Walid Phares takes on the idea that Obama will talk with "moderate" parts of the Taliban.

In fact by my observations, it is even more complicated than that: the US Administration is being advised that any change in strategy in Afghanistan is better than the previous situation. It is being told that the surge model as applied in Iraq may work, if modified to meet Afghanistan’s “complexities.” The President must also be attracted to the idea that an “engagement” with some quarters of the Taliban will fit perfectly with the global idea of engagement, sit down and listening that he seems to have adopted for the entire region.

But many questions still need to be answered. Does the plan require a dialogue with the Taliban organization as a whole or with elements “within” the organization? Apparently the US channel is to be established with “elements” not with the leadership of the network. Then the next question is: if they aren’t part of the top leadership, are these elements able to sway the entire organization towards engagement? Apparently not, according to experts on the Taliban, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So, the goal is to sway these factions – called moderates - from the Taliban, not to steer the entire group in another direction.

Here we have to pause and come to the first “complex” conclusion: while President Hamid Karzai has extended an olive branch to Mullah Omar to join the Government, an invitation quickly rejected, President Obama is announcing a more modest goal that is to identify “moderate elements” from the Taliban and “strike a deal with them.” But the modest narrative of the goal doesn’t make it necessarily reachable. Here is why.

If the “moderate Taliban” we’re looking to identify are “inside” the network, when they engage with the US, they will be lethally ejected by the hard core of the group, backed by al Qaeda. Hence the next question will be to know if those “dissidents” would actually secede and form a “moderate Taliban” organization working with the US and the Karzai Government. From the names available on such a list, including the former “Taliban ambassadors” to Pakistan and the international community and those who sought Saudi Arabia’s help in launching a dialogue, we can’t see strong commanders willing to surge militarily against the mother ship. As far as we can project, there are no leaders and radical clerics who would carry that task of establishing an all-out new “good Taliban,” even with millions of dollars as incentive. A Taliban civil war is not going to happen, for now. But is there another more attainable goal? According to the Obama Administration and some experts, there may be other options.

Little “talibans?”

In recent months a new concept has been pushed via the Defense and counter terrorism circles arguing that instead of chipping off from the actual “Taliban” militia on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, attention must be focusing on harvesting the local “taliban” (little ts). According to this theory, the little “ts” are individuals and groups who have joined the large umbrella under Mullah Umar but not the membership of the organization, or have proclaimed themselves as “taliban affiliates.” Hence, in comparison with the Iraqi Sahwa movement backed by US Coalition, these sub-militias of all walks of life would become the target of American political charm and dollars. If identified and reached out to – so believe the architects of the forthcoming Afghan “surge” - they will become the Afghani parallel to the Sahwas of Mesopotamia. Note that President Obama specified that it will be the “American military who would reach out to these moderate elements.” Meaning they will be dealt with from a lower level rather than from a full fledged diplomatic perspective.

In that case, unlike what the media has been speculating about, this is not a US dialogue with the party it is at war with, headed by Mullah Umar and his emirs. It is not even an attempt to break the mother ship into two and recuperate the more moderate branch. There are no takers for a massive retreat from the Taliban into the arms of Kabul’s Government or Washington’s “infidel” generosity.

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