The Gorilla in the Room

Last week saw several reports, including in the Washington Post and the Guardian, claiming renewed or invigorated contacts between the Karzai administration and the Taliban. This has been reported on several occasions throughout the US' nine year involvement in the Afghan war, most recently in 2008 and 2009, and is the necessary first step in ending the conflict and bringing stability not just to Afghanistan, but to the region. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has been largely consistent in its dismissal of such efforts over the last two years, keeping constant with the Bush Administration's insistence on a military solution to the conflict. The refusal by the Obama administration to take a more active and leading role in negotiations, by reciting the same mantra as the Bush Administration, of only talking to the Taliban after they have laid down their arms and accepted the Afghan constitution (in essence surrendering)*, continues to obstruct any chances of a successful political resolution to the conflict.

The US with 100,000 troops, plus 50,000 coalition troops and a near equal number of contractors, is obviously the gorilla in the room militarily. However, when you consider the US is spending over $100 billion annually in Afghanistan, a country with a GDP of only $14 billion, the US position must be understood not just for its strength, but for its power brokering and king making abilities due to the sheer and obscene volume of dollars it pumps into Afghanistan. By ignoring this reality, the United States is serving no purpose but to prolong the conflict as it stands on the sidelines with its arms crossed, arguing, as it has for years, that talks are, at best, exaggerated and, at worst, defeatist.

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