[Peace-discuss] Will Obama Say Yes to Afghan Peace Talks?

Fri May 7 10:12:48 CDT 2010

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/will-obama-say-yes-to-afg_b_567602.html
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/will-obama-say-yes-to-afg_b_567602.html>
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/7/10924/03414
 <http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/7/10924/03414>
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/568
<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/568>
Will Obama Say Yes to Afghan Peace
Talks?<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/will-obama-say-yes-to-afg_b_567602.html>

 Afghan President Hamid Karzai is coming to Washington next week to meet
with President Obama. Afghan government officials have said that their top
priority for these talks is to get President Obama to agree that the U.S.
will fully back efforts of the Afghan government to reconcile with senior
leaders of the Afghan Taliban insurgency in order to end the war.

On the merits, saying yes to the Afghan government's request for US support
for peace talks would seem like a no-brainer.

Either Hamid Karzai is the legitimate President of Afghanistan or he is not.
If Hamid Karzai is not the legitimate President of Afghanistan, then Western
forces must leave the country immediately, because they have no legitimate
basis to remain. But if Hamid Karzai is the legitimate President of
Afghanistan, then it's a slam dunk that his government's policy of national
reconciliation ought to take precedence over Pentagon demands for more
killing.

Either the opinions of the people of Afghanistan on questions of war and
peace in their country matter or they do not. If they do not matter, then
everyone in Washington pontificating about "democracy" or "governance" or
"legitimacy" or "corruption" in Afghanistan please shut up immediately and
remain silent. If the opinions of the Afghan public do matter, then it's a
slam dunk that the Afghan public's demand for peace talks ought to take
precedence over Pentagon demands for more killing.

Every Western press report from Afghanistan that addresses this issue says
that the overwhelming consensus of public opinion in Afghanistan supports
peace talks to end the war.

Just this week, Jonathan Steele reported in the
*Guardian*<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/04/afghanistan-taliban>
that
across Afghanistan, talking to the Taliban is seen as "the only credible
way" to end the war, "even among Afghanistan's small but determined group of
woman professionals." Steele interviews a range of Afghan professional women
to illustrate his point.

Member of Parliament Shukria Barakzai explains why she supports peace talks:

"Everybody has been trying to kill the Taliban but they're still there,
stronger than ever. They are part of our population. They have different
ideas but as democrats we have to accept that. Every war has to end with
talks and negotiations. Afghans need peace like oxygen. People want to keep
their villages free of violence and suicide bombers."

 If "Afghan women now overwhelmingly want talks with the Taliban," Steele
writes, "the same is true of many of the country's male politicians,
particularly the Pashtun." The perception of many Pashtun politicians is
that the US invasion put the warlords of the predominantly Tajik Northern
Alliance in power, marginalizing the country's largest ethnic group, the
Pashtun. These Pashtun politicians see a national reconciliation process and
new political dispensation with the primarily Pashtun Taliban as a way to
end this marginalization of the Pashtuns and incorporate them into the
government.

U.S. officials who want to continue the killing concede that the endgame is
a negotiated political solution with the Afghan Taliban, but insist that the
"time is not right" because "the Taliban have no reason to negotiate," and
that we have to kill more of them to "force the Taliban to the negotiating
table."

Like Iraq WMD, this is a stupid lie repeated endlessly by all the stupid
people until all the stupid people believe it.

When the U.S. government decides to attack a problem diplomatically, this is
not how U.S. government officials talk about it. Instead, they emphasize
common interests and opportunities for agreement, seeking to expand the
political space for diplomacy. This is equally true under Democratic and
Republican Administrations; it was true under the Bush Adminstration. The
fact that the U.S. government is downplaying the prospect of peace shows you
that the U.S. government is not trying to achieve peace. So when U.S.
government officials claim that the Taliban aren't ready for peace, they are
really just restating what we already know: that the U.S. government isn't
ready for peace.

Note that a component of the Afghan Taliban leadership *has already put a
peace plan on the table*. In March, a delegation from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's
insurgent group Hezb-i-Islami presented a formal 15-point peace plan to the
Afghan government. A spokesman for the delegation said the Afghan Taliban
would be willing to go along with the plan if a date was set for the
withdrawal of foreign forces from the country.

This information is not a highly classified state secret. It was reported in
the *New York Times*<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/asia/24afghan.html>
.

It's kind of breathtaking that the warmonger Washington punditocracy can
continue on its merry Energizer bunny way, insisting that there is no basis
for peace talks, completely ignoring that fact that a fraction of the
insurgency has put a peace plan on the table and claims that the bulk of the
insurgency is ready to support the plan if foreign forces will agree to a
timetable for withdrawal. But that's what happens when your raw material for
analysis isn't what's actually happening in Afghanistan, but what other
stupid people in Washington are saying about what is happening in
Afghanistan. If the stupid people in Washington aren't talking about peace
talks, then the prospect of peace talks doesn't exist.

Of course, from the standpoint of the warmongers, a peace plan that requires
a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces is a "non-starter."

But from the point of view of the values and interests of the majority of
Americans, the opposite is true: the fact that the insurgents' peace plan
requires a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces is a stunningly
attractive feature of the insurgents' peace plan.

Among Democrats in particular, the idea of a timetable for withdrawal of
U.S. forces is spectacularly popular.

Already, eighty-two Members of Congress have
co-sponsored<http://noescalation.org/> Representative
McGovern's bill requiring a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces,
including such liberal heavyweights as Barney Frank and Henry Waxman. Among
House Democrats from President Obama's home state of Illinois, it's now 2-1
in favor of a timetable for withdrawal, with Reps. Costello, Schakowsky,
Davis, Gutierrez, Jackson, Quigley, Hare, and Rush co-sponsoring McGovern's
bill, leaving only Reps. Bean, Foster, Halvorson, and Lipinski still on the
sidelines.

When we compel the U.S. government to accept the policy of a timetable for
military withdrawal, we remove the fundamental U.S. obstacle to peace in
Afghanistan.

Until now, there have been just a handful of voices in the U.S. debate
openly calling for real U.S. support of Afghan peace talks, such as Ahmed
Rashid, writing in the *Washington
Post*<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/559#April2710t1>;
Robert Dreyfuss, writing in *the
Nation*<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/569#May0610r6>;
Tom Hayden, writing in the *Los Angeles
Times*<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/hayden>;
and Gareth Porter, in his reporting for *Inter Press
Service*<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/470>
.

But now that President Karzai is expressly meeting with President Obama for
the purpose of securing US agreement to back Afghan peace talks, it's time
to make American public support for peace talks more visible.

Jim Fine of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and I want to place
an ad <http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate/peace-talks-ad> in the DC
press next week when President Karzai visits, calling on President Obama to
say yes when President Karzai asks him to support peace talks in
Afghanistan. If you agree, show us some
love<http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate/peace-talks-ad>
.

-- 
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org

Urge Congress to Support a Timetable for Military Withdrawal from
Afghanistan
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/feingold-mcgovern

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