I’ve got to go to a 9:30 press conference for a Washington Independent story I think you’ll enjoy, so blogging will be light this morning. Before I go, I thought I’d offer some ideas on how to dig ourselves out of the morass of post-election fraud Afghanistan. Many of these emerged after bar-patio conversation with Matthew Yglesias, so consider the worthy stuff here to be his ideas and the unworkable or cockamamie stuff to be mine. All of this is predicated on advancing the interests I identify in this post.

1. Long-term commitments to Pakistan, conditional commitments to Afghanistan. So most of the experts contributing to the various Afghanistan review, from Steve Biddle to Bruce Riedel, contend that the real issue in Afghanistan is the stability of Pakistan. "You don’t want nuclear-armed Pakistan falling to a band of al-Qaeda-backed crazies," the thinking goes, before proceeding to "So, in Afghanistan…" Well, why not draw out the full implication of that Pakistan-centric reasoning? 

We’re about to pass two bills in the Senate and House this fall boosting, spreading and deepening aid to the Pakistani civilian government as a gesture of long-term partnership. Sensible! The Pakistani government is the government that, after all, is doing things we want; that sees its survival and our interests in rough alignment; and plays undesirable host to the terrorist network that launched this entire enterprise. Sure, it’s not, say, invading the tribal areas like we want, but now that it’s demonstrated its desire and capacity at clearing the Swat valley, we can say Rome wasn’t built in a day, as opposed to fearing that Rome might not be built at all.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, we have no assurance that the government has either the desire or the capacity to contribute to the outcomes we want. And yet we’re treating both governments the same way: with the promise of long-term aid. Why not say, in a manner that can be heard in Kabul, "Ultimately our interests are in Pakistan. We’d like to have a long-term relationship with Afghanistan, but if Kabul decides that it would rather line its pockets with our money, we’re happy to just host our forces on its eastern and southern frontiers. What, they’re gonna kick us out? So the Taliban can string them up by the lampposts of the Kabul airport?" And that leads us to…

2. Treat the ISI’s Taliban connections as an asset. For all I know this is happening already. But in public, there’s all this handwringing about how the Pakistani intelligence service probably has some retained-if-small connections to the Afghan Taliban, and if so, that’s problematic. Well, is it? Why not see if we can leverage that to our benefit? 

For instance, a component of my Pakistan-centric message above would be, "… I mean, after all, if the Taliban re-take Afghanistan — I mean, that would be bad and we don’t want that, but we’ve got a pretty good relationship with the ISI at this point, and a very good relationship with the Pakistani civilian and military leadership, and so we’d have significant influence over what the Taliban actually do. It wouldn’t be like the 1990s, when we just ignored the place, had no real connections to ISI, and allowed the Taliban to roll out the red carpet for al-Qaeda. We did a version of this in the 1980s, after all." That would probably freak the living hell out of Karzai. There’s an element of bluff in here.

But also an element of opportunity. The ISI should be the intermediary to talk with the Taliban — I mean the Quetta Shura Taliban, the Mullah-Omar Taliban. I have no illusions (anymore) that the QST has any incentive to deal. They’re winning, after all. But that doesn’t mean we can’t explore the implications of their long-term thinking. And who knows where that can lead? Talking isn’t capitulating. 

3. Buy Hekmatyar and Haqqani. This is probably the point at which Foust gives up on me forever as a complete know-nothing. But can these dudes really not be bought? Or at least rented? Hekmatyar, at least, took our money in the ’80s; admittedly, our interests aligned then. The U.S. has vastly more money than Afghanistan has absorbtive capacity. Through our friends in the ISI, we ought to explore the price at which the Hekmatyar and Haqqani networks would decide that this life of constant warfare isn’t ultimately for them. The benefit of getting these more-transactional insurgents to stop fighting is obvious, and the logic of purchase can also extend to some of their colleagues throughout Afghanistan. 

Hekmatyar gives me pause here. He’s someone who really does appear to be in bed with al-Qaeda; enthusiastically so; and fucking psychotic. We don’t want our money going to al-Qaeda, after all, which is why I’m not saying we should try to buy the Quetta Shura Taliban. But maybe the step of talking through ISI could be productive. If not, scratch Hekmatyar from this list. But still: take the logic of distinguishing reconcilables from irreconcilables a step further, and distinguish pure enemies from transactional enemies, whether or not they’re interested in reconciling with the Afghan government.

OK, I really should get on my way. Discuss this stuff. I’m very open to amending any of these ideas, and to hearing other ones. I just thought I’d try to offer some kind of hopefully-productive suggestions. Because you come to me for solutions, after all.

Update: A friend emails me this great Jay Solomon piece from 2007 about how we fucked up a chance to turn Jalaleddin Haqqani over to our side in 2002. Perhaps that ship has sailed. But what if we really really apologize… OK, fine, I’m done.