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That was a signal, not a Biden gaffe

If you’ve been wondering whether there are really secret talks going on with the Taliban, Vice President Biden’s “gaffe” yesterday is confirmation:  “the Taliban, per se, is not the enemy,” he said.

This is not a change in policy,  but it is certainly a shift in emphasis.  When President Obama announced the surge of troops into Afghanistan two years ago, he made it clear we were targeting not only Al Qaeda but also the Taliban.  We sought, he said, to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government, on our way to disrupting, defeating and dismantling Al Qaeda.  He added that “We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.”

The lyrics have changed, if not the tune.  Now we are talking with the Taliban, with help from the Germans, whether the Afghan government likes it or not.  I am not hearing a lot of talk about respect for human rights or even the requirement to abandon violence.  It would appear to be sufficient for the Taliban to foreswear support to Al Qaeda and give up on toppling the Karzai government.  Here is the fuller context of what Biden said:

…we are in a position where if Afghanistan ceased and desisted from being a haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America and their allies, that’s good enough. That’s good enough. We’re not there yet.

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us. So there’s a dual track here:

One, continue to keep the pressure on al Qaeda and continue to diminish them. Two, put the government in a position where they can be strong enough that they can negotiate with and not be overthrown by the Taliban. And at the same time try to get the Taliban to move in the direction to see to it that they, through reconciliation, commit not to be engaged with al Qaeda or any other organization that they would harbor to do damage to us and our allies.

Note that the White House backed him up.  This was a signal to the Taliban that there is a door to a deal with the Americans that did not previously exist.  If, as is rumored, Afghan detainees at Guantanamo are transferred to Kabul’s control, that will be a clear indication that we think the Taliban ready to walk through.  Confidence building measures of this sort are an important part of the diplomatic game.  A prisoner transfer would help the Taliban to sell the idea of a deal to their cadres and supporters.

The road ahead is still not an easy one.  The options for a real deal with the Taliban are not appetizing.  And the reaction to Biden’s trial balloon suggest it will be hard to sell to many people in the U.S.  What if those prisoners are transferred and then released, or they escape?  That’s not something the Obama administration will want to see happen in the lead-up to a presidential election.

So there is still a lot of uncertainty and risk on the path to a negotiated exit from Afghanistan.  But that was a signal, not a Biden gaffe.