President Obama and the Taliban
M. Orhan Tarhan
April 14, 2009
President Bush has used the 9/11 event for a pretext to attack Iraq. After a brief operation in Afghanistan, he put it on the back burner and concentrated American forces on Iraq. That gave the Taliban a chance to resurrect and present serious danger to the NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Recently, it was announced that 17,000 more Americans will be sent there. It is reasonable to expect, that, as forces are withdrawn from Iraq, more troops will be available to be sent to Afghanistan. That assumes that the U.S. is resolved to defeat the Taliban.
President George W. Bush did not think that the United States should talk to its enemies. But his idea was not shared by many people on both sides of the isle.
During the election campaign, Obama defended the idea of talking to our enemies. So now there are talks on talking to the Taliban, too. Talking to Iran is a good idea, since we are not in war against it and the questions of victory and defeat are not applicable to that relationship. Briefly,
It would not hurt us to talk to Iran. But the Taliban is an other matter. We are actively fighting them and we are not doing so well in that fight. We would be talking from weakness. The right thing is to get better organized to defeat the Taliban. According to the Washington Post, on March 10, Vice President Joe Biden talked to the representatives of the 26 NATO countries and asked them to increase their participation in the war in Afghanistan.
By the way, I am not so sure, the Taliban may want to talk to us at all. Because their aim is simply to defeat us, to convert us to Islam, and that requires no talking. If they talk, they will give us nothing, because they will be talking from strength. According to the Washington Post, only 5 % of the Taliban are "incorrigible", these must be defeated militarily. Talking to them is useless. The rest are believed to be open to persuasion, like some Sunnis in Iraq. The U.S. wants and hopes to try to talk to these fighters.. But that is no sure thing.
I thought, the United States was resolved to defeat the Taliban, the "incorrigible ones", because, the Taliban would never leave us alone. They would keep on organizing terrorist attacks all along the West one after the other. You cannot live with them, they will make our lives miserable. Then, we should be just like the Taliban, we should not have anything to talk about. We should not have anything to give to them. If President Obama wants to show that he will keep his word on talking to the enemy, we should go ahead and talk to Iran. But we should know that nothing will come out of talking to the "incorrigible" Taliban, because neither side has anything to give.
It is the exact reverse with Iran. There is a lot of give and take involved. The West wants them to stop developing the nuclear bomb and is offering in return considerable advantages. Israel wants them to stop threatening them and wants to be assured that it will not be attacked. The United States wants Iran to stop supplying arms and ammunitions to the underground resistance movement in Iraq, Iran wants American forces depart completely from Iraq, etc… etc…Neither side will get everything it wants, but probably both sides will get something and will give something.
On the other hand, the fighting in Afghanistan will have to last until all the winnable Taliban is won and the incorrigible ones are completely destroyed. There can be no partial solution, there. That is why talking to the core fighters will make no sense.
President George W. Bush did not think that the United States should talk to its enemies. But his idea was not shared by many people on both sides of the isle.
During the election campaign, Obama defended the idea of talking to our enemies. So now there are talks on talking to the Taliban, too. Talking to Iran is a good idea, since we are not in war against it and the questions of victory and defeat are not applicable to that relationship. Briefly,
It would not hurt us to talk to Iran. But the Taliban is an other matter. We are actively fighting them and we are not doing so well in that fight. We would be talking from weakness. The right thing is to get better organized to defeat the Taliban. According to the Washington Post, on March 10, Vice President Joe Biden talked to the representatives of the 26 NATO countries and asked them to increase their participation in the war in Afghanistan.
By the way, I am not so sure, the Taliban may want to talk to us at all. Because their aim is simply to defeat us, to convert us to Islam, and that requires no talking. If they talk, they will give us nothing, because they will be talking from strength. According to the Washington Post, only 5 % of the Taliban are "incorrigible", these must be defeated militarily. Talking to them is useless. The rest are believed to be open to persuasion, like some Sunnis in Iraq. The U.S. wants and hopes to try to talk to these fighters.. But that is no sure thing.
I thought, the United States was resolved to defeat the Taliban, the "incorrigible ones", because, the Taliban would never leave us alone. They would keep on organizing terrorist attacks all along the West one after the other. You cannot live with them, they will make our lives miserable. Then, we should be just like the Taliban, we should not have anything to talk about. We should not have anything to give to them. If President Obama wants to show that he will keep his word on talking to the enemy, we should go ahead and talk to Iran. But we should know that nothing will come out of talking to the "incorrigible" Taliban, because neither side has anything to give.
It is the exact reverse with Iran. There is a lot of give and take involved. The West wants them to stop developing the nuclear bomb and is offering in return considerable advantages. Israel wants them to stop threatening them and wants to be assured that it will not be attacked. The United States wants Iran to stop supplying arms and ammunitions to the underground resistance movement in Iraq, Iran wants American forces depart completely from Iraq, etc… etc…Neither side will get everything it wants, but probably both sides will get something and will give something.
On the other hand, the fighting in Afghanistan will have to last until all the winnable Taliban is won and the incorrigible ones are completely destroyed. There can be no partial solution, there. That is why talking to the core fighters will make no sense.