Blackwill's tempting case, stated as baldly as possible

FT op-ed by Robert Blackwill, making his case, much like Biden did on Iraq previously, on need to recognize the fake-state reality of Afghanistan and give the south to the Taliban.

I do think Obama will eventually go down this path implicity, making it seem as virtuous as possible.  I also think that all Swat Valley-type offers of enclavism are doomed to fail with radical fundamentalists, who, even if they desist from the connectivity to truer transnational terrorists like al Qaeda, will eventually re-succumb to such temptations.

Then there’s the Michael Gerson argument that says, we’ll doom the trapped women to lives of such depravity (by our standards, thank God!) that we’ll inevitably feel drawn back to the situation on the grounds of human rights.

I would also add that the Taliban will not be satisfied with just the south, nor will their Pakistani minders, so it’s a temporary truce at best, recalling Henry Kissinger’s Nobel Prize-winning negotiation of the ceasefire between North and South Vietnam (there’s a Vietnam analogy to be embraced!). Of course, Kissinger today advocates no such course, despite being quoted here by Blackwill.

No, the current fight isn’t “worth it,” because we fight it overwhelming by ourselves, progressively denuded of small but exhausted allies for whom this is a vague, distant effort.  No local regional powers are involved militarily, for some odd reason, so when all the West’s exhaustion is added up, Blackwill’s even more tired logic rules.

It will not work, but it may cover our escape for a bit.

Enclave deals work when the counterparties are reasonably benign to all encased in their special world—like the Amish.  It will not work with people like the Taliban, because we won’t ultimately be able to stomach our role in enslaving their subjects.

Having said all that, I still believe in the logic of Pashtunistan, even at the cost of Pakistan proper, which could sequentially—and logically—divide into several substates—arguably to the good of the people, the region and the world. I just don’t see it working so long as the Taliban are part of the equation, and I don’t see enough evidence of our ability to de-Taliban the “regular” Pashtun from the nastier dynamic of the hardcore types and their enduring collaboration with al Qaeda.

I just hope the deal falls apart fast enough so we don’t end up re-fighting too much of the same territory.