The rupture and beyond.

Byline: Afrasiab Khattak

The tweet that many people had feared would come any time during the last one year has come; President Trump has called off US Peace talks with Taliban after a US soldier was killed in a Taliban attack in Kabul. It's too early to understand as to whether Trump's tweet has totally killed the process or there is still room for revival of negotiations in pursuit of a 'better deal'. Ironically President Trump has made the killing of one American soldier the reason for calling off the talks where thousands of innocent Afghan civilians, including women, children and men have lost their lives during the last one year while the so called peace process was going on. But the actual reason for the rupture in the process might be President Trump's frustration with the prolonged and complicated peace process that didn't come up to his expectations of a ' deal ' boosting his internal political standing. Along with that there was growing pressure of the different elements in the US ruling elites, including some military circles and members of Congress, against signing what they called 'a disastrous deal' with Taliban.

But to put the reported rupture in context it's important to point out that a muddled US policy signalling at the withdrawal of US troops 'at any cost' encouraged Taliban's intransigence and alienated the Afghan government. The process remained mostly confined to talks between US and Taliban without a systematic and substantive intra Afghan dialogue and a push for ceasefire that would have given greater credibility to it. In the last few weeks the situation deteriorated so much that not just the Afghan government but the entire state system had to bear the brunt of the onslaught of the insurgents. Taliban in their typical brutal Cold War fashion , not only refused to enter a ceasefire but they were even reluctant to entertain the idea of reducing the level of violence. The murders, kidnappings and tortures by Taliban reached a level where their war strategy acquired greater similarities with that of the IS. But then why wouldn't they remain fixated at the idea of preferring violence over advancing on peace path when they could not get away with taking responsibility of suicide bombing against Afghan civilians as US negotiators nor Pakistani officials had drawn any red lines for them. There can't be a perfect peace process but normally the state players regard renouncing violence and recognizing writ of the state by...