Talk? Turkey? Yes. Taliban? Get A Grip!

Remember that Clinton campaign commercial--the one with the hand reaching for the ringing phone in the middle of the night? Yeah, that one. The best intimation that Obama was, to put it charitably, a naif in foreign affairs.

In the last few days President Obama has again proved that he made a very smart choice by naming Hilary Clinton as SecState. That, along with keeping Bob Gates on as SecDef, alone assures that realism has some small voice in the gales of inexperience and flat-out ineptitude blowing through the current administration.

(Of course, honesty demands noting that Obama off set these outstanding appointment decisions with the blunder of appointing Leon Pinela as DCI and the nearly criminal designation of Saudi and Chinese special pleader, not to say, agent, Chaz Freeman, as capo of the National Intelligence Council.)

After spending the day in Ankara, SecState Clinton announced that Obama will meet his Turkish counterpart within a month. The idea of face time with the Turkish President is an excellent one.

But--there's always the big but, isn't there?

The Man With The Smile has a full plate in early April. He's got the 60th Anniversary NATO meeting. He's got the G-20 conflab where he will have a sit down with Medvedev. He is currently scheduled to end the frantic five days with a get-it-on with EU leaders.

Considering that back on the campaign trail last year Hillary Clinton correctly argued that summit meetings need time and effort in preparation lest they be a waste of political prestige and presidential time, it is quite hard to see how even a man with the capacity for quick study glib of Obama can hope to deal effectively with the slew of critical issues confronting US-Turkish relations. Ms Clinton appears to be violating her own wise counsel.

There is a large backlog of matters littering the diplomatic landscape of our relations with Turkey. Regardless of the status of past issues, Turkey has been playing a key role in several ongoing contretemps. It is (or has been) a go-between in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has played a low-key intermediary role between the US and Syria.

Surpassing the importance of Turkey in these affairs is its role in the Islamic Central Asian Republics. Even more important over the longer haul is the nature of Turkey's relations with the European Union. It can be either a bridge between the Islamic states and Europe or a penetration asset injecting Muslims into the EU countries.

While the question of Turkey's admission into the EU is one in which we have (or should have) little direct interest, the role Turkey will play should it gain admission is a matter of grave concern to us. The predicate for this concern is simply the question of how Islamist is the current Turkish government? Given that the Turkish population is moving in an accelerating fashion toward the Islamist end of the Muslim world, and given further that the AFP has strong roots in Islamism, this is a vital question.

Should Turkey abandon the secular state orientation of Ataturk, there is the probability of destabilisation as the Army defends the Ataturk vision and fissions within itself in the process. Should Turkey turn openly Islamist and be a member of the EU, the probability of jihadist infiltration in job lots will be very high.

Thus, getting a firm handle on the intentions of AFP and the probability of it going frankly Islamist is critical to our national and strategic interests. Prudence would seem to require a firmer fix on this basic issue before rushing to the summit.

The Islamist question looms large with regard to the major reason that the president will visit Turkey. We want Turkey to play a larger role in achieving some semblance of stability in Afghanistan. (As a sub-text, we probably want to sound out the Turkish position on Iran and Iran's role in the Afghanistan problem.)

Overall, a summit with Turkey is an excellent and long overdue idea. We need conversations at the highest level in order to clear the air on past differences. We need them to lay a basis for cooperation on questions of mutual interest including but not limited to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran. We need them most of all to do all in our power to forestall any further drift to Islamism in Republic of Ataturk.

Obama is reportedly considering authorising talks with "elements" of Taliban. The idea here is to peel the onion of support from the hardest of the hard core of Taliban in Afghanistan. The notion is supposedly predicated upon our experience in Iraq where the Awakening Councils and Concerned Local Citizens were (in part) comprised of "Islamic fundamentalists." (Don't you just love that term? Talk about a null referent!)

If that is the case, the US military is doing the same old-same old. Taking the wrong lesson from a war.

A close parsing of the motivations of those joining the Awakening Councils and Concerned Local Citizens had less to do with theological hair splitting than other, more fundamental matters. Tribal loyalties and rivalries top the list. In a very close second, one finds financial self-interest. In third place resides resentment at the barbaric, arrogant actions of the Islamists such as cutting the fingers off the hands of men so ill-advised as to smoke.

Diplomatic "behemoth" Richard Holbrooke(that's the NYT's term, not the Geek's) is apparently in favor of the talk-to-(moderate)Taliban approach. Drawing on his less-than-reality based rep for having brokered the Dayton Accords which supposedly ended the ethno-religious conflict in former Yugoslavia, Holbrooke's approval is not a plus from the Geek's perspective considering the long, slow, bloody aftermath of Dayton.

The President and his people paid some lip-service to the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan which gives some slight hope that the Man With The Smile will drop this gambit. The time to talk with any, repeat, any Taliban representatives is after the US and its partners have achieved military dominance.

Taliban leaders, even at the lower, less committed level are Islamists. There is a profound difference between Muslims who are observant on the one hand and Islamists on the other.

Islamists take their politics far more seriously. They are given to totalism in goals. They are persistent because they are highly motivated. They are highly motivated because they are True Believers which means their identity as a person comes from their Belief.

That distinction, the difference between an observant Muslim and an Islamist/jihadist is far more critical in dealing with Taliban or al-Qaeda or any similar group than are the matters of tribal identity, economic motivation, or revulsion at the extreme application of Sharia.

Obama and his people had best get a grip on a basement reality of international relations. Haste is typically perceived by adversaries as desperation. The US cannot afford the slightest odor of haste, the faintest whiff of desperation in Afghanistan. Such will serve only to encourage Taliban et al to hang on, fight harder, kill more.

Remember, in an insurgency, the side which can spend more time and accept more frustration is the side which will eventually win. It will win because the other side loses the political and personal will to continue the effort. It is not so much that one side wins so much as the other side decides that it has lost.

The message of history is this: Slow down. Plan. Prepare. Hold summits only when the results are determined in advance. Don't talk to Islamists until you have defeated them.

Ignore these lessons, President Obama, only at your country's peril.