As some one with first hand experience of raw violence in Afghanistan such as rocket attacks and suicide bombings during a brief sojourn in post conflict Kabul years ago, I think your editorial (Chasing Peace, the Hindu dt. 20 March 2021) errs on the side of naivete when it speaks of “extracting compromises” from Taliban. I had responded to a like editorial one year ago ( Big, Bad Deal in the Hindu dt. 2 March 2020) that dealing with the Taliban was like trying to do business with the devil himself; it would be akin to the “Ethiopian changing his skin” indeed if the Taliban can now be made to see reason in an international effort to bring an end to the “forever war” in this blighted country.In the context of talk about unity, strangely it is only the Taliban that can stand up to and subdue the disparate tribal entities scattered throughout the country; that it is ideologically cast in the mould of Al qaeda and the IS and is thereby quite outside the pale of a normal civil dispensation, is therefore an unmitigated tragedy. To my mind, the only way to contain it, is to continue having a potent international force on the ground. The wily Hamid Karzai with his talent for “running with the hare and hunting with the hounds” survived for years at the helm.The current crop of Afgan leaders lacking such flexibility is somewhat vulnerable.
One wonders whether Ahmad Shah Massoud would have made a difference.
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