On developing wisdom

Thomas Walkom discusses the rapidly-spreading realization that long-term success in Afghanistan depends on discussions with all parties involved, rather than a continuation of the Cons' swagger-and-awe strategy:

When New Democratic Party chief Jack Layton suggested last fall that talking to the Taliban might bring peace to Afghanistan, he was laughed out of court.

The major newspapers dismissed him as either naive or reprehensible. The Conservative government was contemptuous, as were the Liberals.

They called him Taliban Jack.

Eventually, Layton stopped talking about negotiating with the Taliban. Which is ironic, given that the idea is now gaining credibility among those who travel in more established circles.

Indeed, the latest figure to call for a political settlement to the Afghan conflict is a pillar of the Ottawa establishment. Gordon Smith, now director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, is Canada's former ambassador to NATO and a former deputy minister of foreign affairs. His Canada in Afghanistan: Is it Working? was done for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, a Calgary think-tank that is not known for being squishy on matters military...

(According to Smith,) "We do not believe that the Taliban can be defeated or eliminated as a political entity in any meaningful time frame by Western armies using military measures," he says...

"(T)alking to the Taliban" emerges as the only feasible solution. "Given the costs of war," he writes, "NATO needs to look candidly at the prospects – aware that there can be no guarantee – of a political solution."...

It's a grimly realistic paper. It's also in line with the thinking of other recent, unvarnished assessments of the Afghan war, including a report from the Senate defence committee.

Oh yes, and its key recommendation echoes that of Jack Layton. But my guess is that up in Ottawa, the people behind this war aren't going to be dismissing Smith as Taliban Gord.

Walkom is right in pointing out the gap between how Layton was treated in taking the lead on the issue, and how others have been handled when making similar suggestions. But he falls short of discussing the future implications of the shift in conventional wisdom. And once one takes a look at those, it seems all too likely that Canada's (and indeed NATO's) strategy in Afghanistan will continue to be defined by those who see military conquest as the only real end.

After all, while the need for talk may be filtering into some parts of Canada's establishment, it's still a long way from finding its way into the worldview of the Cons. And it's hard to see how they could come around to the possibility of a political solution after building their foreign policy around the idea that the Taliban presents a unique existential threat, such as to justify eliminating Canada's ability to contribute troops to any other mission in the world.

Which means that while cooler heads may be prevailing in the world of think tanks and pundits, there's little chance of them winning out in government as long as the Cons are in power - much as the self-righteousness of the Bush administration has resulted in escalation in Iraq even as most Americans have long since come around to the view that the war is long past being able to meet the administration's stated goals. But if there's reason for hope, it's that this additional parallel between Harper and the Bush administration will also offer another reason for Canadian voters not to match the mistake of their American counterparts in leaving such a government in power longer than can be avoided.