Karzai’s Culture
Afghan Reconciliation Strategy Should Reflect Pashtun Culture – David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
How do wars end in the tribal society of Afghanistan? That’s one of the interesting questions that was highlighted by President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington last week. During their well-scripted news conference at the White House, both Karzai and President Obama said they favored a process of outreach to the Taliban. And both presidents endorsed, as a start, the “peace jirga” that Karzai will host in Kabul in several weeks.
Obama described a framework for this peace process. He said it must be “Afghan-led” and that it should “open the door to the Taliban who cut their ties to al-Qaeda, abandon violence, and accept the Afghan constitution, including respect for human rights.” But these public comments skirted the hard questions about reconciliation. Of the 1,400 Afghans who will be invited to the jirga, will there be any senior Taliban leaders who could actually explore a deal? What role will Pakistan play in bringing to the table a Taliban leadership it helped create and sustain? How soon do Karzai and Obama see this process moving toward real negotiations? …
More at The Washington Post.
And really, where would those Afghans be without David Ignatius to tell them about their own culture?
Joshua Foust:
Probably where we would be if we didn’t have him to try telling us about our culture. 😉
The Afghans may pay even less attention to talking heads than we do…
Actually, I read Ignatius’s column as an attempt to educate the American public about an important aspect of Pashtun culture. Any attempt at a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan will have to run the gauntlet of American public opinion, which is greatly influenced by the notion that “there is no substitute for victory.”
I have to agree with yadernye. This was directed at a Western audience. An audience with often deaf ears and a short attention span.
yadernye and Vito:
The point about negotiations is fine, and frankly nothing pundits haven’t been saying for months-bordering-on-years already. At the same time, quoting a website and saying it’s all about revenge (“badal”) is so lazy and cheap as to be misleading. I mean, he literally wrote that he found a website somewhere, didn’t discuss authorship, then said that explained all we needed to know about Pashtun culture.
As an education attempt for a Western audience, you should resist such things – it creates the illusion of an easy answer where everyone on this blog accepts that there is not.
Joshua Foust:
If Igantius had given you his WaPo column space for the day, how would you have addressed the topic?