Extremely difficult negotiations. For the simple reason that the Taliban want to alter the current Afghan state to a Sunni Afghan version of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Whereas the other side wants to preserve as much of the current setup as possible. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban.html

The Taliban know that they can't go back to their old emirate and will need to compromise. But their desire to dominate a post-American Afghanistan is only getting stronger, especially given battlespace dynamics and the US desire to get the hell outta dodge

Meanwhile, the other sides represents a divided state + an array of regional factions, which have come to the table from a position of relative weakness. Their desire is to concede as little as possible but lack military leverage to drive a hard bargain.

The anti-Taliban camp (the best word I can come up with to describe them in absence of an Afghan mainstream) will likely accept to large-scale constitutional engineering - even to the extent of a new state architecture.

If all things were to go well (I know I'm assuming way too much but bear with me for a moment) what kind of power-sharing arrangement or post-American Afghan polity are we looking at it?

There will be a republican component to the future state BUT one heavily circumscribed by a thick theocratic layer. Wouldn't be surprised if an apex religious leadership post was established. In other words, not exactly an emirate but an emir atop a complex hybrid edifice.

Most new political dispensations are built on modifying existing models. The Taliban know that an outright emiratic theocracy won't fly so they will have to improvise. A hybrid between their medieval Sunni ideal and a modern western style state.

They don't have look too far. Iran is next door & its Islamic Republic (being first past the post & despite being Shia) has influenced a great deal of Sunni Islamist actors - even those who deeply oppose them theologically. The Talibs have actually grown close to Iran since 9/11.

Some remarks from U.S. Afghan and Taliban leaders at the peace confab that clearly show that regime-change (via talks) is underway. Consider the following....

"The choice of your political system is yours to make."

- @SecPompeo

"My delegation are in Doha representing a political system that is supported by millions of men and women from a diversity of cultural, social and ethnic backgrounds in our homeland."

- @DrabdullahCE

Afghanistan should "have an Islamic system in which all tribes and ethnicities of the country find themselves without any discrimination and live their lives in love and brotherhood."

- Taliban leader Mullah Baradar Akhund

Ironic paradox: The choice is between continued war or #regimechange. IOW, the only scenario in which these talks succeed is one in which an Islamist polity emerges. The Taliban will likely make cosmetic compromises while their opponents will be making most of the concessions.

These talks should not be viewed from the lens of the number of accommodations that the anti-Taliban camp will be making to the jihadist movement. Rather in terms of how much of the current setup will it be able to preserve - once all is said and done.

The Taliban extracting far greater concessions than what they will concede is not simply a function of the upper hand they have in the battlespace. But also because of ideational conditions - both within the current Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Afghan society.

Let us not forget that many of the factions within the anti-Taliban camp are also Islamists - remnants of the original jihadist insurgency that fought the Soviets in the 1980s.

In addition, the ‘92 collapse of the People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (the last real state that the country had) led to the empowerment of medieval religious interpretations - a key reason why Taliban emirate emerged in ‘96.

This is also why the existing US-backed Afghan state has had many Talibanesque legal features. The negotiators of the jihadist movement will be leveraging these factors big time in order to roll back the many democratic gains made in the 19 years since they were last in power.

The US and the anti-Taliban Afghan camp are well aware of these huge risks. But they take comfort from the assumption that the jihadist movement also undergone ‘political learning’. They are not wrong. But they’re also only correct in a limited sense.

Political learning is an extremely complicated non-linear & terribly long-term process. Geopolitical constraints and latitudes may have brought the Taliban to come to the table but we are very far from genuine ideational change. That takes decades.

So, when I hear the Taliban saying they’re now cool with women getting educated and having jobs, I can’t help but ask WTF does that mean?!

The Talibs know what we want to hear & these are #InfoOps. Their goal is not simply to return to where things stood on September 10, 2001. A key part of their political learning involves how to obtain the one critical thing that their last emirate lacked, i.e., int’l recognition.

Speaking of ‘political learning’ these Taliban talks = first major US-Jihadist negotiation. Will likely serve as a model for other areas, e.g., Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, etc. A lesson on the limits of aligning with nat’list jihadists to counter transnat’l ones (ISIS, aQ, etc.)

The Afghan Taliban represent a key case study of the massive barriers in the path of jihadist groups evolving into political parties. A major challenge to the “inclusion-moderation” theory. ‘Starting points’ matter and a lot!

The politburo headquartered in Qatar is not the Taliban version of what the Sinn Fein was to the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Born in an Islamist-Marxist conflict that turned intra-Islamist the Taliban is almost an insurgent movement. It has a political leadership but the group as a whole is light-years away from evolving into a political movement.

The Taliban is hardwired to fight. It is incapable of gaining power via elections - much less a republican pol sys. The Taliban’s maximalist demand of an emirate is thus not just a function of ideology. It has a lot to do with its capabilities and tradecraft.

The Taliban is by design incapable of power-sharing. Quite the contrary. And because the Bonn Agreement is dead and the pol sys itself is up for grabs the new hybrid regime will be dominated by the Talibs while their opponents will have limited authority.

The constitutional engineers will create a state structure with a complex web of institutions tied together by legal processes giving the Taliban the upper hand. Let us consider all three main branches of governance.

Executive: The Taliban may allow the presidency to remain in the hands of their opponents. So long as it has “religious” oversight via an ‘emir’ (analogous to Iran’s rahbar). Bcuz this sys is emerging thru an int’l process, the emir may have far more exec auth than Iran’s rahbar.

Legislative: Taliban most vulnerable here. Since they have no political party - much less experience competing in elections, they will face a sizable opposition in parl. Thus, they will seek a clerical body approving/rejecting laws - something akin to Iran’s Guardian Council.

Judicial: Given how even under the existing polity the judiciary is dominated by Talibanesque clergy this branch will represent a stronghold of the Talibs under the coming regime. The courts will not just be packed with ultracon clerics but designed to keep other jurists at bay.

Security Sector: It is a given that the Taliban want to break the hold of their opponents in the ANP, ANA, NDS, etc. This they will try to do under the guise of an insurgent DDR program and/or trying to maintain a Hezbollah style militia parallel to the state security forces.

While we process the latest Taliban #InfoOp about the group hoping Trump wins the election it is important to move beyond politics and examine a critical policy issue that the world will be dealing with regardless of who takes the oath in Jan........

........And that has to do with (I know it sounds extremely bizarre) future US-Taliban counterterrorism cooperation. What does that even look like?? How does a group that continues to engage in terrorism become a partner in fighting violent Islamist extremism??

After all, the entire basis for the US-Taliban deal is that the jihadist group will assist in the US-led int’l efforts against its transnational counterparts. How does that understanding get operationalized? The mechanics of such an arrangement are forbidding (to put it mildly).

So many ways that such a “partnership” can go wrong! How do we trust - let alone actually partner with - those who we continue to deeply disagree with, and on so many levels?! The intelligence-sharing aspect of a joint CT effort, alone, is extremely dangerous.

Tactically the US has done this in Iraq in 2007 when Sunni tribal militiamen went from shooting at US troops to aligning with American troops against al-Qaeda. Sunni insurgents were a critical but a junior partner in that effort where DC was relying on a Shia-dominated state.

In sharp contrast, in Afghanistan, we’re talking about a strategic partnership. The reliance on the Taliban will be far greater. In a lot of ways, the US is hoping the Taliban will do what the Afghan state has proven incapable of.

Think about it. If the US has had such a hard time getting stronger states like Pakistan to ensure that their territories are not terrorist sanctuaries. Then the chances that a future Taliban-dominated regime in Afghanistan will be a CT partner are far more bleak.

A Taliban-dominated regime will not only not have better capabilities. There is the huge factor of a lack of intent. So much ideological overlap between the Talibs & transnational jihadists. More importantly the Taliban see many of these elements as force-multipliers.

Even if we set aside ideology for a moment, the Taliban’s interests will prevent them from taking too strong of an action against transnational jihadists. The U.S.-Taliban deal already represents a major opportunity for ISIS to recruit.

The current climate represents fertile ground for ISIS to attract the more radical fighters among the Taliban who are susceptible to its narrative that the Talibs have compromised on the jihadist cause.

Thus, a US-Taliban CT cooperation will only reinforce that narrative and undermine the Afghan jihadist movement. The Talibs will not be able to take action against foreign fighters because they risk a hemorrhaging of their own ranks.

After coming this close to regaining power the last thing the Taliban want is to allow ISIS to torpedo the opportunity. A Taliban challenged by ISIS defeats the entire US purpose behind the peace talks with the Afghan jihadist movement.

What we therefore have is a catch-22 situation. The US needs the Taliban to take action against transnational jihadists. But if the Talibs do that they risk empowering them. The limits of using one radical actor willing to do business against far more extreme forces.

Goes to show how ‘nationalist’ versus ‘transnational’ jihadisms, while useful as analytical categories to try & make sense of multi-actor battlespaces, do not cohere with deeply fluidic ground realities. #donotfallinlovewithyouranalysis