IN response to President Hamid Karzai’s peace offer to the Taliban at the Peace Jirga held in Kabul recently where he rolled out his programme to lure them off the battlefield, the insurgents responded with a rocket attack and vowed to continue their war against foreign occupiers.

This carefully choreographed gathering of 1,600 delegates tasked with developing a consensus, endorsed Karzai’s push for peace talks, citing the inability of Nato and Afghan forces to bring peace and called on Karzai to seek endorsement from world leaders next month when they come for an international conference.

Karzai got the mandate he was looking for. His Western sponsors also lined up to support the Jirga calling it part of the political process and hoped that in tandem with upcoming military offensive it will help bring Taliban to the negotiating table.

President Obama called the Jirga “an important milestone that America supports”. This reflected a new position that the US now takes publicly, but of which it is shy in practice. The Americans and Karzai are on the same page on the need for peace but differ in approach. The Americans insist on talking to mainstream Taliban from a position of strength which they hope to attain in the battlefield and simultaneously want to weaken the insurgency by inducing Taliban foot soldiers to lay down arms and reintegrating in the Afghan society. Karzai, on the other hand, unsure of the success of this American strategy and military victory, insists on opening a dialogue with mainstream ‘unrepentant’ Taliban to end the war. This creates a dichotomy between their positions which, unless resolved, will erode all chances of reconciliation and peace in the near future.

The Jirga was criticised for being unrepresentative. It would have carried much greater weight if tribal elders and representatives from a cross section of the population, even if they held dissenting views, were also present. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s main rival in last year’s presidential election, declined to attend calling it “a little more than a rubber stamp”. Critics insist Karzai engineered its composition to ensure minimal opposition to his plan by shutting out key opposition figures and the Taliban, who are the main drivers of insurgency. Their absence will make Karzai’s job difficult in resolving the Afghan imbroglio.

The Jirga provided some sort of legitimacy to Karzai after an election that was labelled as fraudulent and helped in casting him as a leader who stood for peace and reconciliation outside the American frame of action.

The Taliban insist on the departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan as a precondition for peace talks and refused to deal with Karzai due to issues of credibility. They are not in a hurry either. They know the time is on their side, they are motivated by a just cause, they are fighting on their own turf and terms, they control bulk of the southern and eastern parts of the country where they are even winning over the Afghan people by providing good governance and the Americans weary of this long irregular warfare are getting drained of resources and patience. They are, therefore, willing to wait out their adversary, believing their victory to be a matter of time.

A reality check in this backdrop has apparently convinced Karzai that the Americans will pull out of Afghanistan sooner rather than later, leaving his country in a mess. “Karzai told me that he can’t trust the Americans to fix the situation here,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul who did not want to be named. Karzai is conscious that Taliban will remain key players in the country’s post-American political dispensation and therefore his only viable option is to make peace with them and other stakeholders. Karzai has also come to realise that cordial relations with Pakistan, against whom he has been leading a tirade of allegations until recently, will not only be inevitable but in Afghanistan’s best interests. The two countries share a long, sensitive and restive border, with Pashtun tribes straddling both sides, and Pakistan can play a key role in bringing about this reconciliation, an opportunity that the Karzai government should not fritter away.

Karzai’s brother, Wali Karzai, secretly met Mullah Baradar — the Taliban second-in-command, before his arrest in Karachi, according to a senior Afghan official. Karzai’s men are also talking with Gulbadin Hekmatyar, Hizb-e-Islami leader and a Taliban ally. Hekmatyar is more of a power seeker than an ideologue. His group, operating in northeastern Afghanistan, lacks teeth on the battlefield and doesn’t contribute much to the insurgency.

Karzai’s efforts to seek peace with Taliban are supported by most of his fellow Pashtun leaders who insist that talks with the Taliban leadership, and with Pakistan, whom Taliban respect in spite of Pakistan’s collaboration with the Americans, are critical. Karzai cannot afford to ignore their advice for fear of losing their support, as most fighting is taking place in Pashtun areas.

But Karzai’s association with the Americans and the Northern Alliance stands in the way. His rocky relations with the Americans in recent months, including his threat to join the Taliban, could well have been triggered by his desire to sound conciliatory towards the insurgents and make a common cause with them.

Karzai’s dismissal of two very influential members of his administration — Interior Minister Hanif Atmar and National Security Chief Amrullah Saleh, on the grounds of security lapse leading to attack on the peace Jirga, are being interpreted as a move towards reducing the influence of Northern Alliance in his administration and creating an environment conducive for engaging Taliban and Pakistan by appointing his confidants instead. Both these officials were also very close to the US administration and Nato officials in Afghanistan.

About Atmar, who held three key cabinet posts, a US military official said that he and Karzai had clashed in recent months over latter’s reconciliation efforts and important police appointments. “Atmar disagreed with the reintegration of the Taliban into the police and the army,” the official said. “He had some problems with it, and, frankly, we agreed with him.”

Saleh, Afghan intelligence chief since 2004, had a cozy relationship with the CIA since the 1990s. His departure will be viewed as a setback within CIA. A former US intelligence official disclosed Saleh’s disagreement with Karzai over release from detention of Taliban sympathisers who could not be prosecuted for want of evidence, to demonstrate his willingness to negotiate with the insurgents.

An ethnic Tajik, Saleh was an aide to the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, commander of Northern Alliance. Saleh did not support the peace Jirga, calling it “a victory for the Taliban” and favoured a hard-line approach to negotiations with the Taliban and Pakistan.

Saleh is a staunch critic of Pakistan and went overboard in blaming it for supporting the Taliban, a line used by the Northern Alliance, which has close ties to India. As Karzai now prepares to reach out to Taliban, he will have to seek Pakistan’s help because the Taliban have strong bonds with Pashtun tribes in Pakistan’s border region. With Saleh calling the shots, Pakistan would have found it difficult to respond positively.

Karzai may have seen Saleh as an obstacle in his efforts to talk to Taliban. “Intelligence has a very important role in reconciliation,” said Khalid Pashtun, a lawmaker. “Saleh was not the right person for this job. No Taliban would ever trust this man”.While the Americans struggle with their strategy in Afghanistan, Canada and Netherlands will begin withdrawing troops this summer. Given the British government’s huge financial crunch it may not be far behind. Clearly, the Americans do not have the stomach for an indefinite involvement and might choose to quit in haste one more time, leaving the country in a flux. This would prove not only disastrous for Afghanistan but also create a grave security threat for the region — something not in the American interest either.

For Karzai it would be critical to get the upcoming international conference to endorse his peace plan. If he can persuade Taliban to settle for peace in exchange for American withdrawal, the proposal should merit serious consideration. An enabling environment needs to be created and the international community owes it to the Afghan people to make this happen. On his part, Karzai will have to be objective and stop playing in the hands of his handlers.