Tea with the Taliban

Is it reasonable to express the desire, on behalf of the British and American military presence in Afghanistan, to engage in dialogue with "moderate" members of the Taliban in the far-fetched hope of attaining some level of stabilization? Nile Gardiner, writing for the Telegraph says "no!" I agree with him. Such an overture toward a ruthless enemy would undoubtedly (and accurately) be perceived as a veiled acknowledgment of defeat. What would that do to our morale and to the enemy's determination? The question of whether the war in Afghanistan is winnable or not is receiving far greater attention in Great Britain than in the United States, as British casualties mount following a step-up in combat operations. Polls show a majority of British believe that the war is not worth the fight and that the government should begin looking for a way out, and fast. We can only ask what Churchill would say about this. Perhaps we can discern his echo in the rousing piece written by Gardiner. He bolsters his point by way of analogy. Opening up a dialogue with the Taliban would, mutatis mutandis, be the moral and strategic equivalent to the allies sitting down with the Nazis for purposes of accommodation prior to their surrender or with the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

In effect Miliband is saying that Britain and the United States must be willing to place cooperative, supposedly more reasonable wings of the Taliban back in local power in Afghanistan. This would be like putting the Nazis back in office after the fall of Berlin or the Khmer Rouge in charge of Cambodia again. No matter how much spin is placed on this negotiating strategy, it smacks of defeatism and appeasement, and a failure to place the conflict in Afghanistan within the broader context of a global war against a brutal Islamist ideology that seeks the destruction of the West and the free world.