The launch of the large-scale Moshtarak military operation in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province on February 13, 2010, may look like further proof of America’s inconsistent policy in that country. Carnegie Moscow Center expert Peter Topychkanov, however, argues that Washington’s approach could at last be gaining some kind of logic. 

“Throughout 2009, people were waiting to see what the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy would be. Last year, the White House seemed more to be jumping from one vision to another, from AfPak to the Pakistan Surge. In that context, the news that representatives of the Karzai government, the U.S., NATO, and the UN had met with Taliban representatives in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Maldives did not inspire much confidence. Newly revived military operations at the same time suggested that the U.S. and NATO were pursuing a contradictory policy, talking to the Taliban on the one hand and trying to destroy them on the other.

“But the latest events could be seen as a sign that a comprehensive policy on Afghanistan is taking shape, one that takes into account transformations in the threats the country faces. The reality today is that the Taliban movement, for all of its factionalized nature, has come a long way from the positions it espoused when it was in power in Kabul. It has been helped in this by the very countries that are fighting it. U.S. and NATO policy combined a successful fight against international financial flows and arms supplies to the Taliban and its allies with complete passivity when it came to drugs production in Afghanistan. This forced the Taliban to choose between fighting their adversaries bare-handed, or moving into the narcotics market, something they had previously opposed on principle. Using drug money inevitably leads to criminalization, as the cases of various separatist movements in Southeast Asia, for example, illustrate. The Taliban may already be heading towards a future split between ‘politicians’ and criminalized ‘operations people.’ The coalition is now trying to sit down with the former at the negotiating table, while working to destroy the latter. This is what is happening now in Helmand Province, where the Moshtarak operation is underway. 

“In this context, we can expect to see a whole series of episodes such as the arrest in Karachi of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, considered the number two in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy. Such episodes could signal not only more efficient cooperation between the Pakistani and American intelligence services, but also growing tension within the Taliban themselves, some of whom are trying to secure the support of external forces to help them do away with their internal rivals. 

“These changes in U.S. and NATO policy would be welcome, were it not for one important ‘but.’ The Obama administration, like NATO’s leadership, has not yet managed to put together a truly comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan, a strategy that would combine military and political measures with social and economic transformation, and which would see the allies invest as much money in Afghanistan’s social and economic development as they spend on military operations. Without such a strategy, Afghanistan will remain a problem country in the long term, even if the Taliban cease to play any significant role.”