 Despite all the good intentions, reconciliation with the Taliban is still a distant dream because old prejudices die hard.The idea of reintegration, and reconciliation with the Taliban for a political rather than a full military solution of the Afghan conflict, has now gained momentum on local and international forums. Besides reintegrating foot soldiers, the Afghan government has been advocating for reconciliation with the top leadership of the insurgency while the United Nations' outgoing envoy in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, also categorically emphasized on some sort of political approach when he was speaking at his last conference in the country.
But the main actor, the United States, too made it clear that it only supports reintegration and does not want reconciliation. Talking at a Harvard forum on March 4, Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, termed the idea of reconciliation as President Karzai's Pashtun approach because ‘the Taliban is woven into the fabric of Pashtun society, and almost every Pashtun has someone involved with the movement.' This statement is based on a false understanding of the Pashtuns. The majority of Pashtuns don't associate themselves with the Taliban or any kind of terrorism. Former President Gen Musharraf also had made a similar statement for which he faced fierce criticism.
The main focus of the London Conference on Afghanistan, held on Jan. 28, was to develop a mechanism to reintegrate the insurgent fighters who are motivated by financial incentives rather than ideology or religious reasons. In the West, these fighters are known as '10 dollar Taliban.' Honestly speaking, nobody disputes the need for reintegrating them into Afghan society. However, the real conflict arises when there is talk about reconciliation with the top leadership (that includes Mullah Omar, leading the Taliban, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, leading Hizb-e-Islami, Jalaluddin Haqqani, leading the Haqqani Network and their immediate advisors).
The Afghan government has announced a peace jirga in Kabul, possibly to be held in late April. President Karzai has said that he will invite the insurgent leadership to the jirga for talks. There were also reports that Taliban representatives had met with the Afghan government and the UN officials and had demonstrated the willingness for peace talks, though official spokesmen of the Taliban have never confirmed these reports.
The main problem with the reconciliation is that every stakeholder of the conflict wants it on their own conditions. The U.S. wants the insurgent leadership to denounce violence, cut ties with Al Qaeda, accept the Afghan Constitution and unconditionally hand themselves over. Also, for the U.S., talking with the Taliban at this stage will mean the former's weakness and the latter's strength.
On the contrary, the Afghan government is thinking about a general amnesty for Taliban leaders and is seeking role for them in the Afghan government. The UN supports the Afghan government in this. But the country's closest neighbor, Pakistan, is insisting on a ‘central role' for itself in any peace process, otherwise... Many believe the arrests of Mullah Baradar and other top Taliban leaders and shadow governors in different parts of Pakistan came after the Afghan government refused to accept that role for Pakistan. Saudi Arabia, the Afghan government's main hope in reconciliation, has firmly refused to play this role unless the Taliban cut ties with Al Qaeda. Canada and many European countries have their own interests and mechanisms for reconciliation while India, which has a growing presence in Afghanistan, has clearly said it will not support any kind of reconciliation with the terrorists. Hence, the reconciliation will never happen partly because too many cooks spoil the broth, and partly because both sides lack the willingness to move forward.
In my opinion, reconciliation means forgetting past grievances and experiences and moving forward. Realistically this is not possible in the current Afghan circumstances. First of all, the insurgents are not one group or a central entity. They are several having different ideological and strategic approaches to the conflict; some of them could be described as less aggressive and somewhat reconcilable, but others are more aggressive, brutal and irreconcilable. All of them have affiliations and support of different countries and powers with different interests in Afghanistan, though their main public demand is the withdrawal of the international forces.
Second, the ideologically motivated Taliban will never accept the country's somewhat developed democratic system, the human rights activities, the Constitution, and the legitimacy of the Afghan government. Their demand has been the enforcement of their own strict Sharia laws in which they don't give place for democracy, the civil society, human rights, women's rights, minorities' rights, reconstruction on foreign aid, and so on.
So instead of reconciliation, the U.S. wants to change the momentum and counter the Taliban surge by other counterinsurgency measures. In them include deploying additional military forces and civilian experts; strengthening the Afghan security forces by providing more professional trainings and sophisticated weaponry; launching Marja-like operations in Taliban-controlled areas; helping and encouraging the Pashtun tribes to stand up against the insurgents; and most importantly targeting the leaders and their sanctuaries by drone strikes in the tribal areas lying cheek by jowl with the insurgency-occupied Afghan provinces.
The U.S. withdrawal next year depends on the progress of all these efforts. But to make these efforts a success, the international community needs to understand the main problems and challenges on the ground. The biggest problem on the ground in Afghanistan is a weak government and the poor governance system. So the main focus should be on strengthening the government and its forces. Thousands of villagers in the southern and eastern provinces will tell you that they want to support the government instead of Taliban fighters but only if the government is strong enough to provide them protection and basic needs of daily life. Also all reconstruction and other efforts should be Afghan-led. When the efforts are led by foreigners, they create lot of misunderstandings and undermine the local government both of which led to alienate the local population.
Equally important is the neighboring countries' role. Unfortunately, instead of supporting the reconstruction and anti-terror efforts in Afghanistan, they fight their own proxy wars here which result in endangering the counterinsurgency efforts. As President Karzai mentioned during his recent visit to Islamabad, there are wars that are fought on Afghanistan's soil between India and Pakistan, and between Iran and the U.S. Attacks on Indian and Pakistani interests in many parts of the country and President Ahmadinejad's provoking statement during his recent visit to Kabul are clear examples of these wars.
Yet, one important thing is that many people in the West and Afghanistan's neighboring countries think that the Afghan government will collapse if the international forces pulled out. This is completely untrue and unrealistic. Firstly, there will be fewer chances of the international forces withdrawing as long as the Taliban are active in or outside the country. But if unexpectedly the international forces pull out before significantly weakening the insurgency, the withdrawal itself will inevitably affect the insurgent movements because the Taliban now recruit youth for suicide attacks and fight for ‘jihad against the occupiers,' and once the occupiers leave they will lack a legitimate reason for attracting recruitments and funds. This will automatically affect their ability to fight against more than the 200,000 Afghan forces.
Abdulhadi Hairan is a political research analyst based in Kabul.
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