It takes a region

The Pickering/Brahimi report on negotiating an end to the war in Afghanistan is on less than firm ground in claiming that its publication happens to coincide with the perfect moment to launch negotiations to end the insurgency in Afghanistan (see my previous post), but its discussion of the regional interests in Afghanistan is better framed.  They do not limit themselves to Pakistan, as so many reports seem inclined to do, but look farther to Iran, India, China and Russia.

Still, they leave me with a lot of question marks.  They don’t deal with Pakistan’s ISI, which seems rather more wedded to the Taliban than the rest of the Pakistani government.  In fact, they treat “Pakistan” as a unified actor, which is certainly not the way it has acted in the past, and I don’t know many analysts who expect it to act that way in the future.

They cite Iran’s interests in controlling drugs, protecting Shia, preventing the Taliban from returning to power and maintaining influence in Herat.  But they don’t deal with Tehran’s apparent willingness to provide some military support to Taliban insurgents inside Afghanistan.

The report counts China as a possible influence in the right direction on Pakistan.  Beijing might certainly wish it so, as Afghanistan’s minerals are appetizingly close by.  But I wonder whether the Pakistan that would have to be influenced is all that interested in what the Chinese have to say on Afghanistan.  Again there is that unified actor question.

The treatment of “Central Asian states,” (aka the Stans, I think) and Russia is rather cursory, with a reference to their interests in a stable Afghanistan, their worries about U.S. presence and the possibility of jihadis breaching their borders.  It seems to me that they have been surprisingly non-meddling, even helpful.  How do we account for that, and is there something more they can do?

The discussion of how the proposed international “facilitator” would deal with the various layers of neighborly and other international interest is well done.  The idea would be a series of bilateral consultations, to precede any multilateral meeting (one coming up in Istanbul).

The suggestion that international peacekeepers may be needed post-settlement I find mind-stretching.  It’s a bit difficult to imagine Afghanistan safe for peacekeepers, Muslim or not, rather than peace enforcers.  But of course that is just the point:  if there is a broad political settlement, most of the insurgency would presumably go away.

All of this may be wishful thinking.  But it is more realistic wishful thinking–maybe even “visionary” thinking–than believing we are going to be able to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2014 without a negotiated political settlement.

I have feared the terms of that settlement inside Afghanistan for human rights, in particular for women.  I’ve too often sat in State Department meetings where assistant secretaries promised not to sell out human rights, only to discover a week later that is precisely what was done.  And what real leverage do we have over how women are treated in a Helmand governed by Taliban?  The best of intentions somehow go astray when faced with the need for a power-sharing agreement with people who have been violating human rights for years, if not decades.  That conflict of interests and values, again.