As usual, the Kagans are out with an extremely well-informed piece on Afghanistan. They take up the question of why we need to undertake counter-insurgency against the Taliban and the Haqqani network when our goal is counter-terrorism against al Qaeda. First, there’s the connection between those two groups and al Qaeda:

The relationship that developed between bin Laden and Mullah Omar was deep and strong. It helps explain why Mullah Omar refused categorically to expel bin Laden after 9/11 even though he knew that failing to do so could lead to the destruction of the Taliban state–as it did. In return, bin Laden recognizes Mullah Omar as amir al-momineen–the “Commander of the Faithful”–a religious title the Taliban uses to legitimize its activities and shadow state. The alliance between al Qaeda and the Haqqanis (now led by Sirajuddin, successor to his aging and ailing father, Jalaluddin) also remains strong. The Haqqani network still claims the terrain of Greater Paktia, can project attacks into Kabul, and seems to facilitate the kinds of spectacular attacks in Afghanistan that are the hallmark of al Qaeda training and technical expertise. There is no reason whatever to believe that Mullah Omar or the Haqqanis–whose religious and political views remain closely aligned with al Qaeda’s–would fail to offer renewed hospitality to their friend and ally of 20 years, bin Laden.

Then, there’s the fact that al Qaeda is, as a practical matter, dependent on local help:

All of which is to say that the common image of al Qaeda leaders flitting like bats from cave to cave in the badlands of Pakistan is inaccurate. Al Qaeda leaders do flit (and no doubt sometimes sleep in caves)–but they flit like guests from friend to friend in areas controlled by their allies. Their allies provide them with shelter and food, with warning of impending attacks, with the means to move rapidly. Their allies provide communications services–runners and the use of their own more modern systems to help al Qaeda’s senior leaders avoid creating electronic footprints that our forces could use to track and target them. Their allies provide means of moving money and other strategic resources around, as well as the means of imparting critical knowledge (like expertise in explosives) to cadres. Their allies provide media support, helping to get the al Qaeda message out and then serving as an echo chamber to magnify it via their own media resources.

Their conclusion:

Pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy against the Taliban and Haqqani groups–that is, using American forces to protect the population from them while building the capability of the Afghan Army–appears at first an indirect approach to defeating al Qaeda. In principle, neither the Taliban nor the Haqqani network poses an immediate danger to the United States. Why then should we fight them?
We should fight them because in practice they are integrally connected with al Qaeda. Allowing the Taliban and the Haqqani network to expand their areas of control and influence would offer new opportunities to al Qaeda that its leaders appear determined to seize. It would relieve the pressure on al Qaeda, giving its operatives more scope to protect themselves while working to project power and influence around the world. It would reduce the amount of usable intelligence we could expect to receive, thus reducing the rate at which we could target key leaders. Allowing al Qaeda’s allies to succeed would seriously undermine the counterterrorism mission and would make the success of that mission extremely unlikely.

Read the whole thing.