Today I attended the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s hearing on Afghanistan. It was entitled, “Confronting al-Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan and Beyond.” As the panelists in the hearing made clear, however, this is a deceptive name for a hearing. Al-Qaeda barely exists in any form in Afghanistan, with some estimates doubting if they even have 100 core fighters. The mission in Afghanistan is no longer counterterrorism, but counterinsurgency; the enemy in Afghanistan is not al-Qaeda, but the Taliban.
Courtesy TIME Magazine
There is a significant al-Qaeda presence in Western Pakistan, however. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that some figures in the White House believe that the McChrystal recommendations for the Afghan war are not as important as the strategic decisions that face us in Pakistan. Another topic of discussion is the degree to which the Taliban and al-Qaeda are joined at the hip. A New York Times article nicely frames the internal debates, and I recommend a full read:
“The policy people and the intelligence people inside are having a big argument over this,” said Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Mr. Biden. “Is the Taliban a loose collection of people we can split up? Can we split the Taliban from Al Qaeda? If the Taliban comes back to power in parts of Afghanistan, are they going to bring Al Qaeda back with them?”
Rory Stewart points out it’s unlikely that the taliban would ever be in a position to invite al queda back, theyre just too weak right now. And besides, al queda prefers pakistan because it has enforced soverignty. We should be working with teh taliban just like any other regional authority if we want to influence afghani politics in the long term. These aren’t idealogues, they’re just localized fighters like anyone else.
dude stop drinkin the koolaid alqaida is terrorist
Billybats, you’re conflating al-Qaeda with the Taliban. Al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization. The Taliban, however, is not. The core leadership is a nationalist movement, and like rgbub points out, many of the lower-level fighters are actually fairly localized.
Rgbub, the sense I got from the panelists — who were semi-divided on the issue — is that there is some room to work with the Taliban, but not unlimited room. Mullah Omar and the central leadership are not interested in compromise. It is certainly possible, though, that local offshoots could be bought off.