There Won't Be Any Taliban Reintegration Without Political Reconciliation

You're a Taliban local commander somewhere in eastern Afghanistan. Let's say you're the equivalent of a captain. You have a certain amount of espirit d'corps for the Taliban, but for the most part, you fight because the Taliban is a more attractive alternative than the Karzai government: it's more exciting to fight than to not have much economic opportunity, the pay is comperable to what Karzai's forces make, and whatever misgivings you have about the Taliban, at least they aren't aligned with Americans.

You hear about a program the government has to give you amnesty, security and job training in exchange for ending your war. It's not the least attractive prospect you've ever heard. Who knows when this war is going to end, and when you end up pursued by U.S. troops, it doesn't go well for you.

But you're still part of an organization. You're not a soldier of fortune. Would you really consider taking the government's offer if your superiors aren't themselves part of an initiative to wind the war down?

Through 2009 and 2010, the Obama administration placed much greater emphasis on peeling off mid-level insurgents in Afghanistan than it did talking peace with their commanders. The theory was that most insurgents don't fight for ideological reasons. And that may indeed be the case. But the fact is the "reintegration" program, divorced from the higher-level "reconciliation" program, has been a flop. The British officer in charge of it told me in January that merely 800 insurgents out of (a guesstimate) 25,000 have enrolled. By May, it reached around 1500 -- still an order of magnitude below where Maj. Gen. Phil Jones thought it needed to be to make a strategic difference.

The New York Times today reports that it's up to 1700. They're not quitting, despite enormous military pressure. Why? "We'll only see big numbers when there is a little more progress on the political track," a "Western diplomat" tells the Times' Allisa J. Rubin.

Team Obama has switched course and embraced reconcilitation. Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton formally blessed Taliban talks in February; Secretary Gates confirmed yesterday that furtive discussions are underway. Why this isn't the top political priority of the Afghanistan war -- hell, the top priority of the Afghanistan war, period -- remains a mystery. For years, U.S. officials have spouted the truism that the Afghanistan war is primarily a political conflict, almost as an afterthought, as if they needed to pay lip service to sophisticated opinion. Now it's time to act like it -- especially if the Obama administration believes what it tells the rest of us about military progress.