Steve Coll breaks some news about Afghanistan at The New Yorker. He reports that the Obama administration is now "entered into direct, secret talks with senior Afghan Taliban leaders."
Readers should feel free to debate the wisdom of this move in the comments. I was struck by Coll's concise one-paragraph description of the situation on the ground:
[T]he Obama Administration has understandably concluded that the status quo is untenable. The war has devolved into a strategic stalemate: urban Afghan populations enjoy reasonable security, millions of schoolgirls are back in class, Al Qaeda cannot operate, and the Taliban cannot return to power, yet in the provinces ethnic militias and criminal gangs still husband weapons, cadge international funds, and exploit the weak. Neither the United States nor the Taliban can achieve its stated aims by arms alone, and the Administration lacks a sure way to preserve the gains made while reducing its military presence, as it must, for fiscal, political, and many other reasons.
Now, Coll states above that this situation cannot last. Here's my question: why?
I'm not saying the status quo is good, mind you. I'm just wondering -- exactly what fiscal or political pressure will force a change in U.S. policy? As previously noted, there's not much daylight between the Obama administration and the GOP on Afghanistan. The Obama administration's position has mutated from "firm withdrawal in 2011" to "did we say 2011? Cause we really meant 2014." Even if the war is unpopular with the American public, I see no groundswell that would force a political response.
As for the fiscal question, it's true that the Afghanistan conflict is not cheap. It's also true, however, that overseas military adventures are not the primary driver of the deficit, and there's no chance in hell that the GOP will embrace defense cuts because of fiscal strictures.
One could argue that the negotiations themselves are a signal that the administration wants to change the situation. That's undeniably true, but Coll notes that these negotiations will take quite some time: "Yalta this is not."
There's a tendency, when analysts see a stalemate or deadlock, to assume that something has to give. Surely, one side or the other will indicate a willingness to negotiate a change. This is particularly true if the analyst doesn't like the status quo. Sometimes, however, the intolerable situation can last a good while longer than anyone wants it to. I suspect that will be the case in Afghanistan.
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