I read an interesting article today, by the
New York University’s Afghanistan Regional Project, a research project founded by Barnett Rubin, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan and adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s deceased regional troubleshooter.
The article, by Kandahar based Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn researches the possibilities to come to a separate peace with the Taliban by exploring their differences and separating them effectively:
Separating the Taliban from al-Qaeda:
The Core of Success in Afghanistan.
One of the conclusions they draw is that - while well possible to reach the title´s goal - the current US strategy might be counter productive and going in the wrong direction decimating the Taliban (including the leaders that might want to search for a peace) through night raids, house searches and attempts to fragment the group, as this from their POV will inadvertently “create opportunities for Al-Qaida” to grow tighter with the next generation of Taliban fighters that is more ideologically and less nationalistically motivated than todays leaders:
Key findings:
- The Taliban and al-Qaeda remain distinct groups with different goals, ideologies, and sources of recruits; there was considerable friction between them before September 11, 2001, and today that friction persists.
- Elements of current U.S. policy in Afghanistan, especially night raids and attempts to fragment the Taliban, are changing the insurgency, inadvertently creating opportunities for al-Qaeda to achieve its objectives and preventing the achievement of core goals of the United States and the international community.
- There is room to engage the Taliban on the issues of renouncing al-Qaeda and providing guarantees against the use of Afghanistan by international terrorists in a way that will achieve core U.S. goals.
The publication is lengthy, but well worth the read. It starts out analyzing the situation between Taliban and Al-Quaida before and directly after S11, points out where strategic mistakes lead to an unexpected insurgency that in their POV could have been avoided, and evaluate various road maps on how to pin the Taliban versus Al-Quaida. Their conclusion: the U.S. has committed an “intelligence failure” by missing Taliban cues that the Afghan group might be willing to distance itself from al-Qaeda.
Very detailed, very readable, the type of analysis I am so often missing in the discussions about this conflict.
Contents:
1. Overview
2. September 11 and the Taliban
3. An Avoidable Insurgency
4. Engaging Taliban on al-Qaeda
5. U.S. Policy and al-Qaeda
6. Conclusion
Full article:
http://www.cic.nyu.edu/afghanistan/docs/gregg_sep_tal_alqaeda.pdfRattler
