Come, let's talk

This, from the man whose government didn't quite warm up to the idea of Pakistan's peace accords with the militants in its own tribal areas? And the peace accords that the Afghan and US governments were critical of were the ones made with local, indigenous tribesmen, so that they could expel foreigners and maintain peace. Mr Karzai, on the other hand, is going straight in to the belly of the beast and offering a deal to Mullah Omar himself, the much maligned nemesis of the NATO and the ISAF forces in Afghanistan. The US has opposed Mr Karzai's idea, the British have supported it. This was but expected; Southern Afghanistan, the where-its-at of the insurgency, is a predominantly British headache now. The British, who have stared into the abyss, would know that there really is no alternative to this.

The one-dimensional vilification of the Taliban by the US overlooks the fact that the student militia, later transgressions notwithstanding, grew out of the vacuum that had appeared in the lawless war-torn country. The movement continues to have a measure of support. And, as the pundits even in the American defence establishment have realized, you can't win an asymmetric guerrilla war without winning over the hearts and minds of the people themselves.