“We must reach out to all of our countrymen, even our disenchanted brothers,” affirms Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Mr. Karzai isn’t just echoing the counterinsurgency truism that victory requires winning over the population. Instead, he supports actively reaching out to the Taliban, including to its infamous leader, the one-eyed Mullah Omar. And though Pakistan stands squarely behind Karzai on this issue, the United States should not. On the contrary, the US should denounce reconciliation in the current Afghan climate as a genuinely unpalatable course. The Afghan government and its supporters need to exercise patience and focus on military operations, material incentives to undercut Taliban influence, and Pakistani cooperation for the time being. Only when the Taliban has been left in an unequivocally inferior negotiating position should reconciliation be considered.

At present, the Taliban leadership is in no mood to negotiate; its position is too strong. Even if, however, the Taliban leadership were somehow swayed in the coming weeks, and the government managed to produce a set of policies—amnesty, political participation, material incentives—sufficiently favorable as to induce Taliban cooperation, this would mean that an already unpopular, distrusted government would openly reward the very group that ruled tyrannically over the Afghani people before the American invasion, the group that has been at war with its own country since 2001.

This policy would doubtless run into serious backlash. Afghanis remain fundamentally bitter towards the United States; Americans were largely welcomed in 2001 as a hopeful improvement over the Taliban, but the gains for average Afghanis thus far have been small. If the American-backed Afghan government offers material incentives to the Taliban—that is, provides for the Taliban in a way that society as a whole has not been provided for—resentment towards the occupiers and the government will understandably deepen, especially amongst the ethnic Tajiks and Hazaras who have fought against the ethnically Pashtun Taliban. This is resentment, which a tenuous, disastrously corrupt government can ill afford. Indeed, by losing the support of the population, this would be to break counterinsurgency rule number one.

The even greater worry is that reconciliation would risk inviting a return to Taliban rule. The weak, unpopular Afghan government will only become exponentially more unstable when the United States and NATO inevitably reduce their presence. If reconciliation brings an intact Taliban back into the societal fabric—and, indeed, into the political process—there is a real danger that the progress made over the last eight years will be subverted by a gradual reentry of Taliban influence. Even if the Taliban agree to cut a deal and put down the guns, it cannot be expected to rethink or renounce the militant, retrograde, and repressive ideology which lies at the very heart of their movement. Any leader who renounces that ideology in favor of a bribe or the democratic process would not just risk his leadership status, he would also risk his head.

This has sinister implications for the Afghan state should the Taliban gain any real foothold in the government. If, in five years, for instance, education is once again forbidden for women above age eight, the US will have failed. Moreover, the Taliban can scarcely be expected to faithfully renounce its alliance with al-Qaeda, because that alliance has long been a fundamental power source and would, in the event of reintegration, provide fervid support for the resurgence of Taliban dominance. Should this resurgence occur and al-Qaeda begin to regain its position in Afghanistan, the US will be markedly less secure.

That said, this speculation is presently moot, because any real concessions from the Taliban leadership simply aren’t credible until the American and Afghan forces have gained more ground. The Afghan government is weak and corrupt, and the Afghan security apparatus is inept. American involvement has an expiration date, and Mr. Karzai himself has voiced skepticism about the government’s survival given the drawdown plans. Two dozen Afghan police officers recently disappeared, taking their trucks, guns, and heavy weaponry with them; it’s suspected they defected to the Taliban, following in the footsteps of hundreds of its colleagues. Certainly no progress will be made as long as Afghanis keep seeing greener pastures in the Taliban camp, because the Taliban will continue to think it can win, and it may be right.

Therefore, the coalition’s strategy in Afghanistan centers on gaining the upper hand to loosen the Taliban’s grip on the country while gaining popular support to make sure the grip stays loosened. This begins with operations like the present offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja. General Petraeus’ recent proposition that the current work in Marja is but the “initial salvo” in a campaign that may take 12 to 18 months underlines what will be an indispensable American asset in the coming years: patience. Americans need to recognize the potential for drawn out commitment in cases like Marja, where we simply cannot leave until a durable government is in place. We need to be prepared to exercise the utmost patience and to defer to military judgment as we approach the drawdown date in 2011. The risks of withdrawing prematurely will be monumentally greater than the risks of remaining to bolster stability.

Allied forces need to ramp up the sacrifices in another sphere as well; they need to be willing to contribute money, and a lot of it. The ability to provide for the Afghani people will be pivotal. Legitimate leadership in Afghanistan has always—dating back centuries to times when tribes ruled themselves, autonomous of any formal state—rested on the ability to accumulate and redistribute wealth to subjects. In order for Mr. Karzai’s government to gain support, allies need to be ready to finance poverty alleviation programs, rural development, and investment in irrigation canals and roads in order to help craft the image of a government that is a meaningful improvement on its predecessors. The US should also be directing money as aggressively as possible towards the bottom-up subversion of the Taliban, both by offering monetary incentives to the rank and file members—those driven by desperation, not by ideology—and by orchestrating more operations like the recent outreach to the Shinwari tribe, whereby the tribe received aid in exchange for committing to take an aggressive stand against the Taliban and all who harbored its fighters.

In a time of severe recession, providing substantial aid is naturally a gut-wrenching prospect. Yet the future of Afghanistan needs to be viewed as an investment, one into which hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives have already been poured, and one whose collapse could be a considerable setback in the global war against terrorism.

The US needs to tread very carefully in neighboring Pakistan, which will ultimately be pivotal in maintaining stability after American withdrawal. Pakistan has recently shown what appears to be an increased willingness to strike aggressively at the Afghan Taliban on its own soil, capturing several senior Taliban leaders, including Mullah Baradar and Mullah Kabir. Perhaps these recent arrests underscore a new Pakistani resolve to abandon the strategy of controlling Afghanistan through support for the Taliban. Yet Islamabad is simultaneously pushing to take a leading role in reconciliation attempts, and it could be that the increased cooperation is intended to earn, in American eyes, a seat at the head of the negotiations table. The US must remain acutely cognizant of the fact that Islamabad’s overwhelming priority is to maintain influence in Afghanistan, and that if the Taliban remain strong, it may choose to favor the terrorist group regardless of its current antagonistic posture.

The US should thus aggressively encourage, with aid and equipment, further efforts like those which captured Baradar and Kabir. We should denounce reconciliation at the current status quo, and promise Pakistan a central position in reconciliation that may occur in the future with a drastically weakened Taliban. We should offer the Karzai government incentives to forge a close, cooperative relationship with the Pakistani government, and we should be highly explicit in warning Islamabad that any identifiable complicity in a future Taliban resurgence will be met with severe diplomatic repercussions, including the full withdrawal of American aid.

With these tactics in place, the time may come when the government can claim the upper hand in settling with the enemy. Even then, Afghanistan will remain desperately poor and widespread satisfaction with the government will be difficult to obtain. Reconciliation in this environment will first and foremost demand a purging of figures like Mullah Omar. These charismatic, ideologically-driven leaders, remarkably adept at transforming popular disillusionment into violence, must be permanently isolated from the Afghan populace. A tenable reconciliation plan might therefore include a hierarchy of reintegration, whereby the foot soldiers are fully embraced into society, the mid-level leadership are reintegrated but permanently barred from holding political office, and the top tier leadership like Omar are granted amnesty but rejected from the fabric of Afghan society, and perhaps even forbidden on Afghan soil.

These sorts of restrictions will be fundamental in preserving the order as the dust over Afghanistan settles, but they will obviously be rejected outright until the day when the Taliban can no longer see victory on the horizon. The Afghan government must reach the point where it can negotiate with a Taliban that is very much defeated and that will remain so—lest popular unrest, Pakistani (or al-Qaeda) support, or some combination thereof subvert the progress that has been so costly in blood and treasure.

Despite General Stanley McChrystal’s call for additional troops in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama has avoided decisive action on his administration’s most pressing foreign policy issue. While Obama’s caution is laudable, every moment of indecision contributes to a deteriorating political and military situation in Afghanistan. After weeks of deliberation, the time has come for strong presidential leadership to inject new hope into the flagging war effort. Obama should endorse McChrystal’s call for more troops and augment it with a shift in political strategy that emphasizes strengthening Afghanistan’s failing government from the ground up.

A successful strategy for Afghanistan must first target the endemic complications caused by the country’s dispersed tribal societies. The clear-and-hold strategy employed successfully in Iraq’s cities would be a logistical nightmare in the disconnected and remote villages of Afghanistan. Shifting tribal alliances often render the progress of successful operations irrelevant; soldiers secure one area and move to a second, only to find that Taliban forces have reemerged in the first.

Problems plaguing Afghanistan’s government worsen the situation in the field. Pervasive corruption and a lack of provincial governance have allowed insurgents to entrench themselves within everyday Afghan life. The Taliban maintains its strength through kickbacks and bribes from both government officials and private citizens. In some areas, the government is so weak and inept that Taliban members have essentially assumed all governing authority. In other areas, political leaders are so corrupt that there is no functional difference between the Taliban and the government, making the complete eradication of insurgents in those areas all but impossible.
In light of these challenges, the only solution for American forces lies in the combination of a full-throttle political and military surge. Obama should not simply replicate his predecessor’s strategies in Iraq.

Instead, the main component of the strategy should be engaging the Afghan government more rigorously, sending a message of partnership rather than occupation. The more that American officials complain in public about Karzai’s government and try to make policy unilaterally, the more difficult it becomes for the two governments to develop a productive relationship. Geographic challenges and corruption can best be addressed by including provincial and tribal leaders in central government discussions; the regions most in need of stable governance are those farthest removed from Kabul’s reach. The U.S. should help local leaders maintain legitimate rule while also facilitating dialogue with Karzai’s government. This approach would include providing security, conflict mediation, and economic support to tribal areas. Gradually, power-sharing between these groups could rein in politically distant regions as local leaders trade power for government support. By involving more Afghans in the decision-making process, this strategy would also help shed the perception that Karzai is simply a puppet of the West and enhance the central government’s legitimacy. To many Afghan people, the war is a struggle over who will govern them, and much of the battle involves perceptually defeating the Taliban and gaining the Afghans’ favor.

The Taliban should also be included in the governing process. The label “Taliban” is too often used as an umbrella term to describe all Pashtun insurgents in the region, and it obscures the fact that these insurgents are not a homogenous group. There are moderates within the Taliban who fight not for religious extremism but for economic survival. Negotiating with and providing alternatives for Afghans to make a living is crucial, since many currently join the Taliban in exchange for promises of profits from illegal trading and debt collection. Winning over these moderates would fragment the insurgency and weaken its military capabilities.

All of these solutions, however, require a troop commitment to improve security. The goal of elevating troop levels is not to stage a dramatic occupation but instead to stabilize and build local capacity. Currently, Taliban forces frequently threaten Afghans with violence and destroy infrastructure the moment it is built. Not only have the insurgents crippled the border regions, but they have also instilled a sense of paralysis among the people. Most Afghans, fearing retribution from the Taliban, do nothing to improve conditions in the region and thus further hamper foreign military operations. Troop deployment focused in Afghanistan’s rural South and East would decrease security risks, but equally importantly, it would allow for cooperation between American and Afghan armies. Training and equipping local forces increases American forces’ legitimacy in the eyes of the people and prepares Afghanistan for self-sufficiency.

Counterterrorism vs. Counterinsurgency
A False Dichotomy

Opponents of a troop increase advocate a scaled-down counterterrorism approach that targets only al-Qaeda members rather than the entire Taliban. Vice President Joe Biden, chief among these opponents, has called for surgical unmanned drone strikes in addition to special forces operations. Yet policymakers like Biden err in treating al-Qaeda as an entity separate from the Taliban. A March 2009 review ordered by President Obama portrayed the two groups as intertwined. Defeating both groups will require more combat troops. Assassinating al-Qaeda officials will only encourage further extremism among Taliban members who will move to fill the power vacuum.
Counterterrorism in Afghanistan must include components of counterinsurgency, the resource-intensive military doctrine that calls for extensive manpower to pacify dangerous regions. Special Forces operations rely heavily on intelligence and local bases from which to launch, assets that only a counterinsurgency campaign in the volatile regions of Afghanistan can provide. More importantly, surgical strikes exact a heavy toll on Afghan civilians. The inevitable cost of unmanned drone bombings is civilian deaths, which alienate the population and pose ethical concerns. The seeming cruelty of U.S. bombings creates tension between soldiers and civilians while further spreading anti-Americanism. In addition, even successful missions usually fail to alter the dynamic between Afghan locals and Taliban thugs, who continue to terrorize villages.

No More Delay
The War Must Be Won

The biggest challenge for Obama will be to strike a balance between an increased American presence and hostility toward further intervention. Doing so will largely depend on the attitude that both the administration and the soldiers themselves adopt. The Afghan people do not intrinsically loathe American soldiers. In fact, most prefer to interact with U.S. troops than with the Taliban. However, Afghans are tiring of failed promises and undue American aggression. Obama should therefore deploy Americans in tandem with local units and strengthen guidelines discouraging unnecessary loss of civilian life.
Despite the growing quagmire, the fight in Afghanistan is not impossible to win. Karzai’s recent acquiescence to the Independent Election Commission’s call for a runoff election demonstrates that the Afghan government is responsive to third-party pressure. In his first speech since winning the election, President Karzai committed to “launch[ing] a campaign to clean the government of corruption.” Though unlikely to result in immediate reform, Karzai’s speech opens the door for guarded optimism.
Obama must act decisively and approve a troop increase in Afghanistan. As McChrystal’s report confirms, “resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it.” Any inclusive approach requires more security and thus more resources. These commitments are a small price to pay compared to the potential dangers of a Taliban-dominated Afghanistan.

Termed “the most dangerous place on Earth” by CIA officials in 2007, Pakistan is among the most crucial fronts in the war against Islamic terrorism. The nation’s mountainous Waziristan region is a Taliban stronghold, and the presumed hideout of many high-level al-Qaeda operatives. Unfortunately, the nation’s vested interest in U.S. anti-terror efforts has not translated into successful cooperation. Despite pledges of support, Pakistan’s attempts to supplement U.S. efforts in the region have been largely unsuccessful. As recently as April of this year, Taliban forces were able to capture Pakistan’s Swat Valley, a region within 100 kilometers of Islamabad. Though Swat has since been reclaimed, the episode was yet another example of Pakistan’s historic reluctance to turn fully against Islamic radicalism, and its preference for negotiation and compromise. This year, in a particularly dismaying example, the government attempted to defuse the conflict in Swat by simply meeting the militants’ demands and allowing the establishment of Islamic sharia law within the district. To no one’s surprise, this emboldened, rather than pacified, the militants, who soon occupied the entire Northwestern Frontier Province.

Pakistan has not given the Waziristan conflict the resources or the resolve it requires. A Defense Department official described the situation in these terms: “The government is too worried about its own political survival to take on the militants.” Still, if the U.S. is to salvage its anti-terror partnership with Pakistan, it must emphasize that strategies designed to appease the Taliban are unacceptable. Furthermore, the U.S. must understand that the crisis in Pakistan is not entirely a military endeavor. Current President Asif Ali Zardari heads a fragile, insecure government, the country’s disenfranchised and uneducated youth remain vulnerable to radical strains of Islam, and sympathy for Islamist groups lingers within Pakistan’s intelligence and security institutions. America must use its funds, resources and international clout to promote, first and foremost, a more robust secular educational system, one designed to inculcate democratic virtues and national pride among young Pakistanis.

That education is the only surefire cure for extremism has become a cliché, but in Pakistan it is highly applicable. Pakistan’s public education system has suffered enormous neglect over the past thirty years, and Islamic schools, madrassas, have filled the void. In 2002, approximately 10,000 Pakistani madrassas educated a total of 1.7 million students. Though only a small minority of these schools promote violent, anti-Western ideologies, almost all encourage prioritizing allegiance to the pan-Islamic ummah (community of believers) over national duty. The development of a competent secular educational system, dedicated to teaching not only reading and writing but also the value of democratic participation would help to cultivate a more vibrant and accessible political environment, getting into the non-military roots of the problem.

In 2007, a representative sample of 1,044 Pakistanis found that Osama bin Laden had an approval rating of 46%. Approval ratings of the Taliban and al-Qaeda were similarly high. Perhaps even more jarring, only 4% of respondents believed that the United States had good intentions in its War on Terror. Winning the hearts, minds and loyalties of the Pakistani people is as central to U.S. interests as anything happening in Waziristan; the U.S. must understand that donations to the Pakistani military, however generous, are unlikely to alter public opinion, especially given the historic tendency of the military to carve itself a role in civilian politics.

Thus, while the Pakistani military certainly does deserve continued American support, so too do the Pakistani people and their government. A strong, effective educational system, and more particularly the economic opportunities and civic virtues it would cultivate, would go a long way to fostering the growth of moderation, tolerance, and democracy in Pakistan. America can best improve its regional reputation by demonstrating tangible support for the social, and especially educational, needs of the Pakistani people. Future aid should be directed more towards public programs than military enhancement. Additionally, financial assistance should be targeted not merely at projects of local development, but also towards the Pakistani government’s own attempts at systemic reform.

In June 2009, as Pakistani troops were retaking Swat, Osama bin Laden released an audio recording to Al Jazeera, the Arabic-language television network. He claimed that the Waziristan war was “an American, Jewish and Indian plot”, whose ultimate aim was to weaken Pakistan in the face of Indian aggression and American imperialism. Appealing to historic Pakistani insecurities, bin Laden attempted to deflect attention from the thousands of Pakistanis killed and the millions displaced by the current conflict. Against such an enemy, America must recognize that education is its strongest defense; only with a holistic appreciation of the conflict will Pakistanis be able to recognize that their deadliest foe is extremism itself.