- Still a pipedream?
The Afghan and Pakistani governments must really be holding a trump card up their sleeve otherwise they wouldn’t have put such a positive spin on the longest US-Taliban meeting in the longest US war. There’s more to be done, of course, but Pakistan is already saying it has done its part, and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi went so far as confirming that the negotiations had enabled Islamabad to ‘reset’ relations with Washington. Khalilzad is now in Kabul to try and convince the Ghani government. The implication is that it remains for Ghani to agree, even so close to the election, and everybody can simply shake hands on a deal.
But let’s step back and take a fact check. Welcome as such advances are, didn’t Ghani complain from Davos just the other day that any agreement or deal or even proposition that did not take the sitting Afghan government on board during the negotiations just did not hold any water? And, let’s not forget, one essential part of the Taliban proposal is dissolution of the Kabul government to make way for an interim setup, of which Taliban representatives will be very much a part. Since, on the surface, there’s only so much Khalilzad can say to Ghani, it seems the bit about the trump card must be correct.
There’s more. The Taliban have accepted a thaw, of sorts, but nothing even resembling a breakthrough. They’re just not willing to make any concessions to Kabul till the Americans are out. But with the logjam about the interim government and status of the constitution, who is to tell what will happen if the Americans really pack up and leave in 18 months, as parts of the international press is now suggesting? It seems that no matter how close, or far, we are from a ceasefire, and an eventual end to this long, ugly war, it is the Taliban now that is increasingly dictating the turn of events.
