LIKE HERPES SIMPLEX, Jesse Jackson never really goes away—he just lies dormant. Clearly, the present national crisis was too much for him to resist. So Jackson last week announced he had received an “invitation” from the Taliban to lead a “peace delegation” to Afghanistan. Of course, Jackson, judicious fellow that he is, subsequently said that he “must weigh what this invitation means.” Additionally, he asserted that he “was surprised that I heard from them.” Not as surprised as the Taliban, it turns out, who claim they extended no such invitation—it was Jackson who invited himself. The Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salem Zaeef, said, “We have not invited him, but he offered to mediate, and our leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has accepted this offer.” Strangely enough, last Tuesday—two days before Jackson unveiled the so-called “invitation”—he told Newsday, “We’ve been reaching out to some of the Taliban religious leaders” to start a “clergy-to-clergy dialogue.” This, he claimed, was born of his previous relationship with the Taliban (who conduct public executions in their soccer stadium), which he said was characterized by “ecumenical respect.” A source close to the Taliban, however, tells me, “Three nights ago, I spoke to the ambassador in Islamabad [Abdul Salem Zaeef], and he asked me who the hell Jesse Jackson was.” But as Jackson has said, it doesn’t really matter how the invitation came about, just that it was made. U.S. officials such as Colin Powell (of whom Jackson once said “Very rich white people can trust him, they can trust him to drop bombs”) have warned Jackson against conducting freelance diplomacy. Still, I wonder if there might not be a case for deploying the Jackson weapon. President Bush, has, after all, warned that this will be a long war, fought on unconventional fronts. What better way to bloodlessly drive the Taliban to ruin than to send Jackson for a protracted visit? With any luck, based on his past behavior, there will be little Jacksons roaming the countryside in just a few years, busting couplets, shaking people down for “donations” to Jackson’s nonprofits, and generally haranguing the Taliban for not employing enough ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks. If that doesn’t have them heading for the Hindu Kush, nothing will. While Jackson has said he will go only if he thinks he can make “progress,” I believe that with all the possible self-promotional opportunities, the question isn’t if he’ll go, but how. The State Department has put Jackson on notice that he’s on his own. How about a more appropriate sendoff: Strap him to the payload of an F-15, then bombs away over Kabul. Matt Labash is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
