If there is to be an end to this war, it has to be brought about by Afghans dealing with each other
One thing should concentrate the minds of parties to the peace talks announced by the Taliban on Tuesday: the very real prospect of the reprise of the civil war in Afghanistan if they fail. The stakes are so high that every symbol matters. That any diplomat, US or Qatari, whose stock in trade is protocol, should have allowed the Taliban to raise their flag in front of a sign declaring the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, appearing as the government in exile, and not expect a reaction from the head of state of the country the US has spent so much effort in buttressing, stretches credulity. For once, Hamid Karzai was not being quixotic in his fury at his chief ally; he was representing what many Afghans felt seeing those pictures. Sacrificing little of substance, the Taliban had been handed a propaganda coup on a plate.
If the most important item in the list that the Taliban presented on Tuesday of what they want to do with their office in Doha was talking to "Afghans", the dialogue that really has to take place is the one between the Taliban and the people they have always referred to as the puppets of the Americans. Moving from that vocabulary to genuine deal-making, if it ever happens, will take care and time. But the dialogue has to be intra-Afghan. That is difficult enough when talking and killing proceeds simultaneously. The talks have been launched after the bloodiest bombing in Kabul for a year. The number of insurgent attacks has increased dramatically. The day Doha went off the rails, Ustad Mohaqiq, an important opposition leader, was assassinated.
It's even more difficult when both the government camp and the Taliban represent coalitions. With well-armed and well-funded commanders who fought the Soviets both inside and outside the Afghan government, the government are not the only people the Taliban should be talking to. On the Taliban side, not everyone in the movement feels or sees the need to talk. Fighters on the ground who have not been consulted and whose memory may not stretch back to the civil war have every reason to think they should fight on. With Nato leaving next year, why snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? And does the Doha political office either represent or have authority over the Haqqani network, the deadliest of the insurgent factions in which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is still thought to have a minority shareholding? Just talking will test the cohesion of the Taliban, let alone when the time comes to making political concessions.
While it is easy to undermine the Doha process, there is not much else on the horizon. Much as Mr Karzai may dislike it, no other country is prepared to host them. This week's announcement that Afghan forces officially had taken control of the security of their country was an elaborately staged bit of theatre. In the last Afghan year, which runs from one March to the next, nearly 1,200 died in battle. The figure for this year is expected to be higher. While the ANSF has improved as a fighting force, it will remain critically dependent on foreign-piloted helicopters, planes, healthcare, bomb disposal, intelligence, heavy artillery – indeed the critical tools of a modern army. The Afghan army is years away from being able to stand on its own, even if it maintains its cohesion.
So, unhappy as he is to have these talks in Qatar, Mr Karzai knows that if he wants to make peace with his "errant brothers", this will be the only route to doing so. The likelihood is that they are too important to walk away from. The US reacted swiftly to Mr Karzai's demand that the sign and the flag be taken down in Doha, because they have given way to him twice this year already, handing over detention operations and banning US special operations forces from operating in a strategic district. It was a sign of how much, after 18 months, they too need the talks. This war has been sustained by a litany of miscalculations, many of them the direct result of foreign generals thinking they can bring peace to Afghanistan. Others have been forged in Kabul itself. If there is to be an end to this war, it has to be brought about by Afghans dealing with each other.