Nir Rosen: Only Afghan Hope Is Negotiations With Taliban [ANALYSIS]

Photo by Nir Rosen.

Israeli-American journalist Nir Rosen traveled deep into Afghanistan’s Taliban territory unarmed, relying on contacts-of-friends, and concludes that the U.S. has lost the war and the only hope of stability is negotiation with the Taliban. (Rolling Stone) It is too late for Bush’s ‘quiet surge’ or even for Barack Obama’s call for more troops, writes Rosen, a long-time critic of U.S. policy. “More soldiers on the ground will only lead to more contact with the enemy, and more air support for troops will only lead to more civilian casualties that will alienate even more Afghans. Sooner or later, the American government will be forced to the negotiating table, just as the Soviets were before them.”

He quotes scholar Abdulkader Sinno: “The rise of the Taliban insurgency is not likely to be reversed. It will only get stronger. Many local leaders who are sitting on the fence right now — or are even nominally allied with the government — are likely to shift their support to the Taliban in the coming years. What’s more, the direct U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan is now likely to spill over into Pakistan. It may be tempting to attack the safe havens of the Taliban and Al Qaeda across the border, but that will only produce a worst-case scenario for the United States. Attacks by the U.S. would attract the support of hundreds of millions of Muslims in South Asia. It would also break up Pakistan, leading to a civil war, the collapse of its military and the possible unleashing of its nuclear arsenal.”

Recommended:

• “How We Lost the War We Won: A Journey into Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan,” Amy Goodman interviews Nir Rosen [VIDEO] (Democracy Now)