‘The crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan is beyond the point where more troops will help. U.S. strategy must be to seek compromise with insurgents while addressing regional rivalries and insecurities,’ Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid explain in an article for the November / December edition of Foreign Affairs.

‘Seven years after the U.S.-led coalition and the Afghan commanders it supported pushed the leaderships of the Taliban and al Qaeda out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan, an insurgency that includes these and other groups is gaining ground on both the Afghan and the Pakistani sides of the border. Four years after Afghanistan’s first-ever presidential election, the increasingly besieged government of Hamid Karzai is losing credibility at home and abroad,’ the two write.

‘Al Qaeda has established a new safe haven in the tribal agencies of Pakistan, where it is defended by a new organization, the Taliban Movement of Pakistan. The government of Pakistan, beset by one political crisis after another and split between a traditionally autonomous military and assertive but fractious elected leaders, has been unable to retain control of its own territory and population. Its intelligence agency stands accused of supporting terrorism in Afghanistan, which in many ways has replaced Kashmir as the main arena of the still-unresolved struggle between Pakistan and India.’

Merely sending more troops to the region will not solve the fundamental problems, the two experts argue. It is too late for that, the only thing the United States can do now is to negotiate with extremists, insurgents and other enemies hoping they will agree to some kind of compromise that would allow the countries to stabilize. Not only will more military force accomplish little in Afghanistan, they say, but cross border attacks against Pakistan will also prove counterproductive, for they weaken the central government and increase popular support for insurgents.

‘U.S. diplomacy has been paralyzed by the rhetoric of “the war on terror” — a struggle against “evil,” in which other actors are “with us or with the terrorists.” Such rhetoric thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous “terrorist” enemy. Only a political and diplomatic initiative that distinguishes political opponents of the United States — including violent ones — from global terrorists such as al Qaeda can reduce the threat faced by the Afghan and Pakistani states and secure the rest of the international community from the international terrorist groups based there,’ Rubin and Rashid argue.

‘Such an initiative would have two elements. It would seek a political solution with as much of the Afghan and Pakistani insurgencies as possible, offering political inclusion, the integration of Pakistan’s indirectly ruled Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the mainstream political and administrative institutions of Pakistan, and an end to hostile action by international troops in return for cooperation against al Qaeda. And it would include a major diplomatic and development initiative addressing the vast array of regional and global issues that have become intertwined with the crisis — and that serve to stimulate, intensify, and prolong conflict in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.’

The realiy on the ground has changed dramatically and rapidly in both Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent months and years. The time for wonderful ideological dreams is over, the time for pragmatism has arrived. The West may not like to speak with the insurgents and to take them serious as a negotiations partner and regional power, but the fact of the matter is that we cannot possibly transform these countries as much as we had hoped. Our policy should be aimed at limiting the power of insurgents, providing stability to the region, modernizing it in the long run and, above all, to protect our own long term interests. If that means that we will have to accept that fundamentalist Muslims play an important political role in the region, so be it; we should accept that and try to limit the damage they will do.