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As a US-led coalition continues to attack the Islamic State (Isis), Jonathan Powell, a former adviser to Tony Blair and a key intermediary in the successful negotiations between the British government and the IRA, poses an important question: should we talk to the terrorists?
His answer is yes, for without talking we will never have a true peace. Even if we can obliterate the enemy through sheer firepower, we cannot eliminate the threat they pose without removing at least some of the grievances that motivated them in the first place. And this needs a negotiated solution.
Governments are always reluctant to engage with terrorists, Powell rightly says, and terrorists always start off with maximalist positions which seem to negate any possibility of agreement. Both sides, he explains, can be brought together, with luck, skill and a careful eye on what has worked before.
Powell admits he is an unlikely “peacenik”. He grew up in a military family and was “involved in the decisions on all… Blair’s wars”. He has now decided to dedicate his life to stopping armed conflict, he says. His book is part historical survey, part technical handbook. There is barely a “peace process” that does not get a mention – the Dayton accords, failed negotiations in Sri Lanka, the French and the Algerians in the early 1960s. Pretty much every terrorist group from the highlands of Colombia to the northernmost tip of Indonesia gets a page or two also.
After all the grimness of recent months, Powell’s optimism is refreshing. He quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Kennedy. He believes “the Middle East peace process, which has stuttered on for decades, will in the end result in a lasting agreement”. Fingers crossed.
Powell does not deal with Isis in his book. But he does talk about Hamas, the Taliban and al-Qaida. Lumping this trio together is odd, as Powell admits in his concluding pages. Hamas are Islamists with broad social and political involvement who have also been responsible for suicide bombings within Israel. The organisation has not been linked to any international attacks, however, and appears entirely focused on its local struggle. Hamas also has contacts with a wide range of states and of course is part of the broader Palestinian story with all the complexity that entails. Some of its officials are deeply involved in municipal administration. I met one during the conflict in Gaza earlier this year who was worrying about sanitation in his semi-destroyed town. Others develop rockets to be fired indiscriminately at Israeli cities. That there is room here for some kind of dialogue, as suggested by Powell, is fairly self-evident. Indeed the end of the last conflict came after lengthy indirect negotiations in Cairo.
The Taliban are rather different. Influenced more by rigorous ultra-conservative, neo-traditionalist, revivalist strands of Islamic observance than the political Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban speak a different language, in every sense. I remember a slogan daubed on the wall of the ministry of justice in Kabul when the Taliban ran Afghanistan in the 90s which read: “Throw reason to the dogs, it stinks of corruption.” Yet that some kind of deal could be cut that would satisfy some of the movement seems feasible, even if attempts so far have failed. It is unclear why Powell suggests the Taliban is “consensus-based”, however, and any deal could only ever win over a fraction of the whole.
But it is much harder to see how or when one could talk to al-Qaida. Powell maintains that the new “fourth wave” of terrorism – after anarchist, postcolonial and leftwing – is more or less the same as previous waves. The difference between mass casualty attacks like 9/11 and less murderous strikes by earlier actors is one of degree, he suggests, not category.
All terrorism is, at root, political, and removing the fundamental grievances can lead to a resolution of the problem. But al-Qaida’s senior command genuinely see themselves as engaged in a cosmic struggle that has lasted for millennia and will go on for an equal period. Trying to talk to them risks granting their narrative greater legitimacy than it conceivably deserves and thus being entirely counterproductive.
Powell would no doubt argue that this is what is always said about terrorist groups. But the lessons learned in dealing with specific and relatively small problems in global terms – in Sri Lanka, Israel-Palestine, Northern Ireland, Colombia, etc – do not necessarily apply to the much bigger one that is modern jihadi militancy. Even if Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaida, was brought to some kind of accord, this would have little effect on a phenomenon that long predates al-Qaida and has roots in social, political, religious factors going back centuries in the Islamic world and in the Islamic world’s relationship with the west. This is an adaptive social movement that is much more complex, dynamic and varied than Powell seems to think. You can talk to the leaders of the Irish Republican or Basque separatist movement in order to bring peace to Northern Ireland or an enclave of northern Spain, but not to end separatist or nationalist extremism in Europe.
A more practical suggestion would be to keep to a granular level and aim, through negotiation, to prise away some of the local communities whose support or acquiescence is so crucial for groups such as Isis. One obvious target are the Sunni networks and tribes which currently, actively or passively, support its campaign.
Talking to Terrorists is published by The Bodley Head (£20). Click here to buy it for £15
