"Talking to its enemies is not something that has ever come easily to America, a country that believes in good and evil, black and white, with few shades of gray. Nevertheless, that’s the way most wars end. And as President Obama has at last acknowledged, it’s the way the 10-year war in Afghanistan must and should end."
The Newsweek article from which that quote originates goes on to compare the war in Afghanistan to the Vietnam War. This analogy bears little relvance however, since that war ended without any constructive negotiation. President Obama should instead look to world history and not just the US history of wars to see how resolution can be achieved -after all, navel gazing will get you nowhere.
Take for example the UK terrorist war in Northern Ireland, which raged from 1969 to 1997 and included seriously aggressive offences on mainland Britain, notably; the Brighton Hotel Bombing in 1984, which was an attempt to assissinate then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; assassination of Earl Mountbatten in 1979 and assissnation of MP Airey Neave in 1979 by car bomb as he left the House of Commons underground carpark. All assaults on the ruling upper class by an aggrieved army of vigilantes whose country and economy had been pillaged for decades.
This war of terrorist atrocities was brought to an end when a woman, Mo Mowlam forced the arrogant male propogandists to face up to their ego's and arrive at compromises which meant a real peace settlement. This era in Northen Ireland's history has been admirably dramatised by Channel 4 with Mo played by Oscar winning actress Julie Walters.
It is no coincidence that during this stormy period of peace talks Mo was facing her own mortality, enduring the torment of ongoing treatment for a brain tumour, which ultimately took her life, though not before she set in motion the end of the peace stalemate in Northern Ireland. Mo's personal struggle, though kept incredibly private was undoubtedly an influence upon the individuals involved in the talks. Mo's gift was an ability to relate at a human level, to cut through the thickest of political hides and dismantle the foundations of rhetoric and bluff that kept the war going. Mo's personable character got directly to the heart of the matter, she reached across the divides and the people of all sides respected her as an individual who stood for the truth.
The key point is that constructive dialogue was only entered into once greed, vanity, anger, bigotry and vengeance were swept aside. On behalf of the UK government one of the greatest compromises was to rescind the authority of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which had for years exerted the Queens influence with what many people took to include all the aforesaid biases. Allowing the people of Northern Ireland their own police force meant there was little tendency for further recourse to the vigilante policing of the IRA.
Importantly the UK government did not have a vested economic interest in Northern Ireland, which was actually economically devastated by years of warfare, that had resulted in little inward investment by national or international bodies. It was the ability of all parties after so many years of entrenched views and ideals to capitulate on a number of fronts that fuelled the peace process.
So in Afghanistan the US must question its motives honestly and realistically. The rest of the world knows, the US does not just want peace for the world, it wants what is economically expedient for itself. Constructive dialogue with the Taliban will never happen while the US holds a hidden agenda on the economic gains it wants out of any settlement. This means oil revenue and access for US companies to foreign capital.
This may be Obama's biggest challenge. Can he sweep aside US foreign policy rhetoric and arrive at a peace solution that includes compromise. The similarities to the war in Northern Ireland are remarkable. The IRA fought against the British ruling class. We now have a world war where the disadvantaged are fighting against the USA ruling class. The US cannot continue to extort peace when they always win out economically to the disadvantage of others.
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