Jonathan Rugman blogs on reports on how Washington could be considering a change in approach over whether to talk to the Taliban about Afghanistan’s future.
In a previous blog entitled “Talking to the Taliban”, I argued that a major policy rift between London and Washington was developing over Britain’s belief in talking to its enemies in Afghanistan, albeit indirectly.
Well, The Guardian website is tonight claiming that this rift is on the way to being healed. The paper’s Washington correspondent quotes a US official as claiming there is a “change of mindset” in America over the issue; and that with “no military solution” in sight, talking to the Taliban through third parties is becoming a more attractive option to the United States.
If this is a real change, that’s a considerable victory for the British position, ahead of David Cameron’s first visit to the White House as Prime Minister. However, nobody should be any illusion that “talking to the Taliban” will be straightforward.
First, the question of finding the right interlocutor. The Pakistanis want to be the key to any eventual peace deal, but the fact that they have given western intelligence services almost no access to Mullah Baradar, a Taliban commander captured earlier this year, tells you all you need to know about Pakistan – that Islamabad wants to control all access to the Taliban on its territory, and that if a captured insurgent risks revealing just how close his links are with Pakistani Intelligence, then the CIA can expect almost no access at all.
In fact, the capture of Mullah Baradar, hailed at the time as a possible turning point in Pakistan’s attitude to the Afghan conflict, has turned out to be no such thing. It has only confirmed Pakistani intransigence, and begged very big questions over whether British and American aid to Pakistan is worth the money.
Then there is the question of which Taliban to talk to. Mullah Omar’s Taliban? The Haqqani network? The Pakistani Taliban? They are not one and the same, and with allied casualties mounting, there is little to suggest that any Taliban group is in the mood to sue for peace.
One man in the know is the former EU diplomat Michael Semple, who has been reaching out to Taliban elements for years, and who may be just the man for the job. Semple’s view is that an accommodation can eventually be achieved, though the time frame in which it can be delivered is very hard to discern.
“The Taliban would love to claim credit for NATO leaving,” he says in an apparent swipe at President Obama’s assurance of a pullout beginning in mid-2011. “If they think they can ride it out for one or two years, then enter politics as history makers, that is their preferred outcome.”
So what will make the Taliban engage in serious talks?
Semple’s answer is simple and convincing: “They will engage when they realise that they are frozen out of power and cannot march on Kabul.”