Obama Defers to Karzai on Crucial Issue of Taliban Deals

"I think President Karzai summed it up well."

With that simple, succinct declaratory sentence -- a rarity when he publicly tackles complex issues fraught with political peril - President Obama on Wednesday gave Afghan President Hamid Karzai quite possibly the biggest diplomatic gift of his perk-heavy four-day Washington trip.

It may have been lost in all of official Washington's falling over itself to re-establish friendly relations with Karzai (nary a discouraging word was spoken on Capitol Hill by lawmakers who, like some in the Obama administration were only months ago repulsed by Karzai's disdain for clean elections and corrupt inner circle).

Back in the East Room, the most prized diplomatic real estate in Washington, Obama and Karzai stood together and closed ranks around the thorniest issue facing both leaders: how to thin the ranks of the Taliban without capitulating to terrorists responsible for 438 U.S. deaths during Obama's presidency

Obama in essence blessed Karzai's still-developing plans to coax Taliban foot soldiers and maybe even its leaders into a reconciliation scheme with his wobbly new government. Karzai said he would "welcome" a deal with any Taliban figure who met certain criteria.

The first, so-called "country-boy" Taliban that Karzai said who number in the thousands that became enemy fighters because they were "driven by intimidation or fear caused by... circumstances beyond their control or our control."

Karzai said these low-level Taliban "want to come back to Afghanistan if given an opportunity and provided the political means."

A generous standard the White House supports as Karzai prepares to launch his peace jirga later this month to lure fighters off the battlefield and into Karzai's political or tribal fold.

But what about Taliban leaders, the operational and tactical leaders responsible for building the Taliban insurgency, intimidating local Afghans and killing U.S. and coalition forces?

Reconciliation is on the table for them too. Who would qualify?

Karzai said Taliban leaders who "are not part of Al Qaida or the terrorist networks or ideologically against Afghanistan's progress and rights and constitution, democracy, the place of women in the Afghan society.... are welcome."

How many such leaders exist? Experts say pretty damn few.

"Maybe there's a handful of Taliban mid-level folks," said Stephanie Sanok, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But in terms of Taliban leadership renouncing violence and then taking government jobs and a de-radicalization class or course being offered by President Karzai, I think those guys are few and far between."

Even so, Obama's on board.

"We've been very clear that we need ultimately a political component to our overarching strategy in Afghanistan," Obama said as Kazai, to his right, nodded. "And as President Karzai described, the Taliban is a loose term for a wide range of different networks, groups, fighters with different motivations."

This multi-layered differentiation of Taliban forces gave Karzai wide latitude to cut deals now or later. Some analysts wonder if it might have been wiser for Obama to draw brighter lines.

"He definitely should have been clearer about what he meant," said Lisa Curtis, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "Some Taliban are reconcilable, some are not. This is about ideology. They have to be willing to break with the terrorist agenda and give up the Islamist project the Taliban has foisted upon Afghanistan."

There's also the complication of complicity - or the appearance of it in some negotiated settlement - with Taliban killers.

"They absolutely have blood on their hands," Sanok said of Taliban leaders Karzai may pursue. "Whether its Afghan blood, coalition forces, Afghan civilians, as well as US troops, the blood is on the hands of leaders in the Taliban."

All of this is complicated, significantly analysts say, by Karzai's recent threat to side with the Taliban against what he called Western meddling in Afghan affairs. That threat - never voiced publicly - could cast a pall of coalition suspicion over any deal Karzai cuts with Taliban figures.

No matter, though, as Obama said reconciliation "has to be an Afghan-led effort."

"It's not one that's dictated by the United States or any other outside power," Obama said. "And I think that the peace jirga will allow for a framework to then move forward."

Can Obama cede so much control to Karzai on this question?

"That's a little bit disingenuous," said Heritage's Curtis. "The reality is that with nearly 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan has to be deeply involved. And the president needs to be clearer about how this process moves forward. We have to distinguish between Taliban or we risk legitimizing Taliban ideology."

In their private talks Wednesday, Karzai outlined what a senior administration official described as a two-stage approach with Taliban figures: reintegration for foot soldiers and reconciliation for mid-level leaders or higher.

"The jirga is an opportunity to make progress on lower-level types, where there is the potential of peeling people off," a senior administration official said. "Reconciliation will be a different level of Taliban. We believe it should be an Afghan-led process, but we will participate in a collaborative way."

But it remains a vague process, one where the White House speaks of talks with Karzai to to "align our approaches" in advance of the peace jirga.

Like so many things in Afghanistan, the jirga may prove too tribal, too unwieldy and too disorganized to yield real results.

"I don't get the impression much ground-work has been laid for it, much preparation," Curtis said. "And the Taliban has been gaining. It's not really helpful to engage the Taliban in a serious way until we have reversed their military momentum."

That's what the Kandahar operation in mid-June is designed to accomplish. Karzai's peace jirga falls weeks before it and is transparently designed to thin the Taliban ranks.

Which puts Karzai at the center of the next political and military phase in Obama's high-risk Afghan war.

To paraphrase the president, that sums up the situation pretty well.