Is The Taliban Open To Negotiations With The US?

Pakistanis attended a funeral for a victim of a United States missile attack just outside the North Waziristan region. Photo from Cervantes.

From Fabius Maximus:

The record is unclear – have we’ ever tried to negotiate with the Taliban? The 9-11 report and Saddam’s fruitless attempts to placate the US suggest that President Bush had decided to invade both nations, and his only concern was to erect a suitable scaffolding of lies to support the invasions.

Now things might be changing, as Stratfor reports in “Afghanistan: A Taliban Opening to the U.S., 11 November 2009 (free registration required):

Two recent statements suggest the Afghan Taliban movement is working hard to distinguish itself from al Qaeda and from the Pakistani Taliban, and that the Taliban could be ready to negotiate with the United States.

Read more ....

My Comment: My dream is that one day I can write like Fabius Maximus. English is my third language .... and while it is no excuse, I still wish I can write like Fabius Maximus.

As usual FM asks an excellent question ... is the Taliban open to negotiations with the US? The only real historical precedent that we can analyze that may give us some insight into answering this question occurred during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the subsequent war in the 1980s.

In that war the mujaheddin did not negotiate. The Soviet puppet regime in Kabul tried on numerous occasions to reach an accommodation .... but they all failed. As far as the mujaheddin were concerned .... it was victory or death .... and they stuck to that policy, especially when they felt that they were winning the war.

The Taliban are winning the war today .... and I suspect that this is why they are continuing to expand this conflict until they have achieved victory or death. We (in turn) should not be surprised .... many of us are now realizing that we are repeating history, and that unless a new strategy is conceptualized, a Taliban victory will be only a matter of time.