Afghanistan: Can Karzai and the Taliban Make Peace?

There have been several news stories recently about talks taking place between the US-backed Karzai government and the Taliban aimed at achieving a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Afghanistan. But can these two parties actually reach such an agreement? If so, what would it look like?

To test whether this might be possible, I ran a role-playing game in my class on revolution at George Mason University on November 4. While role-playing games cannot predict the future, they can help identify the opportunities and obstacles that the real actors might perceive in a given situation.

In order to keep things simple, the class was divided into nine teams: the United States government, the Karzai government, the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, al-Qaeda, Russia, Britain, and France. The game took as its starting point the situation described by David Ignatius in his Washington Post column of October 26 reporting on the Saudi-sponsored talks between the Karzai government and the Taliban. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

According to Ignatius, the Karzai government has demanded that Taliban leader Mullah Omar renounce Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri; Mullah Omar has given a "positive response" to this demand; and he in turn has demanded a timetable for a US-withdrawal, integration of Taliban soldiers into the Afghan government's army, and amnesty for Taliban fighters (among other things).

When the game in my class began, the Taliban and al-Qaeda quickly fell out with each other -- which was hardly a surprise given Mullah Omar's reported willingness to renounce them. Al-Qaeda assassinated (figuratively, not literally) several Taliban commanders, and the Taliban retaliated by capturing Al Zawahiri. (The Pakistani government, meanwhile, captured bin Laden).

There is not sufficient space to describe all the various machinations that took place during the game. Toward the end, though, Mullah Omar and President Karzai agreed, after difficult negotiations, that 1) the Taliban would hand al Zawahiri over to the Karzai government for trial; and 2) the Taliban would become a legitimate political party.

But it was not meant to be. The two sides were still negotiating a military settlement, including whether the Taliban would disarm, when Mullah Omar was assassinated (again, only figuratively) by his own commanders, with the help and encouragement of Iran. Due to time constraints, the game ended here.

The outcome of this game, of course, may not resemble reality. The game, though, may provide some important lessons.

One is that while the United States sees al-Qaeda as a powerful actor and a primary opponent, it may actually be more of a pawn to both the Taliban and Pakistan. The United States may not be able to capture the al-Qaeda leadership, but the Taliban and Pakistan may well be able to do so -- if either wants to.

Another lesson is that even under the optimistic assumption that Mullah Omar would be willing to reach an agreement with the Karzai government, he may not be able to get his commanders to go along with him. Indeed, just trying to make such a deal could result in his losing whatever control he might have over them. Anticipating this may induce him not to go very far with these talks (especially if he reads this).

Finally, while it is not clear that Iran would help the Taliban commanders defy Mullah Omar, there may be some external party that is willing to do so -- such as anti-American elements inside Pakistan.

What all this suggests is that making peace with the Taliban will not be easy.