To Taliban or Not To Taliban
Powell’s diplomacy can be useful, so long as it is tethered to a strategic vision.

September 27, 2001 8:35 a.m.

he administration apparently can't decide whether it wants to topple the Taliban or not. Considering that President Bush last week warned the Taliban that it had better cough up Osama bin Laden and the terrorists or "share their fate," it's unclear why there should be much uncertainty on this score. But Colin Powell was suggesting earlier this week that al Qaeda might be our only target, and Ari Fleischer quickly walked back from Bush's suggestion Tuesday that we would welcome the Taliban's overthrow. So what gives?

The pessimistic interpretation is that, even before it gets started, the administration's drive is getting bogged down by the diplomatic inertia of the coalition, in this case Pakistan, which hates the idea of anyone besides itself playing in Afghani politics. How galling was this statement the other day from the Pakistani foreign minister? "We fear that any such decision on the part of foreign powers to give assistance to one side or the other in Afghanistan is a recipe for great disaster for the people of Afghanistan," he said. This from the people who — through their money and weapons — brought us the Taliban in the first place.

This points out the problem with deferring too much to allies — they are often cheats, liars, and thugs, and even if they're not, their interests will still deviate from ours. So, Pakistan shouldn't be kowtowed to for its own sake. Nor should we blush at the very idea of regime change. If we can't overthrow the Taliban — which isn't even a legitimate government and was recognized by only three countries prior to this crisis, and only by one government now (our friend Pakistan) — there seems little hope for dislodging any other governments.

But Pakistan is worth kowtowing to for our own sake. And this is where Colin Powell's vaunted diplomacy can be useful, so long as it is tethered to a strategic vision (reporters like Powell because they think he actively opposes the Bush vision). Just because something is a diplomatic nicety doesn't mean that it is useless. By all means, let's publicly disavow any intention of toppling the Taliban. Let's swear up and down that we now realize that, in these particular circumstances, such an action wouldn't be prudent, wise, cautious, productive — any of those adjectives that the "responsible" foreign-policy community loves.

All we are going to do, we can say, is pursue al Qaeda and its immediate supporters, and if it just happens that in the resulting general chaos the Taliban government falls — well then, that just couldn't be helped. (James Robbins has explained how this might work on NRO.) A little diplomatic blather is worth it, both to keep Pakistan on board as a military-staging area and to prevent it from being destabilized (although the likelihood of this is probably exaggerated in the press). If Pakistan fell to a more extreme Muslim element, it could prove quite harmful to the U.S., since, among other things, it has the fissile material we hope to keep out of the hands of Iran and Iraq.

The administration has also been grappling with a phenomenon that I described in my piece in the latest National Review advocating the invasion and occupation of Iraq — that is, "if you break it, you've bought it." If we indirectly topple the Taliban government, there will be some international pressure on us to shape the post-Taliban government. I think this pressure is to be resisted in the case of Afghanistan — chaos isn't very different from what the country is experiencing now. But humanitarian considerations aren't to be discounted entirely.

Sending in the Red Cross, if feasible at some point, would be desirable, as would dropping tents and food from American planes. Because goodness is a crucial ingredient to American power. As the brilliant (and new NRO columnist) Victor Davis Hanson points out in The Soul of Battle, Sherman's drive through Georgia was so effective, not just because he burned and destroyed all the infrastructure in sight, but because he freed and treated humanely slaves, which made a powerful political statement. We should look for ways to make similar statements in our struggle with the barbarians who don't just hate us, but repress and kill Muslims. This would be one of the points of occupying Iraq.

In any case, there is nothing wrong with speaking softly, as long we are still willing to swing our stick fiercely.