State of negotiations with Afghan Taliban: TIME analysis

I've omitted several passages from Tony Karon's analysis that includes data/observations that have have been treated more fully in recent news reports and other analyses; e.g., the wide divergence in current views on how well NATO kinetic operations have succeeded against the Afghan Taliban.

Also, as earlier reports I've featured on this blog underscore, there are questions about whether Karzai's recent claim that he's been involved with three-way negotiations with the Taliban is true, yet Karon accepts the claim as factual. But he also brings out some important points about NATO/US led negotiations with the Taliban -- and how many years NATO has been focusing on a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.

All this provides more insight into Hamid Karzai's many outbursts and seemingly irrational actions since the NDS caught the British regime attempting to set up secret military training camps in Afghanistan for 'good' Taliban. Years before the general public in NATO countries learned the truth, Karzai knew that NATO had been trying to restore the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in a desperate attempt to cover up the fact that the real war was always in Pakistan. That this is one of the greatest military scandals in the modern era -- shrug; move along folks, nothing to see here.

Talks with the Taliban Are Inevitable, But Who Will Be at the Table?
by Tony Karon
February 16, 2012
TIME/Global Spin blog

The fact that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told the Wall Street Journal he’s held three-way negotiations with the U.S. and the Taliban should come as no surprise: the U.S. has said that within two years it will end its already decade-long military entanglement in Afghanistan’s civil war, and the Taliban is anything but defeated. Indeed, militarily, the U.S. has been spinning its wheels in Afghanistan for years, now, it’s a long-established conventional wisdom that Washington’s best hopes for leaving behind even a modicum of stability require a political settlement with the insurgents.

The question being fought out on the ground for the past four years has simply been on what terms a negotiated settlement would be forged, and who would be at the table.

Where once the U.S. had insisted on the Taliban laying down arms and embracing the constitution that brought Karzai to power as preconditions for talking to the insurgents, it has come around to accepting those erstwhile preconditions as the desired outcomes of such talks.

Now, with the diplomatic pace quickened by the U.S. withdrawal deadline, Karzai — who wields limited leverage of his own — is making sure he’s not sidelined by talks between Western powers and the Taliban, which had reportedly begun some time ago at an exploratory level, mediated by Qatar.

The optimistic spin on Karzai’s announcement highlights the fact that the Taliban is is now talking with Karzai, whom it had previously dismissed as a “puppet” of the U.S.

The Taliban, of course, denied talking to Karzai, though they have publicly confirmed their talks with Washington. Even if the Taliban had agreed to include Karzai in talks, though, there remains considerable grounds for skepticism that it would accept the Afghan constitution drawn up under Western tutelage after the U.S. invasion (and therefore the legitimacy of Karzai’s government).

It’s not clear just how committed the Taliban leadership is to these conversations, and there remains considerable opposition within the movement to seeking a political settlement right now — for the simple fact that many in the Taliban believe they’re actually winning the war.

And as is the case of any insurgent army facing a foreign expeditionary force, the Taliban knows time is on its side.
[...]
The U.S. invasion tipped the balance against the Taliban, but it soon bounced back, with support and sanctuary provided by Pakistan, unwilling to reconcile itself to an Indian-allied government taking root on its western flank. The hubris of the Bush Administration sustained an unfortunate illusion that Pakistan shared U.S. objectives in Afghanistan; having abandoned that illusion, the Obama Administration nonetheless faces the challenge of accommodating Pakistan’s interest in negotiating a peace agreement.

Pakistan has far more leverage over the Taliban than any other player, and it has previously made clear — by, for example, arresting Taliban leaders holding talks with Karzai and the U.S. independent of Pakistan’s okay — that it will not allow the negotiation of any agreement to which it is not (at least tacitly) a party.

In the game of musical chairs over the negotiations, Karzai has kept his options open, withdrawing from talks with the Taliban late last year and vowing to negotiate only with Pakistan.
[...]
Meanwhile, spring is just weeks away, and with it another fighting season. That’s a metaphorical table at which Karzai holds no significant cards, while the Taliban believes that as long as it enjoys Pakistan’s patronage, its hand is sufficient to prompt the U.S. to fold first.