Secretary Gates talks tough on Afghanistan, but so do the Taliban. Is this just rhetoric?
Edward Kenney Afghanistan Study Group
Robert Gates is delivering some of his final speeches as Secretary of Defense, and many commentators have written excellent assessments of his tenure at the Pentagon. Perhaps Gates’ most important legacy will be the ongoing war in Afghanistan, so it has been especially interesting to hear Gates talk about the war to U.S. troops in Kabul this week.
His talks could not be more timely: The conditions are set for a major re-evaluation of the war effort following Gates retirement and Petraeus’ new assignment to the CIA. Early indications suggest that the President is deeply concerned about the cost of the war and is contemplating a speedier withdrawal—meanwhile support has softened considerably in Congress. But perhaps the biggest game-changer is not occurring in Washington—I refer of course to the prospects for reconciliation between the insurgency and international forces.
This week Gates had a chance to set the record straight on Afghanistan, but on the surface his talk disappointed on this front. He continued to follow the administrations canard of hyping ISAF’s momentum by pointing to the usual cherry picked data points and concluding that the U.S. is ready to deliver the “decisive blow” against insurgents. Meanwhile news from Afghanistan shows considerably less reason for optimism. Jawad Zahhak, the Provincial Chief of Bamiyan Province (once home to the Bamiyan Buddhas and regarded as one of the more stable regions) was assassinated by local insurgents. As the Afghan blogger Ali Karimi points out, Zahhak’s death draws out the ethnic aspect of the conflict. Zahhak was a known as a vocal defender of the Hazara minority.
If there is a ray of optimism to support the Secretary’s rosy outlook, it may be coming from a very different location. Last Friday, the Embassy of India hosted a fundraiser for the Nooristan Foundation, an NGO that has done excellent work in some of the most insecure regions of the country. They have even opened a school in Taliban controlled Nuristan, which reportedly educates 70 boys and girls. So, as is typical for Afghanistan, the picture of the insurgency is incredibly complex—are they going to push for ethnic cleansing as the news from Bamiyan suggests? Or can they be pressured to respect the gains in human rights as the Nooristan Foundation school would indicate?
But back to Gates: The Secretary of Defense paints a picture of an insurgency on its deathbed, but tellingly says that within a year the Taliban will be negotiating a peace deal. This optimistic forecast is based on the assumption that the Taliban will not negotiate as long they are “winning”. (By this logic and the deathbed Taliban scenario we keep hearing from DoD, one wonders why the U.S. is seeking a deal with the insurgency!). Meanwhile the Taliban themselves have issued a press release calling reports of a potential deal completely fabricated. The Taliban’s argument mirrors Gates’ in many ways. “Why negotiate while we are winning?”
Putting an optimistic spin on this week’s events, perhaps both Gates and the Taliban are playing up their strengths ahead of potential talks. A positive sign is the decision by the Afghan government, undoubtedly with U.S. input, to lobby the U.N. to de-blacklist key members of the Taliban. My half-hearted defense of Gates is this: in order to maximize the likelihood of a successful negotiation, he has to “talk up” the war effort. He is in effect a used-car salesman selling a piece of junk: Will anyone notice that the brakes are gone?
