdrawal in any negotiations with the Taliban.
When Obama announced a compromise strategy in November, he hinted that the war would have to end through negotiations, but left the question of how and when the United States would participate in those negotiations unresolved. In referring to the military objective in Afghanistan, Obama refused to talk about defeating the Taliban in his Dec. 2 speech. Instead, he referred to "a strategy that will break the Taliban's momentum and increase Afghanistan's capacity over the next 18 months."
That was in sharp contrast to his Mar. 27 speech, in which he referred to the "uncompromising core of the Taliban" and said "they must be defeated". Obama was clearly implying that negotiations would be a necessary part of the strategy.
But Obama provided no explicit policy guidance on when and how negotiations would begin. That allowed Clinton and Gates to continue to offer arguments against such negotiations publicly.
On ABC News Dec. 5, Clinton suggested that there was no reason to believe that the Taliban would agree to the main U.S. demand for an end to all ties with al Qaeda, citing Mullah Omar's refusal to turn over Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. And Gates repeated the argument that the Taliban would only be ready to negotiate after their "momentum" had been stopped.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had already begun asking the United States to support him in starting negotiations with the Taliban - something Clinton had publicly opposed. Karzai said on Dec. 3 that he would invite Mullah Omar himself to talks.
He let it be known that he would use the London Conference Jan. 27-28 to invite the Taliban to participate in a national "Grand Council" meeting on peace.
That intention heated up the debate in Washington and in McChrystal's ISAF headquarters. In Kabul just four days before the conference, an ISAF official told IPS the issue then under debate within the administration was whether Mullah Omar would be an acceptable participant in a future Afghan government.
"If Mullah Omar were to turn around tomorrow and say he is ready to come back," he asked, "would we be comfortable with that?" The official suggested that the London Conference was an opportunity to achieve consensus on the issue.
Seeking clarification of the U.S.-NATO stance on the issue of Mullah Omar's acceptability now appears to have been aimed at getting a decision against early negotiations with the Taliban leadership. Barring Mullah Omar, the Taliban's spiritual as well as political leader, from participation in any negotiations would have meant, in practical terms, refusing to deal with the Taliban's Leadership Committee.
Back in Washington, however, Obama made no decision to support or oppose Karzai's proposal and, by extension, left open the possible participation by Mullah Omar in talks on a peace agreement.
An administration official recalled recently that the George W. Bush administration adopted a firm policy against reconciliation with the Taliban, and that then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once told Karzai in a phone conversation to "shut up about reconciliation" with the Taliban. But the Obama administration still hadn't adopted a new policy on the issue, the official told IPS.
Obama's initiative in proposing to take advantage of even modest successes in Afghanistan and Pakistan to start talks suggests that he was waiting for the earliest possible favourable moment politically to make a move toward diplomacy. It remains to be seen, however, whether he is willing to stand up to pressures from opponents of such an initiative or will retreat once again to avoid any confrontation with the military.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
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12 Comments so far
Show AllWhy is it so much easier to start a war than to end one?
Especially a really stupid war...
It isn't just the resistance of the Afghans to invasion that has made it a quagmire of Empire, it is also the ancient relationships of the peoples surrounding Afghanistan.
For example, Iran also opposes the Taliban but you wouldn't know this without transcending Cable TV "news."
Dubya looked at the maps of the region and saw a bunch of anthills. You don't talk to ants, he said, you smash their hills. That'll show 'em.
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peace must include womens rights and freedom.
obama the coward, letting the military have its run of things. mullah omar offered us usama if we could make a prima facie showing of his involvement in the 9/11 atrocity. maybe he was insincere, maybe not. but the fact remains that we didn't put him to the test by making that showing, something every nation must do before it can have a legitimate expectation that another country will hand over a citizen to a foreign power. but we were intent on bombing, and we looked for every excuse to do it. soon wedding paries were being strafed, brides and grooms slaughtered. when those killed had their funerals, we strafed and fired upon the mourning survivors in the procession. we've created 9/11 x 12 in afghganistan against their innocent and backward peoples. it's time for our warmongers to get our troops out and try the generals for war crimes. obama needs to bring these generals down a notch or two, as they are the only potential candidates whom the republican party could field who could currently command instant respect as well as name recognition.
I don't see why Obama should require Congressional approval to sit down with Taliban leaders. I further do not understand nor by any means support Clinton & Gates as to not wanting to do so until we have first achieved a more decisive military conquest (if not a victory) prior to any talks taking place. Every day that we remain in that country, we are sacrificing lives of U. S. military as well as those of NATO nations who have joined in the effort (without their countries having been attacked on 9/11). I see our continuance in Afghanistan as well as the fact that we are remaining in Iraq so long as just feeding our over inflated ego. All throughout the presidential campaign, Obama made emphasis on the need for discussions to take place without pre-conditions among top nation's leader. Well, Barack, how about putting your money where your mouth is? Why have you not sat down to talk with either Ahmadinejad or perhaps the Ayatollah with regard to the tensions involving Iran. Instead, Hillary is running around shooting off her fat mouth, issuing threats of further sanctions because WE contend that their uranium enrichment cannot possibly be only for energy use. Meanwhile, we have Netenyahu over in Israel trying to goad us into a war with Iran. The Israeli prime minister need be reminded that we are presently involved in two wars and that it was our New York that was attacked on 9/11/01, not his Tel Aviv. If he wants to attack Iran, let him do so on his own. Then maybe Israel and Iran can blow each other off the face of the earth and there will be two less problmes in the world. And don't go suggesting that I'm anti-semitic. I'd say the same thing if the situation was between two islands in the Pacific.
Obama is just a dick, he has no balls. We need to talk to anyone that wants peace and participate at the polls. Obama is only concerned about his legacy and partying at the white house and living high on the hog.
I suggest once again that the American people must end this insanity.
The generals won't do it.
The politicians won't do it.
The people must do it.
I suggest that the way to do it, to get enough public support, is to shine a bright light on the insanity of Public Law 107-40.
Even if you disagree, consider this. P.L 107-40 is a single small target, a single focus.
Progressives have for years run in several directions at once, trying to stop the Afghan war, the Iraq war, etc. Instead of trying to stop 195 separate wars against terrorists (I added one for space, to be prepared), stop just one.
Roll everything, every complaint into an assault on this DAFT law that will end us if we don't end it.
Public Law 107-40 is the key that will get us out of this insanity that Congress and Bush forced us into.
Actually, I think the American generals have been making far more sense lately on the Afghan quagmire than the politicians.
It would seem that the generals are the ones who acknowledge that this occupation cannot be won by conventional "military" means, which they ought to have learned since Viet Nam. (One reason the U.S. became a nation is that Washington et al had learned from the Amerindians the value of guerrilla war against a better-equipped army, while George III was still thinking cannon and legion European style.)
Since I am of course not on the ground in Afghanistan I have no idea if the change in policy---from hunting down alleged Taliban, to seeking a rapprochement with the local villagers---is actually working. What I do know is that the international relationships surrounding the Afghan debacle are incredibly complex, and thus I believe that a "sociological" approach would be far superior to a military one.
Related to this, it seems to me, is that the military report a couple of years ago, that climate change poses a threat to national security got a lot of coverage by the Media.
MAYBE a "war on terror" as a concept is sustainable, but a "war on Climate Change"? The military metaphor becomes impossible.
Afghanistan can be read as one of the major nodes related to the use of energy, the source of energy, the enormous waste of energy to secure a supply of energy, and the devastation of the environment caused by humans, which has accelerated exponentially essentially starting with the industrial revolution and the replacement of water power by coal and the steam engine.
The invasion of Afghanistan, like the invasion of Iraq, was based on a total failure of American diplomacy under GW Bush, and his father (April Glaspie, who allegedly gave the go-ahead for Saddam to invade Kuwait...). On this score, I generally agree with johnny u, who wrote in part earlier on this thread:
"obama the coward, letting the military have its run of things. mullah omar offered us usama if we could make a prima facie showing of his involvement in the 9/11 atrocity. maybe he was insincere, maybe not. but the fact remains that we didn't put him to the test by making that showing, something every nation must do before it can have a legitimate expectation that another country will hand over a citizen to a foreign power. but we were intent on bombing, and we looked for every excuse to do it. soon wedding paries [sic] were being strafed, brides and grooms slaughtered. when those killed had their funerals, we strafed and fired upon the mourning survivors in the procession. we've created 9/11 x 12 in afghganistan against their innocent and backward peoples."
My disagreement with johnny u goes to the suggestion that they are "backward peoples." Also, I would not consider "usama" a "citizen" of Afghanistan, but rather a guest.
An important distinction. The Taliban, who had earlier sent reps to Crawford TX to work on an oil deal, appreciated the diplomatic delicacy of "usama" in their land, while Dubya essentially said, "Screw Diplomacy." That is, after all, the Cowboy Way. Or the Narcissistic inversion of it! The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE using diplomacy. Ditto Iraq.
I suspect that in the greater scheme of things, it is we who are more backward, less capable of protecting ourselves and our loved ones in a crisis. We should have learned that from Katrina, if not from 9/11, but what has been done to improve our "Homeland" since? Have we learned nothing from the last nine years, to say nothing of the past half century?
Overpopulation related to carrying capacity of the land. This is now happening globally. The American military, like much of the rest of the world, knows this.
History will record that the Taliban, whatever their faults, were trying to form a central government for Afghanistan and were willing to negotiate, while the United States, under GW Bush, was not.
We are living with the wreckage of the Bush Legacy. Some of us are trying to help clean it up. It may be a Fool's Errand, but what is the alternative?
General/President Eisenhower had it right. Beware the MIC. Since Eisenhower the MIC has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as in that NYTimes Magazine article in which an anonymous Bush Adm. member was said to have said, and I paraphrase, "while you are studying our history, we are making a new reality."
We are in the midst of a global revolution like none before. Perhaps we all ought to be more careful than the likes of John Bolton and his ilk. Including John Yoo and Jay Bybee, et al. As the Pakistanis know well, a government that has no ethics will lose the support of the military, thus that huge protest a couple of years ago by the penguin lawyers against the perceived corruption of the supreme court. Who really assassinated B Bhutto? Political corruption is not confined to the United States. Assassination is the highest form of political corruption. The other guy is right, but WE CAN'T AFFORD TO ADMIT IT. So kill him/her/it.
The global situation has become an Insider's game. So far, it hasn't really been working, and they all know it. Even Bernanke.
Something really big has to change, and soon. Perhaps we can put off accountability on the grounds that we don't yet know what really happened (I'd say, starting with Lehman Brothers being "allowed to fail," thence to TARP), while we as a nation now refuse to accuse anyone of culpability except street criminals, while the rest of the world sees us quite differently.
On the other hand, don't you get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that these guys think they are in "control"? Of the entire globe. To what extent is self-confidence a pathology? the lives of billions count on your answer.
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I've been away from Common Dreams for perhaps close to a year. Not that I feel like I owe anyone an excuse, but let's just say I have had other interests, both personal and business that brought about my abstinence.
However, now just being on here but a couple of days, I am reminded that I probably took my self-imposed hiatus because I got bored with reading the rantings of idiots.
Do not misinterpret that as being a collective statement. It does not apply to everyone who has commented on this one particular article but I have to admit that some of the comments appear to be totally outrageous.
So maybe now that I'm back (at least temporarily) can anyone tell me if jcrumb is still lurking on the premises or did he find the rules set forth by the administrators here far too stringent to comply with, or was he asked to remove himself?
I was instantly reminded of him when I read the rules laid down pertaining to no TOTAL CAPITALIZATION as that was always his trademark, as if to indicate to us that he was yelling as loud as he could.
Definitely the last part of the horse that went over the fence.
Can't recall when last I saw jcrumb on this site. I do recall another poster who tended to use mostly caps and people kept advising him to cool off...
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I'm not going to call all our political and military leaders totally incompetent, but if "Old Man River" wants to make any reference to what we may have learned from Vietnam, if we learned anything, we would have stayed the hell out of Iraq.
I become deeply disturbed with the situation in Afghanistan when I hear some foreign policy expert come on to Charlie Rose, following a trip over there. He quotes McChrystle as saying that the least of it is the military conflict. The main thing must be the establishment of a solid Afghan government. I thought we got involved there to avenge the attacks that were made here on 9/11. When did it become our responsibility to stabilize theirs or anyone else's government.
I really have to laugh when we're preaching to other countries as to democracy being the proper form of government as opposed to a dictatorship. Then we proceed to dictate to them how they are to run their country
How did the Karzai government become more legitimate by virtue of the second election when his challenger pulled out at the last minute and he won by default?
Dear CCcowboy---
It was said by our political "leaders" after the failure of Viet Nam that we had a national "malaise" that needed to be overcome. Bush the First achieved this "overcoming" with the first Iraq war and the trouncing after Saddam's "authorized" (April Glaspie) invasion of Kuwait, followed by years of Clinton sanctions and bombings of Iraq that included the deaths of half a million children ("worth it" said then-Sec. of State Albright on TV).
An argument can be made that Clinton acted relatively conservatively to attempt to maintain the status quo and to restore the Dollar to some sort of legitimacy as the fiat currency, while Dubya came along and intentionally created anarchy, on the assumption that in chaos the guys with the best guns win. And of course his constituency was "the haves, and the have mores."
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