he increased hostility that the US troops face in Afghanistan is apparently because they have had enough of foreign control over their territory. That many American soldiers have been killed by none other than their counterparts in the Afghan security forces opens a window into the realm of reality.
The Americans may have triumphed in killing Osama bin Laden (OBL) and dislodging the Al-Qaeda network in the region, but that is just a micro-battle in the backdrop of the protracted and massive scale counter-insurgency that rocks Afghanistan.
The change in the American war strategy in Afghanistan also indicates the realization that what they had set out to achieve in Afghanistan would be impossible in the manner that the US has adopted and continued for the past one decade.
The military strategy needs to be replaced by a political one thus the initiation of talks with the Qatar office of the Taliban. If any workable solution is to be found, it would surely start from this process and would certainly end on it too. The journey that both the Taliban and America have embarked upon is a long and tedious one as it is based upon a precedence of unreliability and inconsistency.
It isn’t impossible but surely a lot will depend upon how the Americans deal with the Taliban. The famous US penchant for unilateralism needs to be replaced by a multilateral approach where all stakeholders should be taken onboard the reconciliation process. That talking to the Taliban is surely important, but who does the talking is more significant here.
Can a solution be possible without either Afghanistan or Pakistan as active participants? If yes, then let’s just wait with our fingers crossed to see the outcome of this US-Taliban bilateral dialogue.
PROFESSOR KABIL KHAN
Peshawar
