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Faisal Shahzad’s Relationship to the Pakistani Taliban

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

It was the Pakistani Taliban! Yes, yes, of course. They sat in their evil lair and activated one of their top sleeper agents to infiltrate American territory with a devilish plan to thwack hundreds of unsuspecting victims. And they monitored it all from their giant TV screens in real time, having tapped into NYPD’s closed-circuit television. Should visual monitoring fail, robo-operative Faisal Shahzad would simply activate the GPS tracking system linked to the Pakistani Taliban’s satellite via the computer chip inserted behind his ear.

Or not.

As Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton all took to the Sunday shows yesterday to proclaim Faisal Shahzad’s “connection” to the Pakistani Taliban, it struck me that such rhetoric often conveys, falsely, the sense of an ironclad connection between the operative and his terrorist mentors.

Secretary Clinton deserves credit for her answer on 60 Minutes yesterday, when she said, “There are connections. Exactly what they are, how deep they are, how long they’ve lasted, whether this was an operation encouraged or directed … those are questions still in the process of being sorted out.”

She’s right, of course. But my worry is that people stop paying attention after that first sentence.

I think I have a pretty good idea of Faisal Shahzad’s relationship to the Pakistani Taliban. My inkling is based on not a single piece of intelligence reporting as it pertains to this case, but rather my experience investigating the bombings in Madrid (2004) and London (2005). Both those operations featured “home-grown” operatives — locals who were “clean” (i.e., had all the proper paperwork to access the target country) and who had explicit or nebulous associations with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Madrid bomber’s connection to AQ has always been slightly murkier, but the London bombers were known to have traveled to Pakistan on prior occasions.

The Metamorphosis

Based on London and Madrid, here’s an attempted reconstruction of how Faisal Shahzad went from being a nice young father in the Connecticut ‘burbs to an attempted mass murderer:

First, the part we don’t exactly know: What made him travel to Pakistan with the intent to hook up with the Taliban? While a lot of bad stuff had happened to Shahzad over the course of the previous months — quitting his job and losing his house among them — we don’t know what mechanism drove him from “depressed” to “seeking revenge.” It could have been a chat room; it could have been secret meetings at a mosque; it could have been one influential mentor, as was the case with the first London cell in the north of England (the cell met regularly with an Islamic extremist in the backroom of a bookstore before traveling to Pakistan).

However, we do know that it was one of these (or something like it). Faisal went from having a bad run in life to actively seeking revenge. We know that someone — whom we’ll call his “mentor” — got him to translate his frustration into action and was well-connected enough to link up Shahzad with Taliban elements in Pakistan.

Next, as he’d done several times, Shahzad traveled to Pakistan. Most of his previous trips were likely family-related. This one might have been, as well. But at some point, Shahzad’s mentor told his contacts in the Pakistani Taliban that he had an American passport-holding recruit who was open to learning more. What’s more, Shahzad’s mentor must have been highly trusted in Pakistan because Taliban elements view U.S.-based operative as spies. That the mentor could vouch for Shahzad’s legitimacy would have been critical.

The mentor would have given Shahzad contact information in Pakistan, but it would have likely been up to Shahzad to initiate contact with Pakistani Taliban.

Upon traveling to Pakistan, Shahzad obviously decided that he was interested in learning more. He got in touch with his mentor’s network, and agreed to spend a certain period of time — as few as a couple weeks, but up to several months — in the Pakistani wilderness with Taliban members. Travel records indicate that Faisal went to Karachi and then Peshawar, the Taliban hotbed where Shahzad likely jumped off the grid.

During his time in the Taliban camp, Faisal would have gone through Terrorism 101. He’d have been given physical training, religious indoctrination (which is critical to sustaining his commitment), bomb-making classes and likely small-arms instruction. If there was a group of students, they would have bonded and shored up their commitment to jihad in small group sessions where they solidified their hatred of America.

A Freelance Terrorist

Faisal would have received all of this training, but would likely not have been given a specific plan of attack. This is the changing model of terrorism today. No longer do al Qaeda masterminds sit deep in caves and dream up logistically complex plots akin to 9/11. Instead, it’s more likely that the Taliban would have provided him training, possibly some cash, and given Shahzad the autonomy to imagine and execute his own plot. That’s right — the Pakistani Taliban likely would have taught him, paid him, and told him, “Good luck with whatever you end up doing. Just do something.”

In today’s world of increasing counterterrorism capabilities, this model stands a significantly higher degree of success. By not weighing Faisal down with the who’s, what’s and when’s of an operation, logistics are simplified dramatically, thus decreasing the chances of intercepted communications or arrested operatives that could scuttle the whole shebang. Cost drops, too. And since the Taliban has been isolated, they wouldn’t have on-the-spot access to scout a potential attack site, and are therefore almost forced to cede control to local operatives.

Of course many of these operatives, Shahzad and the Underwear Bomber included, aren’t “professional terrorists” with years and years of extensive training and indoctrination. But the Pakistani Taliban now seems willing to give up operational control and experience in order to increase the chances of a successful attack, even if that attack is significantly smaller than before. And since politicians are ready to use terrorism to score political points, a small attack could potentially carry as great a weight as another 9/11.

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The Times Square Bomb and Public Education

Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

This weekend’s bomb plot in Times Square was the third significant terrorist try in the U.S. since August. After Najibullah Zazi‘s arrest that month and the failed underwear bomber on Christmas Day, it was also the third to fail. (Note that I’m leaving out the Ft. Hood incident, which I don’t classify as terrorism.)

Whether or not the Pakistani Taliban’s claims of responsibility prove true, the plot’s simplistic nature and the bomb’s failure to detonate are the latest anecdotal evidence that the terrorist threat has shifted. Out — for now — is the rarer, mass-causality, 9/11-style plot, while “in” is the more frequent but smaller-impact variety.

While it’s good news that the possibility of thousands of deaths in a single attack has decreased, there’s a sobering reality about this morphing modus operandi: Sooner or later, one of these small-fry, rig-it-up-in-my-garage plots is bound to work. While the recent cases aren’t connected to the same ultimate terrorist authority, their frequency and near-success indicate that similar attempts will keep coming, perhaps as often as three or four per year.
Amateurs may throw these plots together, but they stand a great chance of success even in an era of improving cooperation between police and intelligence services. A U.S. counterterrorism official points out something in today’s WaPo that I’ve believed for a long time: “‘Unsophisticated’ can still cause a lot of pain and misery… These events are so hard to detect in advance. If there were a foolproof way of finding people before they acted, whether it’s the [snipers] in D.C. or someone who puts a bomb in his car . . . it has to be understood how very difficult this business is.”

That’s where the White House has come up a bit short. While President Obama’s initial statements praising the NYPD and vows “to do what’s necessary to protect the American people” are important, they create the public expectation that the government actually can provide complete security, 100 percent of the time.

Instead, the White House should marry tough-minded rhetoric with an explanation of the evolving threat. It’s a delicate dance to be sure – it’s unnatural for any president to acknowledge chinks in America’s armor. Fortunately, complex explanations play to President Obama’s rhetorical skills, and its possible to envision a speech that strikes the right tone of strength, vigilance, caution and honesty about where we stand against an evolving threat.

The stark likelihood of an eventual success dictates the White House shouldn’t miss the opportunity to engage the public on this critical national security issue.

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What Not to Do in Afghanistan

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Michael Cohen’s new piece in Dissent is a perfect blueprint for a colossal disaster in Afghanistan that would seriously jeopardize American security.

Michael, whose company I very much enjoyed during an ill-fated 72-hour effort to get to Afghanistan as election monitors, argues for a less-ambitious plan for American involvement in Afghanistan. It is deeply flawed.

The very first line, “The United States has been fighting the war in Afghanistan for more than eight years,” hints at the sentiments underlying his views: exhaustion with the war, a desire to end it. The piece makes a pitch for a new way forward in Afghanistan by offering a different strategy, something he calls an “enemy-focused approach.” His strategy calls for incorporating the Taliban into the government, shrinking the size of the Afghan army by some 80,000 troops and abandoning the entire South and East to the Taliban.

Where to begin? I’ve argued time and time again against the possibility of incorporating anything but the Taliban’s foot soldiers into the government. The most succinct argument I’ve seen against it is from Barbara Elias in last year’s Foreign Affairs:

[The Taliban's] legitimacy rests not on their governing skills, popular support, or territorial control, but on their claim to represent what they perceive as sharia rule. This means upholding the image that they are guided entirely by Islamic principles; as such, they cannot make concessions to, or earnestly negotiate with, secular states.

Then there’s Cohen’s suggestion to scale back the size of the Afghan army, reasoning that 170,000 poorly trained Afghan soldiers trained by Americans are worse than 90,000 “trained to fight like an Afghan army — not an American proxy force.” Huh? Does anyone have a good example of what a model Afghan army looks like? Why does Cohen believe 90,000 is the right number? And why is Cohen so certain that American training efforts will fall flat for 170,000? And, if we did cut it off 90,000, what would we do with the extra 80,000 recruits to whom we’ve given basic firearms skills but have just lost their paycheck and would now feel betrayed by the U.S.?

And finally there is Cohen’s idea of just abandoning the South and East of the country. You know, the Marjas and Kandahars of Afghanistan where the U.S. is now either deeply invested or creating expectations that they’re about to be. Compounding the sense of betrayal that Afghans in those regions might feel (notice a theme?) would be the mistake of offering the Taliban the safe haven they require.

I suspect Cohen’s strategy is merely a fig leaf to preempt the inevitable right-wing cries of “cutting and running.” But while such sound-bite attacks are repulsive, there is a case to be made that Cohen offers his strategy disingenuously. Cohen thinks that “the original goal of the mission has been achieved; al Qaeda’s safe haven in Afghanistan has been destroyed and its Taliban allies pushed from power.” But if that’s the case, why would we need a new strategy — why not just pull out entirely? And why advocate returning the Taliban to power if we’ve already pushed them out of it?

Cohen may be justifiably war-weary — we all are. But I happen to believe what Cohen wrongly calls President Obama’s “rhetorical tricks” about the “risks of an al-Qaeda return to Afghanistan” if we do not create a stable environment that can endure after we leave. And I also think that the counterinsurgency strategy that Cohen curtly dismisses as “a fad” is a sound plan that’s our best shot at lasting security in Afghanistan. Cohen mistakes U.S. gains in Afghanistan for victory and says we can leave now; I see it as proof that what we’re doing is working and that we should keep at it.

Michael, I’m sorry to be so blunt, but if you’re just sick of the war, it would be better to say it straight out and not offer half-baked, ineffective solutions that would seriously jeopardize American and Afghan security. Competent governance is about making really difficult decisions with the best information available. That’s exactly what this White House did with its careful, deliberative process, and that’s why I’m going to trust them on this one.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/ / CC BY 2.0

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Reason #178 Not to Negotiate with the Taliban: Women’s Issues

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

I’ve written before about why we shouldn’t negotiate with any Taliban member who ranks higher than “low- and mid-level fighters.” I think it’s a fool’s errand to believe that the Taliban’s leadership would negotiate in good faith, especially when the likes of Taliban chief Mullah Omar starts sounding like he’d rather spend his time in Haight-Ashbury in 1968.

However, the idea has gained more-than-superficial traction with some highly respected individuals — Vice President Biden, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, to name a few. Of course, details like with whom we would negotiate and under what circumstances remain relatively opaque, but the fact that the Pakistanis are now vacuuming up the Taliban’s higher-ups suggests that the idea is a serious one and Islamabad wants to control the bargaining chips.

But today, the Washington Post reports yet another reason not bark too far up the Taliban’s tree — women’s issues:

The Taliban’s repressive treatment of women helped galvanize international opposition in the 1990s, and by some measures democracy has revolutionized Afghan women’s lives. Their worry now is … that male leaders, behind closed doors and desperate for peace, might not force Taliban leaders to accept, however grudgingly, that women’s roles have changed.

[...]

“We don’t want them to stop us from getting an education or working in an office,” said Jan, 18, wearing a rhinestone-studded head scarf at her rebuilt school. Women, she said, should be “the first priority.”

Karzai, the Afghan president, has endorsed the idea of talking with all levels of the Taliban, and his aides insist that women need not worry about the equal rights the Afghan constitution guarantees them. But they also say they are performing a difficult balancing act, and suggest that making bold statements about the sanctity of such topics as women’s rights might kill talks before they start.

Is there any question about women’s fate in an Afghanistan that includes Taliban governing officials? There shouldn’t be — even if the Taliban holds a minority of, say, ministries or seats in parliament, it’s obvious that women’s development in all walks of Afghan life would be serverly hampered.

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Afghanistan: Civilian and Military Casualties Aren’t a Zero-Sum Game

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

Sarah Holewinski and Jim Morin–two of my friends through the Truman National Security Project –have an excellent op-ed in today’s Christian Science Monitor on a issue that may haunt and confuse many Americans. First, Holewinski and Morin restate something that may still be missed in the public debate–that our forces are primarily in Afghanistan to protect Afghan civilians from the Taliban, not to fight the Taliban directly. This then begs a question Holewinski and Morin ask–if our forces are primarily concerned with protecting Afghans from the Taliban, does that mean more of our guys will die as a consequence?  Here’s their take:

Military families back home want to know: Are troops walking into hell with one hand tied behind their backs? Are civilian lives being spared in exchange for military ones?

The answer to both questions is no.  [...]

Protecting the population isn’t political correctness; it’s a vital military objective and a distinct advantage over an enemy that uses civilians as shields. The drop in civilian casualties is a mark of success.

Allied troop fatalities have meanwhile increased, but efforts to spare civilians are not the cause. Rather, troops are fighting the insurgents where they live – as in Marjah. Taking on the Taliban requires taking that risk. American and allied forces may be walking into hell, but given the right strategy and purpose, they remain free to fight effectively. [...]

Combat is violent, frightening, and confusing, and troops on the ground have both the instinct – and the right – to protect themselves. The critical role for commanders is to convey the lesson taught by the US Army’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual, drafted under Gen. David Petraeus: “Sometimes the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be.”

Military tactics are always balanced against strategic objectives, force protection, and humanitarian imperatives. In Afghanistan, international forces have had more than eight years to figure out what hasn’t worked and what will. The new emphasis on civilian protection is a welcome move toward striking the right balance.

In the Army there is a saying, “Mission First, Soldiers Always.” Safeguarding civilians and taking care of soldiers are not mutually exclusive. We owe our troops as much training, operational guidance, and moral certainty as modern war will allow.

This issue highlights how policy can be distorted and create bad political optics.  This is a nagging problem with the Afghanistan debate.  For example, the public discourse on President Obama’s decision on the war centered on two issues: how many troops, and the right’s false charge that he was “dithering” on what to do.  In that regard, the White House let the debate get away from it because, frankly, thousands of troop numbers grabs headlines in ways that strategy discussions don’t.

So, progressives should heed this op-ed and use it to push back when charges come–from either the left or right–that our troops are dying because we’re allegedly more concerned with Afghans.  There will be casualties, of course, but we have to understand that Afghan casualties vs. American casualties aren’t a zero-sum game.

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Assessing the Marja Offensive

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

I haven’t written much on the Marja offensive—the joint US/Afghan/NATO operation in the Helmand province city of the same name—because I wanted to see how it played out before drawing sweeping conclusions.

The assault on Marja (population 80,000) is now in its third week. It is the largest offensive in Afghanistan by U.S./NATO/Afghan troops since 2002, involving some 5,000 total troops. Marja had been one of the last significant Taliban strongholds in Helmand province, and NATO and Afghan commanders had eyed it as potentially excellent example of the alliance’s new force posture and growing inter-operability with the Afghan military. “Force posture,” you ask? That’s right—lost in last year’s debate of how many American troops to send was the more important point about why extra forces were needed.

General McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy was a page ripped from General Petraeus’ Iraq playbook of early 2007, when violence in that war began to decrease significantly. It’s a military mindset that values protecting the local population over killing the enemy. General Petraeus rightly pointed out, “We don’t want to destroy Marja to save it.”

The mantra “clear, hold, and build” has been the recipe for success: clearing Taliban out of an area, holding the area so Taliban don’t immediately return, and building basic governing capacities that show locals that NATO and Afghan forces are serious about improving people’s lives, not just destroying. To execute this strategy, you need more boots on the ground.

It’s important for progressives to realize that though American casualties have been rising as our forces live among Afghans, that’s because they’re putting themselves in the firing line between civilians and the Taliban. Of course, civilians are killed, whether it’s because our forces have mistakenly identified a location as a Taliban hideout or because the Taliban has ruthlessly used civilians as human shields. There have been, depending on whose numbers you believe, probably somewhere around 25 civilian deaths in Marja thus far. They are all tragedies. But as Sarah Holewinski (full disclosure: a friend through the Truman National Security Project) of the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Combat (CIVIC) says, care to avoid civilian casualties is at its highest in years:

Soldiers on the ground are telling us, ‘look, we’re restricting our air power. We’re going in on foot. We are shooting only when we know that that other combatant is carrying a gun. So we’re trying to distinguish as clearly as possible between civilians and combatants.’ ….And then when an incident actually does happen, they are very quick to do an investigation, and then pay compensation.

The offensive was repeatedly announced in the Afghan press weeks before it happened. Sounds crazy, right? But the military knew that even though many Taliban fighters would flee out of town, the better course of action was to give civilians time to prepare.

The military side of the campaign was relatively swift and effective. The Afghan flag now flies over Marja, and mid-level American officers are happy with the progress. Taliban certainly remain scattered throughout the countryside, but as long as they are dispersed away from the city with no real power-base, that’s acceptable for now.

But here comes the hard part—the “building” phase. General McChrystal says, “We’re not at the end of the military phase, but we’re clearly approaching that….The government of Afghanistan is in the position now of having the opportunity, and the requirement, to prove they can establish legitimate governance.”

McChrystal has said that there’s an Afghan “government in a box” (allegedly trustworthy Afghans set to temporarily run Marja) ready to roll in and start working on basic public services. That’s a plus because it clears out the local corruption-laden crew and stands a better chance of success, but potentially dangerous because the government transplants are aliens to the local power structures and traditional Afghan system of family-based patronage.

So what do the locals think? As far as I’ve observed, quotes from local tend to fall into three general categories, something along these lines and in roughly equal numbers:

  1. “Good riddance to the Taliban. This operation was needed.”
  2. “Life wasn’t so bad under the Taliban. It wasn’t great, but I was surviving. What are the Americans doing?”
  3. “The Afghan Army is completely incompetent. If they Americans don’t stay engaged in Marja, the whole deal will have been for nothing.”

Thus far, Marja seems to have been an effective demonstration of the first two aspects of counter-insurgency strategy (“clear” and “hold”), but the “build” will take months upon months to come to fruition. If the NATO/Afghan engagement produces an effective local government with decent public services, public opinion will begin to swing towards the first quote above. That’s a big “if.”

And if it is indeed one of the last major Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan — I’m not expert enough to weigh whether that’s true — the Marja operation will have certainly been worth it.

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Another Top Taliban Bites The Dust… For Now

Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

The English language online version of Der Spiegel is reporting that Mullah Abdul Salam — a big-fish Taliban commander who has been responsible for recent attacks against German forces stationed in northern Afghanistan — has been arrested by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Salam has been described by both Der Spiegel and the LA Times as the “shadow governor” of province of Kunduz. While Salam doesn’t appear to be the critical lynch-pin that Mullah Baradar was, the LAT explains:

In Kunduz, a once-quiet corner of Afghanistan, Salam presided over a major buildup of Taliban forces over the last 18 months. The insurgents took over entire districts, repeatedly attacked Afghan security posts, harried NATO troops in the province — who were mainly Germans — and menaced a NATO supply line running through Kunduz.

One of the worst civilian-casualty episodes of the war occurred in August after suspected Taliban fighters hijacked a fuel truck. The Germans, fearing the vehicle would be used for an attack on their main base in Kunduz, called in an airstrike that killed dozens of insurgents — and also dozens of civilians.

Late last year, a series of raids, carried out mainly by U.S. special forces, drove the insurgents underground in Kunduz, but their presence remained a threat.

What in the dickens is going on here? As is eloquently detailed in Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars, the ISI essentially started and supported the Taliban throughout the ’90s, and has an institutional culture that has been loathe to crack down on its own project.

Why now? Why has the ISI suddenly decided to wrap-up two significant Taliban commanders in two days, a batting average that makes them look like Ted Williams compared to their standard impersonation of the 1987 Cleveland Indians’ Otis Nixon (I’ll spare you the click — .059 BA).

Consider this: By arresting these guys, the ISI is amassing credit and power. Sure, you could say that the Americans have finally convinced the Pakistanis that it’s in Islamabad’s interest to side with Washington. In the long-term, it definitely is.  But as the strategic landscape shifts and there may be some sort of negotiation with the Taliban (ill-advised though that may be, in my opinion), the ISI is simply collecting all the big cards in its own hand.

The bottom line is that nothing’s for certain just yet — the ISI could continue to cooperate with the Americans, or simply look the other way during an escape attempt, just like the Yemenis.

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What the Capture of the Taliban’s Commander Means

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

The capture of Mullah Baradar, the Taliban’s top military commander, is indeed very welcome news. If you want the full scoop on Baradar, read Ron Moreau’s Newsweek profile of him from last August, which depicts Baradar’s role thusly:

Baradar appoints and fires the Taliban’s commanders and governors; presides over its top military council and central ruling Shura in Quetta, the city in southwestern Pakistan where most of the group’s senior leaders are based; and issues the group’s most important policy statements in his own name. It is key that he controls the Taliban’s treasury—hundreds of millions of dollars in narcotics protection money, ransom payments, highway tolls, and “charitable donations,” largely from the Gulf.

[...]

Baradar determines much of the Taliban’s grand strategy as well. In late 2007 he ordered Taliban forces to focus their attacks on disrupting the flow of U.S. and NATO military supplies, and to push closer to the cities, especially Kabul. U.S. military chiefs were dismayed by his success.

[...]

Partly because of Baradar’s strong roots among the Popalzai—Afghanistan’s largest and most influential Pashtun tribe—he could bring a number of tribal leaders onboard in the event of serious peace talks. But for now, Taliban leaders seem convinced that negotiations are merely a ploy to peel off elements of the insurgency, which U.S. commanders have more or less acknowledged. “We see no benefit for the country or Islam in such kind of talks,” Baradar told NEWSWEEK.

Taking Baradar into custody not only removes a critical operational commander from the field of battle, but also has the potential to be a treasure trove of intelligence about ongoing Taliban operations. And though I think that Pakistan’s security services will continue to play both sides, this operation is one piece of notable collaboration between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

What should we expect? We should keep in mind a tried and true axiom — we can’t kill or capture our way to victory. As is the pattern after most high-value terrorist/guerilla arrests, Baradar will be almost immediately replaced, likely by a younger and less experienced operative who will maintain a substantial though degraded medium-term operational tempo. These are the kinds of arrests that prove the administration is serious about degrading the Taliban’s capabilities.

But based on this high-value pattern, I expect to see a near-term spike in Taliban attacks as the group attempts to prove its continued viability. It will be interesting to see what sort of effect the arrest has on the ongoing battle at Marja (a Taliban stronghold in the Helmund province), a joint U.S.-Afghan operation that could have been timed to knock the Taliban further on their heels during a period of internal instability.

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We Shouldn’t Negotiate with the Taliban’s Top Leaders

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

The notion of integrating top Taliban commanders into the Afghan government is gaining traction among influential members of the Obama administration. Joe Biden likes the idea, as apparently does Richard Holbrooke, while Gen. Stanley McChrystal has indicated he could see a role for Taliban members in government.

On the surface, it’s an attractive solution. The administration is rightly skeptical of the election-stealing Afghan President Karzai, who continues to rule a corrupt regime. “(Sigh.) Fine. Let the Taliban into government,” you can almost hear war-weary NSC officials dejectedly admit, “at least it’ll help get us the #@*% out of there.”

Unfortunately, it’s a short-sighted solution that will ultimately undermine NATO’s many hard-won victories in Afghanistan over the last eight-plus years.

Before digging into the why, it’s important to clarify exactly what’s under consideration. Today, the WaPo reported that in an effort “energize the peace process,” the U.N. has lifted sanctions against five former Taliban officials who are prepared to renounce violence. These converts fall in a different category than what the White House is currently debating. While reconciliation with the likes of hard-core top Taliban elements like Mullah Omar is out of the question, an administration official conceded that the White House was discussing “above low- and mid-level fighters.”

Stop right there: Those low- and mid-level fighters are far enough. Above that pay-grade, the Taliban’s mid-tier officers are in it not just for the paycheck, but for steadfast ideological convictions that are much harder to genuinely convert.
And that ideology fundamentally rejects the pillars supporting government in Kabul. As Barbara Elias writes in a hard-hitting essay for Foreign Affairs, governing within an even partially Westernized democracy is out of the question:

Their [the Taliban's] legitimacy rests not on their governing skills, popular support, or territorial control, but on their claim to represent what they perceive as sharia rule. This means upholding the image that they are guided entirely by Islamic principles; as such, they cannot make concessions to, or earnestly negotiate with, secular states.

In other words, we should be highly suspicious when the likes of Taliban leader Mullah Omar makes overtures about playing “our role in peace and stability of the region,” as he did in the fall. It’s a trap – the Taliban’s leaders want to join government to overthrow what it sees as a traitorous regime supported by infidel Western tyrants, not to act as a constructive governing partner. Once sharing power, the Taliban’s ideological resolve will only harden as its members refuse to accommodate otherwise constructive solutions forwarded by their more secular domestic or international partners.

It is far more constructive to remove the ideologues’ foot soldiers, which is precisely the aim of a potential $1 billion program for jobs and education for the Taliban’s grunts. Depriving the Taliban of its army is critical to removing its ability to peddle fear and repression outside of power. Integrating its non-contrite higher-ranking officers into the government just gives them a different kind of army.

That’s why it is yet again gut check time for the White House. Working with the most vile members of the Taliban is a great temptation, but will prove a fool’s errand.

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Pakistan Just Ain’t That Easy

Friday, December 18th, 2009
Jim Arkedis


Jim Arkedis is the director of PPI's National Security Project.

by Jim Arkedis

It seems almost elementary that the governments of Pakistan and the U.S. both have a vested interest in extending Islamabad’s authority over the whole of its country, a point David Ignatius makes today:

Here’s the cold, hard truth: U.S. success in Afghanistan depends on Pakistan gaining sovereignty over the tribal belt. If the insurgents can continue to maintain their havens in North Waziristan and other tribal areas, then President Obama’s surge of troops in Afghanistan will fail. It’s that simple.

Extending the Pakistani government’s writ is certainly a core element to any hope of securing Afghanistan. A safe base of operation across the border in Pakistan would allow al Qaeda’s senior leadership room to incubate in hopes of re-spreading its wings in a larger Taliban-protected region. Points for identifying the problem, but it’s not that simple.

But just a handful of pages away from Ignatius is a reminder of just how difficult that challenge will be:

Pakistan’s Supreme Court nullified on Wednesday a controversial deal that had given President Asif Ali Zardari and thousands of other government officials amnesty from prosecution on corruption charges, a decision likely to further weaken Zardari’s shaky hold on power.

The ruling could open the door to additional legal challenges against Zardari. Although he still has immunity from prosecution under the constitution, opponents plan to contest that by arguing that Zardari is technically ineligible for the presidency. …

But Zardari’s ability to make decisions about the level of Pakistani cooperation with the United States has been compromised by his struggle to simply hold on to his job — a task likely to be made more difficult by the court ruling.

There are essentially three legs of power in the Pakistani government — the military and intelligence services are the largest center of gravity, followed by the courts and then the civilian leadership. Rivalries between all three are intense to say the least, a dissection of which could take up an entire encyclopedic volume. And even though the military isn’t mentioned in the WaPo’s article, it almost goes without saying that the generals would be fine if Zardari fell from power.

The point is that as long as these communities’ main focus is a struggle for power, the White House will never get them to pay primary attention to internal security. And even if you could, each power base has reasons (some better than others) to turn a blind eye to the Taliban lodged in Pakistan’s hinterland.

The situation isn’t hopeless…yet. Despite long-standing suspicions of civilian President Zardari’s corruption (hey, the guy wasn’t called “Mr. 10 Percent” for nothing), he is the legitimately elected leader and was allowed to return to Pakistan — with his late-wife Benazir Bhutto — in an amnesty deal reached with ex-President Pervez Musharraf. Therefore, the U.S. should stand by Pakistan’s nascent democracy and support Zardari, without making him look like an American puppet.

Then the U.S. government should work on aligning the military under Pakistan’s civilian leadership. Congress tried this by conditioning aid on just such a goal in October. Guess what? It didn’t go over so well with Pakistan’s generals. Back to the drawing board.

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