Taliban, Iraqi Sunnis – Apples, Oranges

What I’m reading about President Barack Obama’s latest pronouncements on turning the tide in the war in Afghanistan makes me uneasy.

There is no doubt that U.S. and NATO fortunes have backslid in Afghanistan, through no fault of our troops on the ground – there just haven’t been enough to pursue any of a number of strategies effectively.  We also know that in many respects the “surge” in Iraq worked to some effect in that war.  The surge was not just about troops, it was also about effective counterinsurgency policy and tactics.  One of those tactics was to co-opt Sunni tribal elders and their followers who had fallen in line with al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Now, as if Afghanistan is just like Iraq, we’re going to surge there as well.  More troops makes sense if those troops are protecting civilians and not leaving them prey to the Taliban.  More troops make sense if we are capturing or killing Taliban.  Paying off Taliban in the way we worked with Sunni leaders in Iraq is a suckers bet, however.

Too many Americans view the Islamic world through a single lens ground from the images of 9/11 and the Bush war on terror.  In this view all muslims are sixth century throwbacks who routinely take to the streets and chant death to America.

The truth is that most muslims want the same things most of us want – peace, prosperity, liberty.  Another part of the truth is that there is a very vocal, in your face segment of Islam, who are grounded in a medieval view of the world.  They are inherently evil.  Their most apparent incarnation is in the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The Sunnis in Iraq are not the Taliban of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Many of these Sunnis did align themselves with Qaeda shortly after the U.S. invasion.  That had more to do with their security from Iraq’s resurgent Shi’a majority, their disapproval of American occupation and bullying by al-Qaeda in Iraq.  Many of these people were not saints to begin with, but they weren’t born and bred suicide bombers either.  Their early alignment with Qaeda also had a lot to do with the heavy-handed tactics employed by U.S. forces in the early years of the war.  Every door of an innocent family knocked in and their young men hauled away for God knows how long were recruiting campaigns for the bad guys.

The surge not only brought more troops to bear in Iraq, the surge brought different tactics.  U.S. forces began interacting more in local communities.  Forces stayed in neighborhoods 24-7 to protect the locals from the terrorists and Shi’a militias.  In many places, Iraqis began to see U.S. forces as synonymous with security.  Under these circumstances we turned some Sunni tribal leaders and their bands of fighters or saboteurs into allies.

The difference in Afghanistan is that the Taliban are terrorists by nature.  A deal with them is a deal with the devil.  If we pay them off now, they may go away for a brief time, but as soon as our back is turned they will be back and they will be causing trouble that will creep outside the borders of AfPak.  They have an entirely twisted view of Islam which has been drummed into their heads for years.  They are holy warriors and they believe that violence, mysogyny and exerting total control over other human beings is legitimate.

There are some areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan where the Taliban are in nominal control because they use force and intimidation to get what they need from locals.  We may be able to “buy off” the people under Taliban control, but they will only stay allies for as long as we or a local state authority can provide proper security.  For the Taliban, the hardcore true believers, I fear the only answer will come from the barrel of a gun.