P U L S E

The reported arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar by US forces in cooperation with Pakistan is significant. He was a key member of the Quetta Shura, the central command of the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan sees the Afghan Taliban as a strategic asset in its struggle against regional rivals. It would be odd therefore to hand over such a key figure to US forces. I therefore suspect three possible scenarios: 1) The reported negotiations that Baradar had been conducting with  coalition forces were unauthorized by the shura, and therefore they chose to throw him under the bus with Pakistani cooperation to preempt any possible betrayal; 2) Baradar has already cut a deal and the ‘arrest’ is staged to make his coming in from the cold appear more respectable; 3) Pakistan is trying to signal its indispensability to the Taliban who in recent months had been growing increasingly recalcitrant. Either way, it is unlikely that Baradar’s arrest will do much to diminish the gains that the Taliban have been making in recent year. Here I would also like to recommend one of the best, most comprehensive, books on the Afghan Taliban: Antonio Guistozzi’s Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-2007.

In related news, one of the world’s finest investigative reporters, Gareth Porter of the Inter Press Service is just back from Afghanistan. He notes that the attack on Marja is meant to prepare Americans to accept negotiations with Taliban.