Karzai’s visit; negotiation with Taliban

This week Hamid Karzai will meet with officials in Washington, after a long period of so-called gaffes and tense relations. One of the chief issues to be discussed is the prospect of negotiation with the Taliban. Karzai already plans a jirga in Afghanistan where this issue might be decided. Some interpretations say that Washington wants unity with Karzai before this meeting occurs.

In multiple news venues, including NPR, Reuters, and the New York Times, Karzai’s visit is presented as an attempt at a much-needed “mending.” The mending is needed, because Karzai has been making “anti-Western” statements, including his stupidly misrepresented joke that he might join the Taliban, which has tried to assassinate him. Another outrage has been Karzai’s repeated denunciations of military operations that cause civilian casualties.

Some additional context is important. First, insurgent groups have presented an outline for peace talks, although the Taliban has distanced itself from that proposal. The second, and much more important piece of context is that a majority of Afghans, including a majority of women, support negotiation with the Taliban. Relevant polling data can be downloaded here. Support for negotiation with the Taliban has been standardly described as a debate between the Obama administration and Karzai himself, when in fact the former opposes the majority opinion in Afghanistan. Interestingly, widespread Afghan endorsement of negotiation is not an endorsement of the Taliban itself, as a majority have favored the removal of the Taliban, consider the insurgents the greatest security risk, and so on. A thorough discussion of this issue is here, and an annoying but accurate polemic in defense of Afghan democracy is here.

Stephen Biddle of the Washington Post has different ideas about democratic processes, suggesting that the U.S. provide the right “incentive” structure in Afghanistan. Biddle is not subtle in his suggestion that the Obama administration should leverage its aid and support to force Karzai to violate the will of the people who elected him. Such an anti-democratic approach is unlikely to benefit Afghans, even if it provides opportunity for tough political posturing by Obama. Removal of military support would clearly favor the very insurgents U.S. policy hopes to thwart, and removal of humanitarian support would constitute fostering starvation, disease, etc., in order to force U.S. policy preference down the throats of unwilling Afghans. Biddle laments that if Karzai were more “effective,” such an approach would not be necessary. There are plenty of political structures where such “effectiveness” could be achieved, none of them democratic.