Talking to the Taliban

Paul Woodward, Online Correspondent

• Last Updated: October 29. 2008 1:22PM UAE / October 29. 2008 9:22AM GMT

The US actively considers supporting an effort by the Afghan government to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban, while in a quiet diplomatic initiative Saudi Arabia has already opened the door to negotiations. Pakistan and Afghanistan jointly agree to establish contacts with the Taliban. After abandoning her efforts to form a coalition government, Tzipi Livni calls for early elections in Israel as her Kadima party gains a lead over Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party in the latest polls.

"The US is actively considering talks with elements of the Taliban, the armed Islamist group that once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al Qa'eda, in a major policy shift that would have been unthinkable a few months ago," The Wall Street Journal reported.

"Senior White House and military officials believe that engaging some levels of the Taliban - while excluding top leaders - could help reverse a pronounced downward spiral in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan. Both countries have been destabilised by a recent wave of violence.

"The outreach is a draft recommendation in a classified White House assessment of US strategy in Afghanistan, according to senior Bush administration officials. The officials said that the recommendation calls for the talks to be led by the Afghan central government, but with the active participation of the US.

"The idea is supported by Gen David Petraeus, who will assume responsibility this week for US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gen Petraeus used a similar approach in Iraq, where a US push to enlist Sunni tribes in the fight against al Qa'eda in Iraq helped sharply reduce the country's violence. Gen Petraeus earlier this month publicly endorsed talks with less extreme Taliban elements.

"The final White House recommendations, which could differ from the draft, are not expected until after next month's elections. The next administration wouldn't be compelled to implement them. But the support of Gen Petraeus, the highly regarded incoming head of the US Central Command, could help ensure that the policy is put in place regardless of who wins next month's elections.

"The proposed policy appears to strike rare common ground with both presidential candidates. Democratic nominee Sen Barack Obama has said he thinks talks with the Taliban should be considered and has advocated shifting more military forces to Afghanistan. Republican contender Sen John McCain supports, as part of his strategy, reaching out to tribal leaders in an effort to separate 'the reconcilable elements of the insurgency from the irreconcilable elements of the insurgency,' Randy Scheunemann, the campaign's top foreign-policy adviser, said Monday....

"Few of the new measures would carry as much political and emotional weight as talking with members of the Taliban, an armed group that has been an American foe since the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The US invasion of Afghanistan that followed the attacks was designed to oust the Taliban over its harboring of al Qa'eda, and US troops have spent the past seven years trying to capture or kill as many of its members as possible."

In The Washington Post, David Ignatius wrote: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the argument for negotiations with the Taliban bluntly on Oct 9, during a meeting in Budapest with Nato allies who are wearying of the conflict. 'There has to be ultimately - and I'll underscore ultimately - reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this,' Gates told reporters. 'That's ultimately the exit strategy for all of us.'

"Gen David Petraeus, the new Centcom commander who has overall responsibility for the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has made similar arguments. He believes that the United States must work to separate the 'reconcilables' among the Taliban from those who are allied with al Qa'eda, and draw the moderates into the government. Petraeus successfully pursued that strategy with Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq - encouraging them to break with al Qa'eda and then forming alliances with them.

"Petraeus believes that an effort to co-opt the Afghan insurgency should probably be accompanied by a stronger US troop presence, just as it was in Iraq. But he argues that it's a mistake to think that there's a purely military solution in either country. 'You can't kill or capture your way out of this,' he explains.

"A move to negotiate with the Taliban is already underway, perhaps prematurely, thanks to a quiet diplomatic push by Saudi Arabia. Late last month, at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Saudi King Abdullah met in Mecca with representatives of the Taliban and other Afghan insurgent groups headed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani."

In RFE/RL, Jeffrey Donovan wrote: "the participation of Saudi Arabia, a symbolic seat of Muslim moral authority as well as a former Taliban paymaster, has at least inspired hope that progress can be made. Saudi backing is seen as partly motivated by concerns about stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, where al Qae'da-allied Taliban groups have emerged as a major threat.

"Significantly, there has also been encouragement from other authoritative Muslim voices. Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi, the grand imam of Cairo's important Al-Azhar Mosque, added his influential voice last week to the call for Afghan peace talks."

Reuters reported: "Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed on Tuesday to establish contacts jointly with Taliban militants through tribal leaders after two days of talks over how to end bloodshed in both countries....

"But the Taliban swiftly rejected the call for dialogue - a spokesman said it was 'worthless'.

" 'This jirga was founded by the Americans. It has no power, no respect,' Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

" 'We will not hold any dialogue while foreign troops commanded by the Americans are in our country,' he said."

McClatchy Newspapers said: "This year has been the most violent in Afghanistan since the 2001 US invasion toppled the Taliban regime. Signs that Western will may be collapsing have panicked many Afghans, who fear that the international community is about to abandon them once again, as it did after the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989.

" 'It looks like Nato just wants to find a quick solution, so they can declare victory and leave Afghanistan,' Haroun Mir, the deputy director of the Afghan Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul.

"Mir said that the Taliban have been transformed from the nationalist zealots who seized power in Afghanistan in the mid-90s into global jihadists under the influence of al Qa'eda, and would use negotiations to buy time to re-group.

" 'They (Pakistani and Afghan governments) think that if they engage with the Taliban, they can isolate al Qa'eda. This is a big mistake,' Mir said. 'The new generation of Taliban makes no distinction between themselves and al Qa'eda.' "

In Asia Times, Syed Saleem Shahzad reported: "Ahead of their groundbreaking meeting in Washington this week, the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Michael Hayden, and the head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, will be buoyed by the killing of an al Qa'eda leader in Pakistan.

"Militant sources have confirmed to Asia Times Online that Moroccan Khalid Habib, the head of al Qa'eda in Pakistan, was killed last week in a missile attack by an unmanned US Predator drone in the South Waziristan tribal area. His death has not been officially confirmed by either Islamabad or Washington.

"The meeting between Hayden and Pasha is significant in that under the rule of president General Pervez Musharraf up until the end of last year, the ISI - which was frequently accused of having pro-militant tendencies - was kept away from US intelligence at the top level, with Musharraf personally handling all tactical matters.

"The two top spymasters are expected to discuss a policy under which Pakistan and the US will continue to aggressively go after top Taliban and al Qa'eda leaders in an attempt to weed out hardliners from the Afghan national resistance and pave the way for communication with the remaining 'moderates'. The killing of Khalid is a notable success under this plan."

Livni gets a boost in the polls as Israel heads for early elections

"Israeli legislators agreed on Tuesday to set Feb 10 as the date for a parliamentary election brought forward by the resignation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert," Reuters reported.

"With only two small factions opposed to the date, a bill to dissolve parliament and hold the election on Feb 10 will be drafted and is certain to be passed, legislators said after consultations with Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik."

The Financial Times reported: "The political fortunes of Tzipi Livni, the leader of Israel's governing Kadima party, brightened yesterday after a batch of opinion polls suggested she would win next year's general election by a slim margin....

"According to a poll in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Ms Livni's Kadima party would win 29 of the 120 seats in parliament if an election was held now. Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the rightwing opposition Likud party, would come second with 26 seats, while the centre-left Labour party under Ehud Barak, defence minister, would capture only 11 seats. A second poll, in Maariv newspaper, came to a similar conclusion: it gave Ms Livni's Kadima party 31 seats and Likud 29."

An editorial in the International Herald Tribune said: "Domestic politics affects foreign policy everywhere. Nowhere is this more true than in Israel, as demonstrated Sunday when the leader of the governing Kadima Party, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, gave up trying to form a new coalition government, saying she refused to 'capitulate to extortion' by the religious party, Shas.

"Livni may have had no choice. Giving in to demands from Shas and other small parties could have distorted future budgets and also made it impossible to continue ongoing negotiations with the Palestinians. A key Shas requirement for joining a new coalition government was that sharing Jerusalem with a Palestinian state - a basic element of all realistic peace plans - could not even be discussed at the negotiating table.

"As Livni has noted, making such a pledge would mean breaking promises to the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations - the "quartet" formed in 2003 to sponsor Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Shas also demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in increased welfare benefits."

An editorial in The Financial Times said: "It is not clear whether Ms Livni has broken decisively with the Sharon strategy: to impose borders on the Palestinians that confine them to about 12 per cent of colonial Palestine while keeping nearly all the illegal settlements. But last July, she called an Arab League peace plan - pledging full regional peace in return for full Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab land - 'a historic opportunity that should not be missed'. She (as well as Labour) should make that the cornerstone of the coming campaign and test whether enough Israelis believe that is still their best hope of a secure future in the Middle East."

pwoodward@thenational.ae