Seeking a way out of the 'war on terror'

As Pakistan continues to be rocked by suicide bomb blasts the calls by decision makers for political engagement rather than military means to end the ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan reflects a major change in US policy, until now inflexible in its refusal to negotiate with "terrorists". The worsening security situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the financial meltdown that America and the Western economies face may well be behind this shift in policy, but the change allows a sliver of hope and underlines what ‘peaceniks’ have been saying for years: violence begets violence. What’s needed is an effective long-term strategy involving a political roadmap and a firm commitment to law and order and economic development.

NWFP governor Owais Ghani was arguably the first to publicly advocate holding talks with the insurgents in Afghanistan. ‘His thinking reflects that of the conservative hardcore of Pakistan's military hardliners who are accused by Western intelligence operatives of supporting the Afghan Taliban as a "hedging policy" to maintain influence in Afghanistan,’ commented Isambard Wilkinson after interviewing Ghani (‘US told it must hold talks with Taliban's Mullah Omar’, The Daily Telegraph, London, Sept. 25).

"They have to talk to Mullah Omar, certainly – not maybe, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haqqani group," the governor told Wilkinson. "The solution, the bottom line, is that political stability will only come to Afghanistan when all political power groups, irrespective of the length of their beard, are given their just due share in the political dispensation in Afghanistan."

Significantly, Washington is consulting with Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation over a “new strategy� in Afghanistan. Rand’s recently published report analyzed 648 groups between 1968 and 2006, concluding that most terrorist groups ended not through military force but by joining the political process (Seth Jones and Martin C. Libicki, “How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida� Rand Corp, 2008).

Such a political compromise was most dramatically seen in this region recently when the Maoists in Nepal laid down their weapons and contested elections. Nepal is still on a rocky road, but surely it is better than the earlier civil war.

Beleaguered Afghan President Hamid Karzai reinforced Governor Ghani’s point in his Eid message of September 30 when he revealed that for the past two years he has been asking the Saudis and Pakistanis to intercede with the Taliban and help bring peace to Afghanistan. He also appealed for Mullah Mohammed Omar to join peace negotiations, calling upon him as a “brother� to “come back to your homeland, come and work for the peace and good of your people and stop killing your brothers�.

US commander in Afghanistan General David McKiernan, talking to journalists the day after Karzai’s speech, said that starting negotiations with Mullah Omar is a “political decision that will ultimately be made by the political leadership� and that “Ultimately, the solution in Afghanistan is going to be a political solution, not a military one.�

“We’re not going to win this war,� said his British counterpart in Afghanistan Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith in an interview to The Sunday Times, London (Oct 5). “If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this.�

“We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means,� said UN special envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide at a news conference in Kabul on October 6. “That means political engagement… If you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are relevant. If you want to have results that matter, you must speak to those who matter�.

The ground was thus well-prepared for US defence secretary Robert Gates’s statement of Oct 9 in which he said that the US would be prepared to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan – the first such public declaration from Washington. Better late than never.

All this talk about reconciliation is not accompanied by the need for development and law and order – the lack of which is making people nostalgic for the Taliban when at least you knew what the rules were, as Sarah Chayes notes in her keenly observed and deeply felt account of post-Taliban Afghanistan, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban (Penguin, USA, 2006). The former NPR reporter also powerfully documents how botched priorities and bureaucratic bungling paved the way for the Taliban resurgence – and damningly indicts Pakistan for its interference in Afghanistan.

Many question whether political engagement is possible with men who burn girls’ schools, behead captives and brainwash youngsters into blowing themselves up. On the other hand, they may have similar misgivings about negotiating with those who operate remote-controlled aircraft that rain death upon ‘their people’ and ‘their land’. In any case, what are the choices? The path of responding to violence with more violence has only led to – no surprises, even more violence. The problem is that those initiating the move are doing so because they are left with little choice.

Western intelligence agencies and the Afghan government claim that Mullah Omar, who is believed to be distancing himself from Al Qaeda, is holed up near Quetta. Pakistan denies this but Taliban links with elements in Pakistan, even after General Musharraf’s famous ‘u-turn’ following 9/11, are no secret. Musharraf himself acknowledged in 2006 that some retired Pakistani intelligence officials might be supporting the Taliban with whom they had links as the Taliban moved into Afghanistan in the 1990s. Since Musharraf’s departure from the political scene, Pakistan has apparently moved further away from the previous policy of supporting some jihadi elements while opposing others. Among President Asif Ali Zardari’s gaffes during his recent visit to the US was his reference to Kashmiri insurgents as ‘terrorists’.

But Zardari also – rightly – brought the focus to the dangerous situation prevailing in Pakistan, declaring that ‘we are in a state of war’. The recent re-shuffling of the army and ISI top brass is obviously part of an ongoing effort to bring the intelligence agencies under civilian control and ensure that the armed forces follow the government’s policies and not the other way around.

When trouble in Swat Valley started, the then military-led government turned a blind eye, allowing Taliban elements to take over. Now, we have to wait and see how effective the new strategy of supporting tribesmen to oppose the Taliban proves to be. Tribal lashkars have had some success against the Taliban in Waziristan, Khyber and Bajaur agencies and in Dir and Swat, NWFP.

Whatever the ‘new strategy’ in Afghanistan, it must incorporate an end to American military incursions in Pakistan that have already claimed so many innocent civilian lives and created thousands of refugees – adding to the casualties and displacements already caused by Pakistani forces and the Taliban. These incursions also weaken the elected government and stoke anti-Americanism.

Finally, a positive new strategy necessitates seeing the world as multi-dimensional, recognising inherent subtleties rather than the current ‘us vs them’ or ‘east vs west’ thinking. Democracy means dialogue and negotiation, compromise and flexibility, not self-righteous stands that only serve to divide.

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