Talks are the only route in Afghanistan (LA Times Op/Ed)

[pinto]

Good, first hand take on the options in Afghanistan. Rashid makes the point that the realities of the situation, on all sides, need to be addressed ~ pinto

Talks are the only route in Afghanistan

A military victory against the Taliban is elusive; a better, lasting peace requires talks and some sort of power-sharing arrangement.

By Ahmed Rashid
November 27, 2010

At last week's summit in Lisbon, at which NATO agreed to hand over security to Afghan forces by 2014, there was an elephant in the room that no one mentioned: talks with the Taliban. NATO leaders spoke about ending the war, but nobody offered a suggestion of how that would happen.

One way would be through defeat of the Taliban. But another possibility is through negotiations with the Taliban, which could bring peace even before the 2014 deadline.

At this point, the issue is something of a sticking point between Afghanistan and the United States. President Hamid Karzai is adamant that only talks with the Taliban can end the war. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is highly skeptical and says the Taliban must first be thoroughly subdued militarily.

I recently traveled to Afghanistan, where I met with Karzai, Petraeus and four former Taliban leaders now living in Kabul. It was clear that the various parties all view the situation through different prisms, but there were also some causes for optimism.

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and the author, most recently, of "Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia." His book "Taliban" has recently been updated and reissued on the 10th anniversary of its publication.

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rashid-taliban-talks-20101127,0,3737920.story