Once again the United States has held talks with Taliban leadership, but it was the first with the Trump administration’s special man-on-spot, Zalmay Khalilzad. The meeting took place in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where Afghan insurgents’ leadership enjoys a sort of hospitality. This was the second round of the latest series of direct talks between the two sides; they met in July as well. The earlier interlocution at Doha was in 2012, which collapsed as description of Taliban office as “Political Bureau of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” didn’t sit well with the Kabul government. But what appears to be different now is a reported comment by a member of the Taliban interlocutors. According to him, that meeting threw up “very positive signals”. On the face of it, the realities on ground in Afghanistan defy the sense of positivity that is believed to have stemmed from the latest round of talks in Doha. On the ground, not only the Taliban have upped the ante of insurgency, the rulers in Kabul are stoking fires on Pak-Afghan border with a view to shifting blame to Islamabad. The fact however is that they not only provide safe havens to anti-Pakistan elements in their border areas but at times also resort to firing on Pakistani posts that invariably elicits Washington’s anti-Pakistan ‘do more’ assertion.
That serving as backdrop, if Khalilzad succeeded in securing the Taliban’s concurrence to join the Afghan peace process then it is certainly a positive change on the part of Taliban - irrespective of the situation on the war front. As has been their consistent policy, they would agree to undertake whatever the international community desires, provided the US-led coalition forces pull out of their country. That they would work for national reconciliation in larger interest of their country, there should be no question about it. They are indeed religious-minded, as they were in the past, but now what they want is their share in governance of Afghanistan. And, they are anti-ISIS too, a claim that should win them international support. By peacefully pulling out of Afghanistan, the Trump administration may be doing a favour to his own people. President Trump had injected additional troops into Afghanistan to check the rise of Taliban power. But that hasn’t worked. As of today, Taliban occupy more territory than what is under the control of the government in Kabul – a fact that sticks stigma of defeat on the American generals. It is one’s hope that President Trump, who has scored quite a few diplomatic about-turns, will bring an end to the 17-year war that the world’s most powerful military machine has failed to win.
However, to this set of ‘positive signals’ there is a double-edged caveat, put in by Khalilzad’s known anti-Pakistan negativity and the Kabul rulers’ abiding interest to remain in power whatever it takes. We don’t know, but earnestly hope, that driven by realities on the ground he has updated his mindset, and that the Kabul government has decided to shun the lingering Indian shadow. We do believe that as peace in Afghanistan would help Pakistan to get rid of its two-front military dilemma, as against the Indian military establishment’s designs to spare no effort to keep Pak-Afghan neighbourhood on the boil. National reconciliation in Afghanistan is the only option now left with the world at large. Here the war is unwinnable irrespective of the invaders’ military prowess and diplomatic clout. And that sits well with Pakistan, more aptly than for any other country. The Taliban are an independent entity and take decisions in the light of what suits them. It would be darn unrealistic to believe that they are war weary and therefore want talks with the United States. They want peace in Afghanistan because this is their homeland and they want it to be free of foreign occupation. If they are fighting against the US troops today, they were fighting the then Red Army yesterday, rightly earning their country singularity of being ‘the graveyard of invading armies’.
