ASG Member Blogs Recap
Edward Kenney
Afghanistan Study Group Blogger
There have been a number of blogs by Afghan Study Group Members since Thanksgiving on the Afghan imposter. Apologies for being slow to get these out.
Afghanistan Imposter Redux: Paul Pillar writes: “The case of the impostor Taliban negotiator might suggest that negotiations as a way to conclude the war in Afghanistan are unwise, untimely, unfeasible, or a joke. They are none of those.” Pillar goes on to note both the difficulties of negotiations, namely that the insurgency is “multi-dimensional” with “numerous players”. Lack of trust remains a critical issue, and possibly a rational for the “imposter gambit”:
The impostor who met with Hamid Karzai may have been a way for the Taliban—or Pakistan—to deal with distrust between parties in Afghanistan, and to see what would or would not happen to a negotiator who made it all the way to the presidential office in Kabul.
If the U.S. is going to get serious about ending this war (a big if, granted), it needs to think about confidence building measures of its own. Would be the U.S. be willing, for instance, to temporarily suspend military raids in advance of secret talks? These are questions worth pursuing.
Stephen Walt weighs in on the imposter controversy:
“So here’s Rule No. 1 for would-be Afghan nation-builders: If you can’t tell the Taliban from the imposters without a scorecard, maybe you shouldn’t be playing this game. “
As does Bernard Finel:
Call me a conspiracy nut if you wish, but reading this story, I was instantly suspicious that this was allowed to occur by people — ISI? Petraeus? — with an agenda to derail the possibility of the negotiated settlement. Turning the process into a farce is a nice, clean way of dismissing the option altogether.
