

For years, the Taliban's position about negotiating an end to the decade-long war with Hamid Karzai's government or the United States has been straightforward: U.S. troops have to leave Afghanistan first. While analysts have long speculated that the Talibanisn't really as rigid behind closed doors, its leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, now leaves no doubt. The Taliban is already negotiating with the U.S., Omar confirmed.

The confirmation comes in a long statement Omar released on Monday and translated by Evan Kohlmann's Flashpoint Partners crew. Omar doesn't back away from his demands for a full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He boasts that the Taliban grows more familiar with U.S. military tactics "with the passage of each day," and claims that his forces are "gaining access to hardware which is instrumental in causing greater losses to the enemy" (.PDF) – probably a reference to the downing of the Navy SEAL's Chinook earlier this month.

But despite Omar's flashes of rhetorical belligerence, his message is notable for how it seeds the bed for negotiations that could finally end the war in Afghanistan.

Most significantly, Omar confirms that his lieutenants have already started negotiating with the United States. He refers to "contacts which have been made with some parties for the release of prisoners," a stark contrast with the Taliban's consistent and frequent denials that secretive talks with their adversaries are under way. Omar downplays the prisoner discussions as short of a "comprehensive negotiation," but also signals that the Taliban of 2011, if returned to power, won't be the old Taliban of the 1990s that "monopolize[d]" political power. Conspicuously, Omar doesn't claim that the U.S. has to stop fighting before additional negotiations can proceed.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who's covered the Taliban since its inception, considers the statement something of a watershed. "By acknowledging that there have been contacts with the Americans, Mullah Omar is sending a clear message to his fighters that future political talks are a possibility," Rashid writes,"while signaling to the Americans that he may eventually be prepared to broaden the scope of the dialogue and those already participating in it."

Seen in that light, Omar's boasts of Taliban military success could be a rhetorical gambit allowing him a face-saving way to negotiate: having fought to an advantageous position – after all, the Taliban were routed between 2001 and 2005 – the Taliban now seek to consolidate their gains through diplomacy, ending a long, bloody war on favorable terms. It's worth noting that President Obama cited a similar rationale in June for his drawdown of U.S. troops and openness to peace talks.

Whatever Omar's motivations, the Taliban have managed to sustain a high level of violence in Afghanistan despite the U.S. troop surge. Violence rose 51 percent from spring 2010 to spring 2011 – putting the Taliban in a position where it might credibly claim its military strategy successful in advance of diplomacy.

At the same time, though, the Taliban are responsible for some 90 percent of civilian deaths, according to the United Nations. The backlash from that carelessness might explain why Omar urges his Taliban fighters to "always have a conduct of kindness and tenderness with the common man" in his statement.

As Rashid sees it, "this message seems a hopeful sign that talks and a negotiated settlement to end the war are a possibility." Omar's made his opening. Now it's up to Obama, who still hasn't explain how his military strategy in Afghanistan supports a political settlement to the conflict. And he's got to convince Karzai that Taliban negotiations are in the Afghan president's interest, too: according to the Associated Press, Karzai's government, shut out of a U.S.-Taliban parley, leaked word of the talks, promptly scuttling them. Negotiating with Omar might be difficult – tactically, geopolitically and emotionally – but it's hard to see an alternative to ending the U.S.' longest war.

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps

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