What’s the big question looming about the way forward?

This war started largely as an American war. But in the second decade of it, increasingly this became a very localized Afghan-on-Afghan war — this became relatives on two different sides, on the government side and on the insurgent side.

The big question is, “What is the process for undoing this hatred, this animosity that’s been so localized?” The fear is there’s not going to be enough time and patience for that process. That’s going to require a lot of hand-holding and attention and time. Does the U.S. have the patience to stick around for that to complete in a proper way?

You were born in Kabul, and have covered this war for the past seven years. As a reporter, what is it like to imagine peace?

The whole past year of focusing on the potential for a resolution to the conflict has been refreshing in a lot of ways. The past seven years, a good chunk of it, I was reporting on a story that was a bleeding stalemate.

Every day, every week, we were reporting on death after death after death. It was frustratingly, heartbreakingly hopeless. It’s felt like I’ve been an obituary writer, almost — we were finding human stories to remind people that, hey, these 50 dead all had hopes and dreams and lives.

The past year, there was this opening that finally this conversation could turn. As a reporter, part of me almost feels like it’s returning to a normal reporting job: politics, diplomacy, deals. The past week gave me an idea of what reporting on Afghanistan would be like if it were a more normal place.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. — Melina

Thank you

To Mark Josephson, Eleanor Stanford and Chris Harcum for the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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