US officials support Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai's
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
call for engaging the Taliban through Pakistain, reported on Sunday amid speculations that Washington and Islamabad are once again warming up to each other after unprecedented tensions.
We don't have an empty scrotum graphic, but that's only because this is a family publication...
Instead of dealing with "shadow intermediaries", Mr Karzai wants to pursue reconciliation "in a way that's more focused with established interlocutors, which the government of Pakistain would be one. We welcome that", a senior US official told the Post.
Diplomatic sources in Washington told Dawn that as the first concrete step towards engaging Pakistain, the United States was encouraging Afghanistan to convene a meeting of a joint peace commission, established in June.
If held, the meeting would enable Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
and the heads of the Mighty Pak Army and intelligence services to meet their Afghan counterparts and discuss all major issues.
The diplomatic sources pointed out that in an interview to an Afghan television channel on Sunday; US Special Representative Marc Grossman also underlined the need for Pakistain, Afghanistan and the United States to work together against terrorism.
"What we continue to talk about is the need for engagement between the United States and Pakistain. And if I might add, also the need for engagement between Pakistain and Afghanistan," he said. After talks in Kabul, Mr Grossman is heading to Islamabad for further talks on this and other issues. The Washington Post noted that the Afghan president's effort mirrored the US approach towards Pakistain: negotiating with the Taliban with Islamabad's help while publicly chiding it for its contacts with the cut-thoats.
As Pakistain's ISI was busy brokering a recent meeting between US officials and the hardline Haqqani faction, the US military chief publicly accused it of using the group as its "veritable arm".
Similarly, Mr Karzai, while seeking to engage Pakistain to negotiate with the Taliban, also accused Islamabad of fanning troubles in Afghanistan.
US experts, who spoke to various media outlets, said that behind this public criticism lay the cold realisation that there could be no peace in Afghanistan if Pakistain was kept out.
But a recent report by the government-funded US Institute of Peace (USIP) pointed out that the Paks were not sure how the Americans wanted to shape the end-game in Afghanistan. "Pak elite believe that the US would continue to push the Pakistain military to `do more` to stamp out jihad boy sanctuaries while it tries to open up direct channels for talks with the Taliban -- with an eye on reducing reliance on Pakistain`s security establishment in the political reconciliation process," the report noted.
Paks appear particularly concerned about a strategic partnership agreement that President Karzai signed with India during his visit to New Delhi last week.
The Paks fear that the agreement gives India a centre stage in the Afghan end-game and places it in a position to stir troubles in the bordering areas of Pakistain as well. But the USIP report noted that Pak policy-makers also faced a dilemma on the Afghan end-game.
They believed that "on the one hand, US military operations in Afghanistan are ... causing an internal backlash in terms of militancy and deepening the state-society rift within Pakistain. On the other hand, Pak policy elite appreciate that a premature US troop withdrawal would lead to added instability in Afghanistan", the report said.
"Pakistain has tried to balance these two competing aspects by providing significant counter-terrorism and strategic support to the US while also refusing to target the Afghan Taliban and other Pakistain-based groups operating in Afghanistan," the report added.