Graham backs Taliban ‘reintegration’

A key Senate Republican on Thursday sharpened his position on negotiations with the Afghan Taliban, saying he backs “reintegration” programs but not “dividing” the country with the group.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said earlier this week that his vision of winning the war is making Afghanistan a place where the Taliban and al Qaeda “will never be welcomed.”

In an interview published Thursday, Graham told the Daily Caller that he believes political settlements are necessary at the end stage of the Afghan war, but does not want to engage in a quid pro quo with Taliban leader Mullah Omar:

…Instead, the U.S. needs to be able to effectively use what Graham called “reintegration and reconciliation programs.”

“Reintegration is when you catch a Taliban fighter — a guy who is not a full-blown jihadist, but probably more involved because of economics,” said Graham. “We are going to try to reintegrate that person. … There is nothing unique about this process.”

Such a reintegration program, according to Graham, would include providing education and job skills to young Afghan men who leave the Taliban. The only condition, Graham said, is that “they’d have to commit to support the Afghan government.”

Graham, added however, that ”this idea of sitting down with Mullah Omar and dividing Afghanistan is offensive and a nonstarter. And not what we’re trying to do.”

Top U.S. officials have acknowledged that some sort of political settlement must be reached with the Taliban in order to bring an end to the U.S. war, closing in on nine years.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said last week that “very active” efforts are under way to reach a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban — an extremist group that controls large swaths of territory in the Central Asian nation.

Graham’s comments are some of his most direct on the potential settlement and the negotiation process. The senator appeared to be open to talks, but stressed there are limits to what the U.S. should agree to with the Taliban.

The senators comments hew closely to what the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, recently said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“It doesn’t mean that Mullah Omar is about to stroll down main street in Kabul any time soon and raise his hand and swear an oath on the constitution of Afghanistan,” Petraeus said. “But every possibility, I think, that there can be low- and mid-level reintegration, and indeed, some fracturing of the senior leadership — that could be really defined as reconciliation.” 

Kerry also said that any “appropriate” settlement would have to include “a renunciation of al Qaeda,” a “reduction of violence,” a “recognition of the constitutional rights of both Pakistan and Afghanistan and greater efforts to reduce sanctuaries for insurgency.”