A Win-Win Situation

One of the several myths about the invincibility of the Afghan land is Alexander the Great’s Afghan campaign that started in the summer of 330 BC and continued until the spring of 327.

Having been described as the lengthiest and most difficult of Alexander’s adventures, it came to an end only when the great warrior entered into an alliance with a top warlord by marrying his daughter, Roxane.

One other key aspect of the campaign was that the invading army was fighting against free tribesmen instead of a regular army.

After removing the Taliban from power more than nine years ago, the United States and its NATO allies, with their latest war machinery and spending billions of dollars, are yet to overcome the rag-tag militia to bring order to the war-battered Afghanistan.

Though there is a big difference in the situation now and the one  at the time of Alexander’s adventure, the current situation is not as simple as to be settled by a single marriage (as did Alexander) A marriage of convenience between the warring sides and their backers cannot be ruled out as one of the possible solutions.

Besides the Afghan people, key members of the NATO alliance, both military and civilians, are now speaking about talks with the Taliban, once considered to have been eliminated or forced to surrender through the use of force.

A recent statement by Germany’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Michael Steiner, last year’s statement from the head of the British Armed Forces, General David Richards, and the Jeddah Conference earlier this month, indicate that an urge for a negotiated solution to the Afghan imbroglio is now being seen as the only viable option to bring an end to the nine-year-old war.

How the Taliban managed to regroup and regain their strength after their defeat in late 2001 and why they could not be eliminated despite the use of all possible means by the international community, are the key questions and certainly need answers before any solution is found.

Since negotiation is the key word to arrive at a settlement and end the war, the most important questions are:
Negotiations with whom or which group? Is the Afghan government powerful enough to hold talks on its own? Can the U.S. hold direct talks with the Taliban? And where does Pakistan stand in all this process?

Widespread confusion is involved with each answer. No one can say for sure that the Taliban are the one and only group; the ethnically divided Karzai government is capable of finding the genuine Taliban leadership and holding talks with them; and the U.S. can bring the warring sides together without the support of Pakistan.

Besides all its support in eliminating al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, Pakistan’s role in propping up or, to say the least, having sympathies with the Afghan Taliban is no more a secret.  Pakistan, on the basis of its leverage with the Taliban, will be the key player in any negotiated settlement in Afghanistan.

Over the years, the United States, instead of reaching out to the Afghan people directly and strengthening the Afghan government, depended on Pakistan most of the time in its fight against terrorism.

Thus, neither did the United States succeeded in winning over the Afghan people, nor did the Taliban leadership.  The net result of the nine-year-old war is now turning out to be a zero sum game as Pakistan is still enjoying the same influence over the Taliban as it used to before 9/11.

Hence, completing the circle, the U.S. has again reached a point where it will need Pakistan’s support to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table and pave the way for withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan.

The weak and ‘corrupt’ Afghan government, on the other hand, did not succeed in winning over the Taliban and so did the war-weary Afghans despite the inflow of billions of dollars in foreign aid. Hence, like the United States, it is looking towards Pakistan for support to find a peaceful solution to the ongoing war.

This means that Pakistan is in a win-win situation despite the cracks created in diplomatic relations with the United States as a result of the Raymond Davis incident. 

Daud Khan Khattak is a political journalist and has written extensively for Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, and London's Sunday Times. He is an expert on the Pakistani Taliban and Pakistani politics. In April 2010, Daud's analysis was featured in "The Battle for Pakistan", a report from the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. Daud Khattak is also Acting Director at Mashaal Radio, RFE/RLPrague, Czech Republic.

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