Short-term fixes, long-term consequences

Here's Bruce Reidel, for example, writing about the recent Taliban arrests in The Daily Beast. Reidel outlines a few of the reasons for skepticism about Pakistani motives -- then argues that the U.S. shouldn't worry too much about those motives, because the arrests help the U.S. fight the Taliban.

While we seek to better understand what is going on in Pakistan, we should also be prepared to take yes for an answer. If the top leadership of the Taliban no longer enjoys a sanctuary across the Durand Line, the border drawn by England between Afghanistan and Pakistan a century ago, then the prospects for Obama's war in Afghanistan improve. As long as the enemy of the NATO forces in Afghanistan could operate with relative immunity in Pakistan, NATO's mission was going to be very difficult. If the Pakistanis now police their side of the Durand Line differently, NATO will find the job easier, although still bloody and expensive.

And here's Michael Crowley, profiling Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in The New Republic, and speculating about how one of Afghanistan's most brutal, sadistic warlords might find a role in a "reconciled" Afghan government.

But these are desperate times. Hamid Karzai is embattled, paranoid, and desperate to shore up his political base. Barack Obama, meanwhile, seems less interested in the political composition of Afghanistan than in reducing violence to a level that will allow for a U.S. withdrawal. "At the end of the day, we'll take what we can get," says Riedel.

On the Taliban arrests, there are two major theories about Pakistan's motives. One says Pakistan rounded up "moderate" Taliban leaders, those who favored reconciliation talks, so they would be replaced by a more "extremist" faction loyal to the ISI. The other argues that Pakistan plans to use the detained "moderates" as conduits back to the Taliban. (I guess there's a sort-of third theory, that the arrests stem more partly from Obama's diplomacy, but there's still an element of Pakistani self-interest there.)

Both of these theories are good for Pakistan. One is good for the United States. Neither is good for Afghanistan: In both scenarios, Afghan interests will be subjugated to Pakistani interests during reconciliation talks.

As for Hekmatyar... well, the man is a sociopath; Crowley's article doesn't do justice to the full measure of his brutality. You'd be hard-pressed to find many Afghans who would welcome his return to politics -- even within the Hezb-i-Islami, where Hekmatyar is rapidly losing influence (one could argue that Crowley's article overstates Hekmatyar's importance, and the strength of his militia, by far the weakest of the Taliban groups).

Pakistan, on the other hand, would welcome his return -- Gulbuddin has long been the ISI's man west of the Durand Line -- and the U.S. apparently views him as a quick fix.

Both of these developments might be good short-term news for the policy community in Washington. But what do they mean for Afghanistan -- for the people who ultimately have to live with their long-term consequences?