Last week US Secretary of State John Kerry sought Pakistan’s help to press the Taliban into opening peace negotiations with President Hamid Karzai’s representatives. The Taliban leadership is believed to be living in Pakistan. One of the Taliban negotiators, Mullah Abbas Stanikzai, met a senior member of the High Peace Council in Dubai last month and tried to jump-start the peace process. He declared that the two tried to reconcile differences and pave the way for an official meeting, while Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister on national security and foreign affairs, said on Sunday, “It is at a very fragile place right now.” The Taliban marked the opening of their political office in Qatar by flying their white flag, emblazoned with a Quranic verse and a sign declaring it as that of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. That inflamed Karzai, who accused the religious militia of trying to establish a government-in-exile. Peace talks involving the US that were to follow the official opening ended before they could begin. The term conflict resolution and negotiation is sparingly used in political dialogue or in foreign relations parlance and the usual term we hear is peace. It can be argued that conflict resolution and negotiation is the process that leads to peace. Politicians who use the term ‘peace talks’, project the assumed outcome from the discussion, which is fine when you are dealing with social issues but what about situations where one side or the other doesn’t want peace or is not willing to push towards that goal? In those cases conflict resolution and negotiation might be the two best all-encompassing phrases to use to explain the process of communication between the parties involved. It is clear that unless both sides are focusing on the same goal, whether it is peace, a ceasefire, drawing borders, armed conflict, release of prisoners, unfair justice, a division of resources, etc., they must both be on the same page or at least come away from the deal feeling they got something out of it. If one or both parties feel they got a raw deal then it is almost inevitable that both parties may end up back at the bargaining table discussing that same issue as the conflict was not resolved to either party’s satisfaction. Peter Wallensteen defines conflict resolution as “a situation where the conflicting parties enter into an agreement that solves their central incompatibilities, accept each other’s continued existence as parties and cease all violent action against each other.” Negotiation is essentially the process that takes place within conflict resolution and guides the agreement, resulting in the targeted goal whether it is peace, better understanding, etc. There are many variables that must be understood and taken into account when dealing with the conflict resolution and negotiation process. These variables may be based on past perceived slights or affronts by each side, i.e. the US occupation of Afghanistan, delegitimisation of al Qaeda, etc. It can be said that the variables most commonly affecting the framework of conflict resolution aren’t tangible, they are ideological differences, i.e. Jewish vs Muslim, Deobandi vs Ahle-Hadith, Sunni vs Shia, etc. Whether the ideologies are religious, political or ethnic, these ideologies are important and cannot and should not be ignored or the risk of an unsuccessful negotiation process is most likely going to be the end result. According to John B Thompson in his book Studies in the Theory of Ideology, “Ideology is essentially linked to the process of sustaining asymmetrical relations of power — that is, to the process of maintaining dominance.” Analysing ideology means studying conflicting viewpoints, while reflecting on language, culture and politics within the area studied. As the US and other countries have strategic and financial interests in the Afghanistan region as well as a concern about the rampant al Qaeda movements within the area, it is very important to understand the intricacies of ideology when dealing with conflict resolution and negotiation. As the biggest elephant in the room, the US will inevitably get dragged into conflicts, either unilaterally by the protagonists themselves or in bilateral or trilateral cooperation with supranational organisations like the UN, Arab League, NATO, EU, etc. It is paramount to fully understand the ideological components involved in each case in order to avoid misunderstanding or not taking into account each party’s concerns. Negotiations are most successful when both sides win. Anything less than a win-win in the negotiation process will result in future conflict and more requirements for conflict resolution and negotiation in the future. To prevent this from occurring, it is important that peace negotiators and government leaders understand not just the culture and issues but the ideological issues that all parties involved feel are pertinent to the issue at hand. Keeping ideological differences at the forefront of the negotiators’ mind will allow them to focus on the push and pull between traditional culture, religion and politics. In order to ensure that an agreed decision is achieved between all the parties, peacekeepers need to ensure they understand the people and their way of life, including culture, religion and politics. Governments and agencies need to ensure there is a subject matter expert (SME) involved in the negotiation who has broad based analytic behaviour assessment skills, speaks the language and knows the history, tradition, culture and religion of both groups involved in the conflict. Most importantly, the negotiator’s cognitive abilities are marked and is able to parse the issues. Upon being tasked to the negotiation process, the first rule for the negotiator should be to ensure he has a complete understanding of both sides’ concerns, history between the two parties, ideological issues and any conflicting viewpoints in order to take all into account when drawing up a decision. It isn’t enough to solve just the current issue with a decision that leaves both parties satisfied; the negotiator should anticipate any predictive issues from the negotiated result, including how it will affect other interests in the region. Negotiating during the conflict resolution process with an analysis of future issues resulting from the negotiation will ensure that the issue is completely resolved and if not completely resolved, that the future perceived issues are addressed as well. While being an SME in a specific area of the world is important, further training in behavioural assessment and analysis should ensure that SMEs understand the conflicts between the different ideologies in each region. This line of thinking will provide topics that the government can assign to a ‘Behavioural Analysis Wing’ to research and analyse intelligence gathered from different sources. Second, after these future issues are discovered, intelligence agency sub-units like the ‘Behavioural Analysis Wing’ and the national intelligence agency should research national security policy in case these issues become a reality in the future. Third, selected policies created should be selectively disseminated to the countries involved and used to create relationships with the important parties in each country by showing that the government is trying to assist them in securing and stabilising their region. Finally, this process should provide a robust channel of communication with all civil and military national security agencies to utilize this information as part of the cohesive inter-services agency network. The implementation of this process would assist the Pakistan government in a two-fold process: it keeps a constant flow of information flowing through the national security community as well as fresh ideas from sub-intelligence units like the Behavioural Analysis Wing and it would assist the Pakistan government in compiling a regional data base, similar to the working of the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit, but this database would concentrate primarily on the possible future conflicts in each area in a format where if the incident were to occur, it could quickly be implemented as part of national security policy, if necessary. There is a lot to be gained by understanding the role that ideology plays in a conflict; it is not enough to look at the situation through a pragmatic lens. A strategist or specialist dealing with conflict resolution and negotiation in the Pak-Afghan region must understand the underlying ideologies, the conflicts between these ideologies and the history that has led to the current conflict. Through a better understanding of situations, the people and the issues as well as ideologies, and introduction of intelligence analysis units, the national security agencies and political players in Pakistan will be able to resolve conflicts and assist other countries in keeping the peace throughout the region. The writer is a member of the Diplomate American Board of Medical Psychotherapists Dip.Soc Studies, Member Int’l Association of Forensic Criminologists, Associate Professor Psychiatry and Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at the Huntercombe Group United Kingdom. He can be reached at fawad_shifa@yahoo.com