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US beseeches Taliban to talk
By M K Bhadrakumar – December 20, 2011
Without doubt, the Reuters ‘exclusive’ on the secretive parleys between the United States and the Taliban is sensational. The Afghan chessboard has seldom been ‘de-mystified’ before. Can it be a new US approach? Nor has the US has ever before ‘declassified’ its concurrent regional policy in such candid fashion.
Or, for that matter has peacemaking after a brutal war been advanced with such transparency of intentions, sincerity of purpose and even generosity toward the ‘enemy’. Therefore, can it be for real?
I’m asking about the intentions behind such deep briefing by knowledgeable US officials speaking on cue at a defining moment in the war — and to choose a news agency with worldwide readership to disseminate their ‘revelation’.
What prompted the ’senior US officials’? Let us begin with the ‘revelation’ first. It’s deceptively simple: US has been talking with the Taliban about setting up substantive peace talks and these efforts have reached a critical point where the odds are reasonable that further progress may ensue although the US would guard against failure of negotiations, too.
Now, the motives. The US officials have addressed different audiences. There is the US domestic audience, which is wearied of the war and is no more having any conviction in pursuing it further, that is being told that the Administration has also been robustly looking at ending the war and might even be inching its way to the end of the tunnel.
At the same time, the Administration shouldn’t be faulted if the efforts finally end up in a heap of failure because of Taliban intransigence. Most important, if the war continues through the crucial election year of 2012, it won’t be because President Barack Obama made that choice but because it is a choice of necessity.
Obviously, the 2011 defence authorization bill with its rider on Guantanamo gives a sense of urgency about the status of the prisoners out there before Obama puts his signature on the legislation. Those prisoners are by now garbage and why not get rid of them and make some political capital out of them?
Smart thinking. Especially, if their transfer to Karzai’s custody can be projected as a CBM toward the Taliban.
The message is also for the Afghans, especially President Hamid Karzai, that the level of exasperation in Washington is high and with or without the Kabul set-up, US will pursue its agenda and a critical mass is already available.
Of course, this is also a message for Pakistan and for the region, which would now be kept guessing as to the US’s post-2014 intentions.
The timing is interesting: a) Obama’s political needs at home; b) exasperation with Karzai; c) diffidence regarding Taliban’s intentions; d) Pakistan’s ’strategic defiance’; e) regional opposition to the US military bases in Afghanistan.
The intriguing part is that when a government decides to declassify its ‘top secret’ diplomacy, it can only be because there is actually no more need of keeping confidentiality. The US officials have publicly admitted that Washington won’t insist on any ‘pre-conditions’ whatsoever for the talks — commitment to Afghan constitution, dissociation with the al-Qaeda, etc. — with the Taliban and that the Haqqanis are most welcome to come in as well.
The big question is whether there is now some fresh thinking on the post-2014 scenario. The US is apparently willing to look at a post-Karzai era and it can learn to live with a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Why should the Taliban bite into all this? Unsurprisingly, they summarily rubbished the US overture. But this needn’t be the last word, either.
US beseeches Taliban to talk - Indian Punchline
By M K Bhadrakumar – December 20, 2011
Without doubt, the Reuters ‘exclusive’ on the secretive parleys between the United States and the Taliban is sensational. The Afghan chessboard has seldom been ‘de-mystified’ before. Can it be a new US approach? Nor has the US has ever before ‘declassified’ its concurrent regional policy in such candid fashion.
Or, for that matter has peacemaking after a brutal war been advanced with such transparency of intentions, sincerity of purpose and even generosity toward the ‘enemy’. Therefore, can it be for real?
I’m asking about the intentions behind such deep briefing by knowledgeable US officials speaking on cue at a defining moment in the war — and to choose a news agency with worldwide readership to disseminate their ‘revelation’.
What prompted the ’senior US officials’? Let us begin with the ‘revelation’ first. It’s deceptively simple: US has been talking with the Taliban about setting up substantive peace talks and these efforts have reached a critical point where the odds are reasonable that further progress may ensue although the US would guard against failure of negotiations, too.
Now, the motives. The US officials have addressed different audiences. There is the US domestic audience, which is wearied of the war and is no more having any conviction in pursuing it further, that is being told that the Administration has also been robustly looking at ending the war and might even be inching its way to the end of the tunnel.
At the same time, the Administration shouldn’t be faulted if the efforts finally end up in a heap of failure because of Taliban intransigence. Most important, if the war continues through the crucial election year of 2012, it won’t be because President Barack Obama made that choice but because it is a choice of necessity.
Obviously, the 2011 defence authorization bill with its rider on Guantanamo gives a sense of urgency about the status of the prisoners out there before Obama puts his signature on the legislation. Those prisoners are by now garbage and why not get rid of them and make some political capital out of them?
Smart thinking. Especially, if their transfer to Karzai’s custody can be projected as a CBM toward the Taliban.
The message is also for the Afghans, especially President Hamid Karzai, that the level of exasperation in Washington is high and with or without the Kabul set-up, US will pursue its agenda and a critical mass is already available.
Of course, this is also a message for Pakistan and for the region, which would now be kept guessing as to the US’s post-2014 intentions.
The timing is interesting: a) Obama’s political needs at home; b) exasperation with Karzai; c) diffidence regarding Taliban’s intentions; d) Pakistan’s ’strategic defiance’; e) regional opposition to the US military bases in Afghanistan.
The intriguing part is that when a government decides to declassify its ‘top secret’ diplomacy, it can only be because there is actually no more need of keeping confidentiality. The US officials have publicly admitted that Washington won’t insist on any ‘pre-conditions’ whatsoever for the talks — commitment to Afghan constitution, dissociation with the al-Qaeda, etc. — with the Taliban and that the Haqqanis are most welcome to come in as well.
The big question is whether there is now some fresh thinking on the post-2014 scenario. The US is apparently willing to look at a post-Karzai era and it can learn to live with a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Why should the Taliban bite into all this? Unsurprisingly, they summarily rubbished the US overture. But this needn’t be the last word, either.
US beseeches Taliban to talk - Indian Punchline