Nails, coffins and the Taliban

Whatever hope there was of peace in Afghanistan is fast disappearing, and the upbeat, optimistic mood that prevailed earlier on in the year has deteriorated into ugly recriminations. There are at least two pivots on which matters turn — on the one hand the almost complete reversal of the rapprochement between the Afghan and Pakistan governments that was attendant on the election of President Ashraf Ghani; and on the other the death of Mullah Omar. The former development really did look as if it might bear fruit; the latter is proving to be not just a stumbling block but a yawning pit. Those who read Mullah Akhtar Mansoor as a man with peace on his mind when he acceded to the still disputed apex position vacated by Mullah Omar, are shown to have been comprehensively wrong. Mullah Mansoor has now completely ruled out any peace talks as long as there are foreign troops in Afghanistan. This is a serious blow, as President Ghani has signed (which his predecessor refused to do) a number of security pacts with the US and Nato. These allow for 12,000 foreign troops to remain in the country though not in combat roles.

This number is hardly enough to qualify as an ‘occupying force’, a distinction that cuts no ice with Mullah Mansoor. He was equally dismissive in his first Eid message of what he described as “foreign pressure” for peace talks. The solution, he says, is entirely in Afghan hands and the many conflicts that exist countrywide can only be resolved by intra-Afghan “understanding”. This has never worked in the past and Afghanistan has long been at war with itself, notwithstanding foreign interventions over the centuries. Pakistan has offered to host another round of talks, but Mullah Mansoor’s statement scuppers this as well. It won’t matter that Pakistan may be something approaching an honest broker (though with considerably less than a blameless past) as our services have been rejected. It will only be with the revocation of the agreements that talks may go ahead, says Mansoor, placing President Ghani in an invidious position — but the ball is now in his court.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2015.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.