November, 24 2008, 12:00pm EDT
It's Time to Deal With Taliban
Tariq Amin-Khan: Taliban is now a social-political force and must be approached as such
WASHINGTON
In the second part of his interview on the Taliban and what the United States should do to help Pakistan, The Real News Network's Senior Editor, Paul Jay, asks Professor Tariq Amin-Khan what he thinks the best way to deal with the Taliban is.
Obama's top adviser on Pakistan, Bruce Riedel, has recently proposed a military plan to combat the Taliban, calling for the United States to make a deal between Pakistan and India over Kashmir so that the Pakistan forces can be freed up and positioned on the border with Afghanistan. Professor Tariq Amin-Khan opposes this plan and says that it will never work on the basis that Pakistan has seen that military action is not the answer, following their unsuccessful attacks on the Taliban when the suicide bombings started, and will not want to engage in further military action in the Northwest frontier provinces. As an alternative to this mass-action approach, Professor Amin-Khan says that both India and Pakistan need to give autonomy to their respective regions of Kashmir and open the borders.
In the remainder of the interview, Professor Amin-Khan gives his input concerning the locals living on the border, insisting that education has to increase and that there must be open debates on Sharia law. He also says that the Taliban are now willing to talk because they "want some kind of a negotiated settlement and a face-saving" and Obama should take advantage of it.
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