Kabul is turning the tide

http://www.afghanistantimes.af/

The peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government from the very outset had been on a sticky wicket. There is nothing new in the shenanigans and tomfooleries of the Taliban. The very style of opening their political office in Qatar revealed the entire process was conspiratorial. It is not something that we should be taken aback by as we know the cunning nature of the Taliban very well. Their nature has become quite unpredictable and they can do anything at any movement of the peace process. Particularly they are known for their eleventh-hour U-turns. For the past ten years we have been just hearing of conditions over conditions, but no compromise and no show of elasticity, which has left the peace process in disarray. There should be no doubt on the sincerity of the Afghan government but parts of the problems are the US and the Taliban. There has been too much of “us and them” mentality during the past decade, however, this mentality will lead us no where but to a complete breakdown if all parties to the current political turmoil are not careful. The major responsibility comes on the US. It is the US obduracy and blunders that we are still caught in a whirl of an unending war. If the US hadn’t axed the Taliban from the mainstream politics in 2002 by excluding them from the Bonn Conference, the political crisis in the country would have come to an end too long ago. But unfortunately the haughty U.S. miscalculated the Taliban’s strength and earned their wrath. It was just in 2006 that the US realized it shouldn’t have excluded the Taliban from the first Bonn Conference. Since then the US revved up its peace talks’ efforts, nevertheless, a snag hit the peace process from the very beginning. Though, a lot hinges on the results of peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban but relying on a saggy peace process is more than idiocy. Till yesterday, everyone was clinging to its own set of conditions; when the Taliban shown readiness on opening their political office this war-weary nation’s pessimism receded. But the way they opened their political bureau in Qatar gave birth to a new to a new series of confusions and uncertainties. Talking over this sticky situation, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai in a recent radio speech on Thursday night said the opening of the Taliban’s Qatar office for peace negotiations was conspiratorial and his government was successful in staving it off. Besides that following an hour long vide conference between the US President Barrack Obama and President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday, Jay Carney—a White House spokesman, told newsmen that Obama and Karzai reaffirmed that an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process is an incontestable way to put a halt to the persistent violence and ensure a durable stability in Afghanistan and in the region. After the recent face-off over Taliban’s office in Qatar, Kabul seems to be victorious as the US had never publicly acknowledged the Afghan High Peace Council’s (HPC) lead in the peace process, nevertheless when Jay Carney made it clear the process should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, it washed away many misconceptions. It means, in the future, it will be the Afghan High Peace Council talking to the Taliban. If this time around, HPC is bypassed, it will dent the relations of Kabul and Washington to the extent of irreparability. Onward the US shouldn’t be part of the problem. Moreover, the Taliban’s Tuesday bloody attack on the Presidential Palace and CIA office in Kabul have given birth to many speculations as to what the militants’ true intentions are, and whether or not the peace process will deliver the desired results. But among all these negatives, there is yet a good news. As the situation is becoming tense, Kabul is emerging as a dominant party, in an impregnable position to turn the tide against the Taliban.