The Center Cannot Negotiate

I've long favored ignoring the fiction that Afghanistan is an actual unified country when dealing with Afghans. If we have to have deals with the nominal national government and local power centers, too, in order to protect our interests following our draw down, do that. We've made a step toward that view, it seems.

This article says we outfoxed President Karzai who is playing footsie with the Taliban as he prepared to exit the presidential palace:

The White House and DOD have decided not to make any agreement until after April’s presidential elections in which Karzai is not expected to be a candidate. They’ll only make a deal with Karzai’s successor, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, and will no longer deal with the current Afghan president.

“If he's not going to be part of the solution, we have to have a way to get past him," a senior U.S. official told the Journal. "It's a pragmatic recognition that clearly Karzai may not sign the (deal) and that he doesn't represent the voice of the Afghan people.

That's good. I'm glad President Obama wants to leave troops in Afghanistan to influence the outcome. And I welcome this ability to learn from their past:

"Iraq probably has had an impact on White House thinking. They can’t afford to have Afghanistan implode in the same way," Curtis said. "There is a recognition that this is bad for national security interests. The White House is starting to recognize it can’t afford to have Afghanistan go the same way."

That's two years and two months, since we left in December 2011, but the learning is the key. If this is an accurate projection of what the administration is thinking, of course.

And I wouldn't say chaos, either. But yeah, al Qaeda is back in business and Iranian influence has increased, destabilizing the political situation.

But waiting for the next president isn't a slam dunk:

First, it assumes a peaceful transfer of power and a clear winner in the Afghan election. ...

It also assumes that Karzai allows the election to go on as planned.

Plan C could be to work directly with provincial and tribal leaders to bypass as much as possible the nominal "central" government in Kabul. I mean, we're pretending to believe Afghanistan has a central government to negotiate with. If that central government wants to stall us in the mistaken belief that the polite fiction is true, we have options.