Well, this is an interesting development

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Monday, October 6, 2008 - 3:55 PM Share

The day job is going to be occupying much of my time this week, so blog posts will be trending towards the "open thread" variety. Like this one about Saudi-brokered negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Here's Jon Boone and Roula Khalaf in the Financial Times a few days ago:

Hamid Karzai risked angering members of his government and his US backers yesterday when the Afghan president revealed he had asked the Saudis to help -broker peace talks with the Taliban leadership. Mr Karzai said his envoys had travelled to Saudi -Arabia and neighbouring Pakistan to try to kick-start negotiations that are increasingly seen as the only solution to the violent insurgency gripping Afghanistan.... According to a person familiar with the talks, the Saudis have been involved since July, when they were first approached by Pakistan-based Taliban clerics. The Saudis sent an envoy to Kabul and started shuttling between the two sides. Indirect talks hosted by the Saudis took place last week in Mecca but serious discussions between the two sides have yet to begin. The Afghan leader also appealed directly to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader overthrown as ruler of Afghanistan by the US-backed invasion in 2001, to return to Afghanistan. Mr Karzai said he would protect him and his colleagues from the US-led -coalition forces if they took him up on his offer to return, to "come and work for the peace and good of your people".

CNN's report today sounds a more optimistic note:

Taliban leaders are holding Saudi-brokered talks with the Afghan government to end the country's bloody conflict -- and are severing their ties with al Qaeda, sources close to the historic discussions have told CNN. According to the source, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar -- high on the U.S. military's most-wanted list -- was not present, but his representatives were keen to stress the reclusive cleric is no longer allied to al Qaeda. Details of the Taliban leader's split with al Qaeda have never been made public before, but the new claims confirm what another source with an intimate knowledge of the militia and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past. The current round of talks, said to have been taken two years of intense behind-the-scenes negotiations to come to fruition, is anticipated to be the first step in a long process to secure a negotiated end to the conflict.

Discuss.

EXPLORE:AREA STUDIES, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AFGHANISTAN

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ZATHRAS

5:09 PM ET

October 6, 2008

I really think that a

I really think that a severing of ties between the Taliban and al Qaeda is something that will have to be seen to be believed.

The Taliban have been losing some of their leaders recently to American military action, and it may be that Mehsud's passing (reportedly from natural causes) has raised some internal leadership issues that they need a breathing space to deal with. But the word of these bunga-bungas by itself is worth nothing.

BALOK

6:13 PM ET

October 6, 2008

how many grains of salt need

how many grains of salt need I take for this one? C'mon, even if it's substantially true to simply assume or assume in any way Taliban motives are pure is farcical - hell, even if in some conditional sense pure lions just don't lay down with lambs because it sounds like a good idea.

ERIC

6:21 PM ET

October 6, 2008

I'm not sure what to say

I'm not sure what to say about this one. In some ways, it is Karzai trying to mimic what the US has done in Iraq by trying to bring a faction that has undermined the government into the fold by trying to show them that they are better served working through government instead of against it.

On the other hand, it is the Taliban.

The question becomes what does the Taliban really want. Can they ever be satisfied to be part of a government that does not have the ideological "purity" of the Taliban government of the late '90s, or are they more interested in at least having some power while not all being killed?

You've got to give Karzai some credit for being bold here. He is not in an appreciably better position now than he was in 2002; this move, if it works, could solidify his position. It also appears he's trying to figure out how to stop the rise of the Taliban and to position himself if/when the US & NATO leave.

DPT

6:24 PM ET

October 6, 2008

At the same time, I can't

At the same time, I can't think of any feasible way we can win Afghanistan in the long run without splintering or flipping the Taliban to our side. We need to answer the question - is Afghanistan a war against Islamists, or an attempt to stabilize the country? We'd like to think it is both, but ultimately our actions seem far weighted towards the former rather than the latter.

Those who would otherwise "talk to our enemies" are far more concerned with the manhunt than winning the long war. The likely next President will likely not be able to broker an effective peace deal (which would require the cooperation of the Pashtun tribes and the Pakistani government) if we decide killing AQ and Taliban leadership is more important than pulling the Taliban and associated tribes over to our side.

With what's going on in the economy, there's likely going to be enormous public pressure to just kill OBL and a few other AQ leaders and then bolt. What politician wants to sort through a bunch of tribes and complex negotiations with the Taliban of all people?

GREG

1:19 AM ET

October 7, 2008

It seems to me the same deal

It seems to me the same deal we posed to the Taliban in '01 should be on the table: give up Bin Laden and Zawahri and everyone to do with 9/11 and then we'll talk about how to negotiate a peace. We never set out to democratize Afghanistan - our goal in Afghanistan was to eliminate a terrorist safe haven. Iraq is a totally different story and had to do with WMDs, Saddam, and a keystone state in the region where all the terror ideology and money comes from.

Afghanistan is important strategically only insofar as it provides a haven for Al Queda. If we have an opportunity to get rid of AQ central's leadership we should take it.

The Taliban, while awful, has not attack America. Their fight against us has been limited to our soldiers in Afghanistan. Like Hezbollah, the Sunni Insurgents in Iraq, and Hamas, these are groups we can live with, so long as they aren't actively plotting to take us down. If we keep a sharp eye on them and apply the economic, diplomatic, and ideological pressures we'll win the long war against them - we have the advantage on all fronts.

This war has got to be wearing down the Taliban - how long can these groups sustain fighting? America and NATO have enormous countries and economies that theoretically can support "small scale" wars indefinitely. I don't see how the Taliban can continue to fund such a war without showing significant gains or victories, even with the poppy trade and support from Iran.