by Tom Rogan
The Taliban is lying. That's my response to Sirajuddin Haqqani's New York Times opinion article on Thursday, "What We, the Taliban, Want."
As my colleague Becket Adams observes, the choice to allow the Taliban to write this article is itself questionable. But Haqqani's words are also a masterpiece in deception.
Haqqani is indeed the deputy leader of the Afghan Taliban and the leader of his Haqqani network subgroup. His article thus suggests seriousness about the imminence of a U.S.-Taliban peace deal. The problem is that his wordplay indicates commitments he has very little intention of keeping.
The most ludicrous commitment comes with his pledge to "find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam — from the right to education to the right to work — are protected, and where merit is the basis for equal opportunity."
Really?
Taliban-Haqqani ideology exists at the warped intersection of extremist Sunni-Deobandi Islam, Pashtun tribal politics, and corruption. It embraces theological foundations of deception and has no regard for "merit." Unless, that is, the merit is measured by that which fuels Taliban patronage networks and fosters vicious authoritarianism.
Similarly, Haqqani might be serious in saying he wants women to have education and employment rights. But only so far as the education is in women's responsibility to kneel to authoritarianism and their employment in absolute subservience to men.
Equally absurd is his response to concerns over whether Afghanistan will remain a democracy after a peace deal is signed and American troops withdraw: "My response to such concerns is that it will depend on a consensus among Afghans."
Haqqani is both an ideological fanatic and a crime lord of drug cartel form. Under his leadership, the network has embraced criminal enterprises such as kidnap-for-ransom while adopting a wide range of money laundering operations. The incompatibility of these operations with basic tenets of Islam, including the Islam that he claims to so nobly serve, says much about the pertinence of his "consensus" prose.
But it is Haqqani's concluding promise to build a "shared home where everybody would have the right to live with dignity, in peace" that demands our final attention. Because for him, "dignity" carries very different connotations than it does for us.
Don't get me wrong. The fact that the Taliban are even willing to talk is positive. But until their senior leaders are brought closer to the understanding that we will not abandon Afghan democracy (at least in the cities), end-state negotiations are pointless. They will play us for time and then for fools.
And with his Quetta Shura partners, masters of lies, and their Pakistani ISI intelligence service allies, the Taliban will again dominate this impoverished South Asian nation. With time, they will invite Salafi-Jihadists like al Qaeda back to their former bases (Haqqani is close with internationally minded jihadist networks).
There's a better way. And no, it's not to fight for village control in Helmand province and terrain control in Nangarhar province.
It's to retain a small U.S. force alongside our NATO allies to keep training Afghan security forces, to develop their capabilities in aviation, intelligence, logistics, and command, and to help them defend key cities and highways from insurgent attacks. That strategy will force the Taliban to a new understanding of greater compromise while also mitigating the human and economic costs our Afghanistan mission has brought thus far.
Then a peace deal can be signed, one that will hold without sacrificing our critical interests.
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