The main topic of discussion at the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan was the renewed coalition support for the Afghan government’s reintegration and reconciliation initiatives. With varying degrees of enthusiasm, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other members of the international coalition endorsed Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s call for national reconciliation. Seeking to weaken the Taliban insurgents by dividing the group’s less committed members from its hard-core supporters makes tactical sense, but the initiatives entail serious risks that must be understood and reduced.

BACKGROUND: In his speech to the conference, Karzai said that “we must reach out to all our countrymen, especially our disenchanted brothers”. The president set forth a comprehensive national reconciliation plan that included working with Pakistan and other potential regional mediators as well as convening a loya jirga, or council of elders, to promote Afghan reconciliation efforts.

Like many coalition members, Karzai sought to differentiate between reintegration and reconciliation. In the Afghan context, reintegration refers to efforts to induce lower-level Taliban fighters, who might have joined the insurgency to earn money or for other non-ideological reasons, to lay down their arms and rejoin the peaceful political process. Reconciliation entails negotiating peace deals with senior Taliban leaders who, for diverse reasons, might accept a compromise political settlement. Both approaches present various opportunities and problems.

Despite some media criticism to the contrary, reintegration involves more than simply giving Taliban fighters money to stop fighting. If this were the core of the program, then it would be a terrific recruiting tool for the insurgents since almost everyone would join their ranks to get funded. Rather, the reintegration process involves providing jobs, vocational training, housing, and other benefits that would allow rank-and-file Taliban fighters to make a better living than they do now as hired fighters.

Inducing many rank-and-file insurgents to leave the Taliban is an essential objective since neither the Afghan government nor its foreign backers expect to kill or capture them all. To be successful, it requires overcoming several obstacles to their widespread reintegration. The authorities must be able to protect ex-insurgents, either from their former guerrilla colleagues seeking revenge or from government backers who still consider the ex-fighters their enemy despite their having switched sides. In addition, Afghan institutions, at the local as well as the federal level, need to be more effective since they must convert the foreign funding into Afghan jobs, housing, and the other tools of successful reintegration.

The problem is that Afghan institutions lack these capabilities. The Afghan National Army and Police are incapable of defending its citizens without foreign military support. In addition, Afghan civilian institutions, whether in Kabul or in many provinces, lack the resources and other capabilities to ensure that essential public services are delivered. Karzai also acknowledges that public corruption remains a major problem. Citing these weaknesses, foreign donors tend to bypass Afghan government institutions and deal directly with local tribal leaders or other extra-governmental structures, which compounds the problem by limiting their contributions to building Afghan state capacity.

The issue of promoting an enduring reconciliation between the Afghan government and influential members of the Taliban is more controversial. The intent is to exploit the fact that the Taliban leadership is not a cohesive group; some might accept a settlement whereas others are too close to al-Qaeda. Karzai and Western leaders have repeatedly insisted that their reconciliation offer does not extend to al-Qaeda terrorists.

Although al-Qaeda and the Taliban are united in their desire to expel Western troops from Afghanistan and reestablish a strict Islamic government there, the two groups probably have different long-term goals. A Taliban government would not necessarily support Islamic insurgencies in other countries or engage in distant terrorist attacks in Western countries, whereas al-Qaeda would. The uncertainty is whether a Taliban government would give al-Qaeda free reign to engage in these activities from their training, logistics, and headquarter facilities in Afghanistan or would exercise more restraint than they did before 9/11.

The UN Security Council recently followed Karzai’s wishes and removed five individuals from its international terrorist blacklist. All five had withdrawn from the battlefield years ago and therefore probably lack much influence with the current Taliban leadership. The plan now is to remove more names, but the problem of ensuring the protection and profitable employment of anyone who defects from the Taliban still exists.

IMPLICATIONS:  The mainstream Taliban leadership has publicly rejected the current overtures, as it has done with earlier initiatives. Shortly after the London conference, Taliban representatives demanded that all Western troops leave Afghanistan before they will engage in direct talks with the Kabul government. Karzai has sought to finesse the issue by noting that a peace agreement that ended militancy would bring about the withdrawal of all foreign military forces.

Another obstacle is the Taliban’s refusal to accept Afghanistan’s current constitution, which was adopted after the Taliban lost power. It embodies many liberal democratic principles that most Taliban leaders consider objectionable. The guarantee of equal rights for women is considered a major point in dispute. Many women’s’ groups oppose negotiating with the Taliban for fear of sacrificing schooling for girls and other rights. At the conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unveiled a Women’s Action Plan for Afghanistan that sought to improve health and other opportunities for Afghan women and girls.

The Taliban could also imitate the North Vietnamese strategy of professing to accept a peace settlement and democratic principles in order to secure a withdrawal of foreign troops, and then resume their offensive knowing that NATO governments would not have the stomach to order the troops back.

Wavering Western will is already causing problems for several options. On the one hand, the unwillingness of Western publics to support an enduring military commitment in Afghanistan comparable to that provided South Korea and Germany is sustaining interest in a negotiated settlement. Although Chancellor Angela Merkel announced an increase in the number of German soldiers assigned to Afghanistan, many European governments have publicly announced sharp reductions in their military commitments in coming years to appease their publics.

On the other hand, a lack of strong Western backing contributed to the failure of past reintegration and reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan. Support for reintegration antagonizes family members of Western soldiers who died in Afghanistan, while backing reconciliation initiatives upsets the victims of 9/11 who were killed by terrorists enjoying sanctuary in then Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Either move could also mislead Western publics into expecting an imminent peace. They will then become further disillusioned and impatient if no settlement is realized.

Coalition members have expressed greater support for Karzai’s peace efforts as their military situation has deteriorated. At London, they pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to his new Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund. Yet, the patent Western war wariness has convinced many Taliban leaders that all they need do is sustain their military pressure for a few more years and NATO forces will leave, allowing the Taliban to overwhelm the weak Afghan National Army.

The risk exists that appearing too eager to secure a negotiated settlement could deepen doubts about Western willingness to stay the course in Afghanistan, both among the Afghan people and in neighboring countries such as Pakistan. The Taliban has long sought to convey the message to Afghans and Pakistanis that they should not resist them because they will eventually prevail once Western troops invariably leave movement.

CONCLUSION: Breaking this vicious circle requires turning the tide on the battlefield. Coalition forces must apply more pressure on the Taliban to induce their members to defect and their leaders to negotiate. In addition, the enhanced number of NATO ground troops will reduce civilian casualties by decreasing the need for air strikes, which are often the cause of civilian casualties. Finally, the troop increase can establish the benign environment essential for promoting the social, economic, and other initiatives needed to strengthen Afghan state institutions. These programs range from the planned increase in Afghan security forces to 300,000 by the end of 2011, which will require extensive Western training and subsidies, to projects to create additional vocational and educational opportunities in unstable regions. The key issue then becomes who will win the race between the tenacity of the insurgents and the sustainability of Western military and financial commitment to the Afghan government.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Richard Weitz is Director of Hudson Institute’s Center for Political-Military Analysis and the author, among other works, of Kazakhstan and the New International Politics of Eurasia (Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, 2008).