The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan said Friday that an earlier attempt to reconcile with Taliban figures willing to respect a new Afghan constitution would have saved lives and weakened insurgents, hastening the peace process in Afghanistan.
Speaking on Friday in London, James Dobbins said an earlier move might have prevented a Taliban resurgence and would have lessened its force.
“I think we made several mistakes back in 2002,” he said about the era just after the successful U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in response to the 9/11 attacks on the United States, which were planned by al-Qaida leaders based inside Afghanistan. “I think it was probably a mistake to delay a serious attempt at reconciliation until 2011.”
Dobbins, who is the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, spoke after talks with Britain’s Foreign Office. He said there should have been an early effort to integrate Taliban members who were “willing to come over, to operate under the new dispensation, willing to accept the constitution as it was evolving at the time. Those initiatives would have been better if they had been taken earlier.”
The envoy also said the 2003 invasion of Iraq shifted U.S. attention away from Afghanistan at a crucial time, giving the Taliban time to regroup and raise funds.
“The decision to move onto Iraq ultimately made it more difficult to turn attention back to Afghanistan once the situation there deteriorated,” he said. “So by 2005, 2006 it was clear that much more needed to be done in Afghanistan and we simply didn’t have the resources to do so.”
Despite these setbacks, he said Afghanistan has made progress in recent years.
Hopes for peace talks have diminished with the Taliban refusing to talk directly to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his government or its representatives. Attempts to open talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban in June ended in failure.
Earlier this week, officials announced that Afghanistan would send a delegation to Pakistan soon in an attempt to open channels with the Taliban toward a peace deal.
Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, a group formed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2010 to pursue a political settlement with the Taliban, will send a delegation to meet with former deputy Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the president’s office said. No date was given for the trip.
Critics question the likelihood of success, given the Pakistanis’ fears that a stable Afghanistan would align with their historic enemy, India.
The Taliban is also in no hurry to negotiate, presumably convinced that time is on its side. In recent months it has exploited the international coalition’s drawdown to regain territory it previously lost. And the militant group has repeatedly balked at negotiating with Karzai, who is nearing the end of his final term in office, or the High Peace Council, which it refers to as lapdogs of the Americans.
Nor is it clear that Baradar can deliver. After three years in prison, he may be out of touch with many younger generation Taliban leaders. And while Islamabad says he is free to go where he wants since his release, he is reportedly closely monitored by Pakistan security agencies, further undercutting his credibility with militants.
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