Editorial Blog #4

President Obama recently confirmed this idea and the U.S. is at the moment considering it, but as the writer says, there comes both promise and peril in this action. The positive outcome of this would be the U.S. could somehow replicate the successful results of the agreements with Sunni leaders in Iraq that snapped their alliance with al-Qaeda, dramatically reduced violence and advanced political stability. The negative setbacks that might happen is that we could provoke the Taliban more, because Pakistan’s government has made deals with the Taliban which caused a way for the Taliban to attack Afghanistan more often. Right not the most likely appealing strategy is to work with the lower-level ranked Taliban, but we and our allies are unaware on how many such people of that exist, and people who will work to cooperate with us. The Taliban in general is focused on establishing Islamic domination, unlike the Sunnis who yearn to re-establish the political power they had under Saddam Hussein's secular government.

As for the writer, he/she believes that U.S. and NATO need to keep up with the military pressure in Afghanistan for now so that it will eventually lead to talks with the Taliban and extremists like a key to open a door. Also the writer believes that the best thing for now might be to leave the negotiations with Afghani leaders for now.

I definitely agree with the writer on this point, it’s definitely too soon to start to act on this idea. Using the U.S. and NATO military power we can use it as a foothold over the Taliban to sort of force them into coming into terms and agreements with us and our allies, one step must lead into another and something cannot be solved by jumping a step or relying on one idea.