KABUL - The positive reply by Taliban
spokesman Qari Yusouf Ahmadi to the Kabul
government's appeal for dialogue gives peace talks
in Afghanistan a new momentum.
The
government of President Hamid Karzai welcomed the
Taliban's statement, and immediately the United
Nations special representative in Afghanistan, Tom
Koenings, offered the UN's endorsement for the
negotiation process.
Karzai appears
sincere about bringing the Taliban's moderate
leaders into the political
process, which would help the government regain
control over some of the Pashtun-dominated
provinces in southern Afghanistan.
The
idea of negotiating with insurgent groups such as
the Taliban and the Hezb-i-Islami of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar has been an important government policy.
A number of prominent Hezb-i-Islami members gained
senior government positions after rejecting
Hekmatyar's rhetoric against the government and
the presence of coalition forces in the country.
In addition, coalition forces in
Afghanistan have tried on their own to reach out
to the insurgent groups. For instance, the British
military in Afghanistan has been directly involved
in talks with the Taliban and reached a secret
truce with them in Musa Qala district of Helmand
last October.
The making and unraveling of
alliances in Afghan politics is a common practice.
Yesterday's enemies could become today's allies,
and vice-versa. The political faultlines among
major political groups in Afghanistan are not over
ideology anymore. The majority of them favor an
Islamic state, and the secular political groups
are still too insignificant to oppose them. The
absence of national political parties and
political ideologies forces the majority of
Afghans to regroup along ethnic affinities.
The bonds between President Karzai and his
former allies is over. First Vice President Hamad
Zia Massoud and Karzai's former defense minister
Marshal Mohammad Qassim Fahim are publicly
criticizing him. Massoud is also the leader of the
United Front (an alliance of former Northern
Alliance and a few former communist leaders),
which is the main opposition group.
For
the time being, there are two legitimate major
political entities in the country: the United
Front and Karzai's supporters. The third
significant political group is the Taliban, which
remain unlawful because of their militarily
opposition to the government and the presence of
coalition forces in Afghanistan. If they decide to
engage peacefully in the political process, they
will change this political balance.
The
next Afghan presidential election will take place
in 2009. The United Front is struggling to choose
a candidate, but its members will ultimately
overcome their differences. Karzai, without
admitting it, will undoubtedly run again. He knows
that the United Front in the northern provinces
will seriously challenge his leadership, and he
has no choice but to concentrate all of his
efforts in the Pashtun-dominated southern
provinces.
He will be the right candidate
for the majority of Pashtuns if he remains
unchallenged by other strong contenders. There are
serious rumors about potential candidacies of the
former ministers of finance and interior affairs,
Ashraf Ghani and Ali Ahmad Jalili, respectively,
but since they reside outside the country, they
are of lesser threat for Karzai.
In fact,
Afghanistan in 2009 might face two plausible
scenarios. Either the moderate Taliban leaders
join the political process and become a natural
ally for Karzai or the security situation will
worsen and elections will not be able to take
place, at least in the south, which would make
elections elsewhere in the country illegitimate.
Perhaps the Taliban and their foreign
backers understand how fragile the current
political situation is. They know this is the best
time to enter the political process, extract
maximum incentives from coalition countries in
Afghanistan, and become a major power broker
before and after the 2009 elections.
Afghanistan can ill-afford political
infighting at a time when the country needs
leaders capable of building consensus and
compromise. But consensus and compromise are not
familiar notions for Afghan politicians, most of
whom are unwilling to leave their rigid spheres of
self-interest.
Some politicians who claim
to follow the goals of the late Ahmad Shah Masoud,
leader of the Northern Alliance, have already
started to criticize the idea of negotiations with
the Taliban.
Yet Masoud never closed the
door to negotiations with his enemies. During the
Taliban rule in the late 1990s, he met with
Taliban representative in their stronghold in the
town of Maidanshar west of Kabul, spoke twice by
satellite phone with Taliban leader Mullah Omar,
and invited him to accept the will of the people
through a democratic process.
Negotiating
with the Taliban should not be considered an act
of weakness, but rather as giving strength to the
Afghan government. If Karzai concentrates his
efforts on bringing moderate Taliban leaders to
the negotiation table, this will become his legacy
as the first elected president of Afghanistan.
Haroun Mir served more than five
years as an aide to the late Ahmad Shah Masoud,
Afghanistan's former defense minister. He works as
a consultant and policy analyst in Kabul.
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