Reply #35: U.S.: Plan to Split Taliban Lures Obama Deeper into War

[jody]

U.S.: Plan to Split Taliban Lures Obama Deeper into War

WASHINGTON, Mar 16 (IPS) - Advanced reports on the Barack Obama administration’s strategy to "peel off" a majority of insurgent commanders from the "hard core" of Taliban suggest that it will be presented as a political route to victory in Afghanistan that would not require U.S. and NATO troops to win militarily.

But experts warn that the strategy is unlikely to work. And by appearing to provide a political route to victory, the strategy is luring the administration into a renewed commitment to war in Afghanistan and diverting it away from a deal with the Taliban leadership aimed at keeping al Qaeda from having a presence there.

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But that extraordinarily optimistic assumption is not shared by most experts on the insurgency in Afghanistan. A report by Carlotta Gall in the New York Times last Wednesday quotes "several Western diplomats and officials in Afghanistan, including those already in contact with the Taliban" as saying that attempts to split off individual commanders or groups from the Taliban leadership "would not work."

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In contrast to the reported premise that most insurgents are motivated by material gain, most specialists on the insurgency emphasised the dominant role of Pashtun anger at foreign military operations in their locality killing members of their family or tribe.

Signe Wilkinson captures the Pashtun record in the following cartoon.