Peace with the Taliban is not realistic.
Jackson Diehl isn't impressed with the Obama administration's Afghan exit strategy:
'The military drawdown appears likely to be accompanied by a new attempt to promote a political settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton promised a â??diplomatic surgeâ? in a February speech in which she seemed to soften previous conditions for talks with the Taliban. The administration is said to be quietly encouraging a Turkish initiative to allow the Taliban to open an office in Turkey, which would provide a clear channel for communications.The idea of a quick political fix is seductive. Thereâ??s just one problem: Itâ??s an illusion. Not only is there no chance of striking a workable deal with the Taliban, but the pursuit of one is only likely to make an already difficult political situation in Afghanistan worse.
'
The idea of some kind of political settlement to the Afghan war has been a hobbyhorse of a number of realists, but I don't see it happening. Unless we're willing to completely cede the field to Pakistan and their Taliban surrogates and call that a "political victory" there really is no political solution that is going to satisfy all parties to the conflict. I think it's immensely naive to argue that the Taliban can be convinced, bribed, threatened or cajoled into fully renouncing al-Qaeda, and even if they did formally break with the group, Afghanistan is a huge, rural country with plenty of places for al-Qaeda to hide even without formal Taliban sanction. Al-Qaeda managed to set up shop in Afghanistan with 100,000 U.S. troops in the country. Presumably they could do so again when U.S. troop numbers dwindle.
However, unlike Diehl, I don't believe the absence of a negotiated settlement is grounds for never leaving Afghanistan. Quite the contrary, it is the best argument for why America's effort is futile and overly ambitious. The basic fact is that the relevant political players in the Afghan war - the Taliban, Pakistan, India - have a much larger stake in the fight than the U.S. does. They have proven over time to be immune to U.S. bribes and resilient in the face of U.S. firepower. Unless we're willing to start a war with Pakistan over the future of the government of Afghanistan, we'd better start thinking about how to combat al-Qaeda terrorism without a sympathetic government in Afghanistan.