Peace for Afghanistan

Now that Pakistan has been formally requested by the visiting Afghanistan's High Council for Peace, to broker peace talks between the Karzai government and the Taliban, the joint Pakistan-Turkey initiative seems to be making progress. No doubt the Council, headed by former Afghanistan President Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, has been in existence for many months, but the Taliban didn't rise to bite the bait.
However, things have been changing since President Karzai's latest visit to Istanbul last month and his willingness to 'welcome' a Taliban office in Turkey. The Taliban seem to be embracing the fact that they should not be seen merely as a part of the problem, they would like to be seen as a part of the solution also. Their stakes in the future of their country were never undeniable, but it was not conceivable for them to join the peace process as long as foreign forces were present.
These forces are still there, but the situation has undergone a qualitative change with President Obama's categorical assurance that American troops would begin pulling out from Afghanistan from July this year. Obviously, in the emerging scenario they couldn't afford to be out of the picture.
But, equally significant, is the fact that Pakistan's role as a neighbour of Afghanistan, and the reality of strong people-to-people historic ties between the two, has of late, come to be discovered by the international community. That there are close contacts between a large segment of Afghan society and the Pakistanis is a reality on the ground, which should not be trivialised only as clandestine cross-border movements.
Also, Pakistan is justifiably interested in a stable, peaceful and economically viable Afghanistan, a stake wrongly interpreted as foreign interference and intervention. The reality is just the obverse of such an impression: Pakistan's lingering apprehensions are that India is exploiting its presence in Afghanistan by garnering anti-Pakistan sentiment in Afghan society. And that it has also set up a number of 'listening posts' on the common Pak-Afghan border in the name of diplomatic outlets.
Now that the international community, particularly the United States, seems to be recognising these fears, the role Pakistan can play in triggering moves leading to a grand national reconciliation in Afghanistan is being encouraged. At the meetings that the visiting Afghan High Council for Peace delegation held with the Pakistani officials, both civilian and military, it was rightly perceived that with the activation of the Taliban office in Turkey, the peace process would get started. There would be an opportunity for both the Afghan government and the Taliban to meet face to face and roll out a mechanism for the peace process.
Who would know better than Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, one of the most important leaders of the Afghan Mujahideen, who defeated the Soviet war machine and thus unleashed forces that ultimately consigned the Soviet Union to the dustbin of history, the role that the Pakistani people played as brotherly neighbours? It would be instructive for the analysts and the regional strategists to comprehend the Pak-Afghan relationship in its wider context of shared values, brotherly coexistence and regional stability than in a narrow perspective that Pakistan is working to evolve an Afghan political force of its liking.
The time has come that the option of a negotiated peace in Afghanistan is given preference over ambition of a war victory.
Over nine long years the history's most powerful military alliance has failed to subdue a ragtag insurgent force, arguably justifying the priority of the peace option. That the United States is planning to send another 1,400 troops to Afghanistan, doesn't sit well with spirit of the times. Of course, the generals always want more war, but how much more of it can be waged in Afghanistan, which after 30 years of conflict is no more a prize to be won by the sword.
Never before, has such a possibility for peace in Afghanistan arisen and it should be exploited to the hilt. President Zardari's statement, issued after his meeting with the Afghan High Council for Peace delegation, merits a second reading. He had said: Pakistan's parliament had adopted a 3D policy - involving dialogue, development and deterrence. But Islamabad would try to achieve its aims through the first two and would resort to the third option only if dialogue failed to produce results.