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No matter how many reviews are undertaken, the fact is that if this beleaguered country has to be restored to any modicum of stability, surely Taliban cannot be a part of its future.

By Vishal Chandra

PERSISTING DOUBTS: Although incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai (left) and his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah have agreed to a presidential run-off, who's to ensure the exercise will be fair this time over?

The mega-politics of Afghan conflict has entered into a new phase. Taliban and their sponsors have successfully reversed and moulded the Afghan war to their advantage, leaving the West desperate, divided and utterly confused. The UN-mandated and West-sponsored political process too appears to be falling apart. Interestingly, the Western criticism of the ongoing Afghan electoral process is greater than the Taliban opposition to it. The incumbent Afghan president has been 'tamed', pending a presidential run-off on November 7, which by no means will be fairer than the controversial August 20 election. Added to it is the prolonged U.S. dilemma over sending additional troops to Afghanistan. While a deeply divided U.S. administration remains in a prolonged 'introspection' mode, the Afghan Taliban are already sensing 'victory'. In the Taliban worldview, another superpower is on the verge of being humbled. The monotony has been broken. The message for the West is loud and clear — fight or quit!

Ironically, though there has been a strong sense of realisation in the West over where things have gone wrong in Afghanistan during the last eight years, there is still no clarity of policy and purpose in the Western thinking. Despite a series of assessments and reviews, an over cautious Obama Administration, which had earlier in March announced a bold and an ambitious new policy for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, has since been wavering on its next move.

Building consensus both within his own administration and among allies on a new Af-Pak policy and ways and means of executing it remains a key challenge before President Obama. Whether the U.S. has the luxury of time while violence rises to unprecedented levels, is not a matter of conjecture. The war is bound to peak before it scales down to a manageable level. Where are the options or alternatives to intensifying military operations against the Taliban and allies, especially when the latter is not willing to negotiate? The U.S. and the Nato both will have to put more troops on the ground however certain or uncertain its fallout may be. Otherwise, the West must be prepared for a dishonourable exit.

True, there are no military solutions to the conflict, but an effective military deterrence is definitely required to enable Afghan state-building, including the development of a credible Afghan national army and a police, and even to create conditions for national reconciliation. Simply dragging the conflict, rather than intensifying efforts against the Taliban guerrillas and their propaganda machinery, would be a leap backward and not way forward. The military strategy proposed by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is therefore worth a serious consideration. However, the idea of abandoning far flung military outposts needs to be reconsidered as that would only strengthen the hold of the Taliban and allies. It may instead prove to be of strategic or operational advantage to the Taliban guerrillas in terms of launching attacks on Western troops even if they are concentrated in population centres. It may also be easier for them to build up pressure around urban centres and key highways. In short, it would be difficult to keep the Taliban guerrillas confined to the rural areas.

In recent years, the idea of exploring prospects of reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban has gathered a certain momentum in the West, especially among the European member-states of Nato. As a matter of fact, the very idea of gradually co-opting Taliban elements in the post-2001 political process is not new. Kabul too had initiated Programme Takhin-e Solh, headed by former Afghan president Sebghatullah Mojadeddi, in 2004-05 to wean away the middle and lower ranking Taliban and Hezb-e Islami (Hekmatyar) fighters. However, all such moves to weaken the Taliban have so far not yielded the desired results. Talking or negotiating with the 'moderate' or 'good' Taliban, which is often suggested and projected as a possible way out for the West from the Afghan quagmire, has also been reflective of the differing perceptions in the Western coalition and growing limitations of the Nato's Afghan mission. Now, there is a thinking in the U.S. as well that the American forces need to keep their focus on destroying Al Qaeda alone since the Taliban do not pose any direct threat to the U.S. interests. In fact, a wide range of diverse entities, both Afghan and foreign, are believed to be engaged at different levels in reaching out to the Taliban leadership, probably oblivious of its consequences both at the regional and global level.

Any compromise with the Taliban in its present form is bound to prove counter-productive. It would only reinforce the Taliban position and that of its varied sponsors. There is no point negotiating from a weak position. All pacts and deals signed with the Taliban in the past, be it in Waziristan by the Pakistan Army or by the British commanders in Helmand, have only strengthened the Taliban. What needs to be understood is to what extent Taliban are willing for a negotiated settlement and at what cost and on whose expense? Why would Taliban de-link itself from Al Qaeda when in their perception they have an upper-hand? If reconciliation efforts are directed towards 'moderate' Taliban then how to deal with the hardcore elements? It is also pertinent to enquire as to how any compromise with the Taliban will impact on the country's new constitution, its nascent state institutions, and its foreign policy? Will the Taliban guerrillas ever disarm or will they be integrated into the upcoming Afghan national army and police? And, to what extent are they willing to work together with the minority ethnic groups and the international community? More importantly, how will it impact on the Pakistan Army's ongoing military operations against the Taliban?

Any negotiated settlement of the Afghan conflict cannot be at the expense of the achievements of the last eight years. A comprehensive intra-Afghan dialogue is definitely needed and at many levels, but it has to be within a well-defined national policy framework and in conformity with the basic (modern) ethos of the ongoing state-building process in Afghanistan. There is no doubt that if Afghanistan has to emerge as a strong and a modern state, then the Taliban cannot be its future. In the given scenario, re-abandoning Afghanistan is simply not an option. Otherwise, the West will have to return to Afghanistan sooner than later.

Instead of selectively focussing on Al Qaeda, the U.S. needs to adopt a more comprehensive approach encompassing all extremist groupings active in the Af-Pak region. This could go a long way in securing a strong regional support for the U.S. Afghan policy and also in keeping up the pressure on Pakistan to act against the Taliban and the likes. Regional consensus would also be critical to the success of national unity efforts given the strong cross-border dimension to the Taliban militancy inside Afghanistan. Unfortunately, regional efforts to deal with common challenges emanating from the Pak-Afghan frontiers remain divided and weak.

It is all too clear that there cannot be any substitute to a sustained international commitment to building strong institutions of governance in Afghanistan. Certain institutional transformations in Pakistan are also imperative to the struggle against religious extremism and terrorism in the region. President Obama has rightly stated that Afghanistan is a 'war of necessity'. One hopes that he and his administration, as they prepare to come out with another reassessment of the Afghan strategy, remember the concluding remarks made in the White Paper of the U.S. Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan released not long ago: 'there are no quick fixes to achieve U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The danger of failure is real and the implications are grave.'

Vishal Chandra is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (IDSA), New Delhi. Views expressed here are personal.

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