Who Will Be At The Afghan Peace Talks?

Talks With The Taliban Are Inevitable, But Who Will Be At The Table? -- Tony Karon, Time

The fact that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has told the Wall Street Journal he’s held three-way negotiations with the U.S. and the Taliban should come as no surprise: the U.S. has said that within two years it will end its already decade-long military entanglement in Afghanistan’s civil war, and the Taliban is anything but defeated. Indeed, militarily, the U.S. has been spinning its wheels in Afghanistan for years, now, it’s a long-established conventional wisdom that Washington’s best hopes for leaving behind even a modicum of stability require a political settlement with the insurgents. The question being fought out on the ground for the past four years has simply been on what terms a negotiated settlement would be forged, and who would be at the table.

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My Comment: My prediction .... 2012 is going the bloodiest year for U.S./Allied troops, Afghan civilians, and .... of course .... for the Taliban.

And no one is going to show up at the peace table.