Barbara Elias: The reason the Taliban have chosen repeatedly not to seek legitimacy through governance or diplomatic compromise has little to do with the incentives offered them and everything to do with how their leaders see the world. The fact is that the Taliban and al Qaeda are neither permanently bound by ideology nor held together merely by a fleeting correspondence of interests. Their relationship is rooted in more complex issues of legitimacy and identity. The Taliban cannot surrender bin Laden without also surrendering their existing identity as a vessel for an obdurate and uncompromising version of political Islam. Their legitimacy rests not on their governing skills, popular support, or territorial control, but on their claim to represent what they perceive as sharia rule. This means upholding the image that they are guided entirely by Islamic principles; as such, they cannot make concessions to, or earnestly negotiate with, secular states. Since the Taliban won't give al Qaeda up, the United States has little choice but to destroy al Qaeda, and since the Taliban cannot be meaningfully split or co-opted, Washington, unfortunately, has no real option but to prepare itself for a long struggle in the region.
Mark Twain: When an entirely new and untried political project is sprung upon the people, they are startled, anxious, timid, and for a time they are mute, reserved, noncommittal. The great majority of them are not studying the new doctrine and making up their minds about it, they are waiting to see which is going to be the popular side.
Rory Stewart: When we are not presented with a dystopian vision, we are encouraged to be implausibly optimistic. This misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion. It is a language that exploits tautologies and negations to suggest inexorable solutions. It makes our policy seem a moral obligation, makes failure unacceptable, and alternatives inconceivable. It does this so well that a more moderate, minimalist approach becomes almost impossible to articulate. Afghanistan, however, is the graveyard of predictions.
Know Thine Enemy | Foreign Affairs | 
