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Taliban talks: Folly or fortune?
Vague stories concerning contacts between the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and various insurgent factions are hardly new, but those which began to proliferate again this week contained a new twist: That US and NATO forces are actively facilitating them.
To say that these stories should be taken with a large grain of salt is to vastly understate the case. First, no one claims that these are anything more than preliminary discussions, and no one has suggested that they even remotely approach the level of serious negotiations. Second, no one appears willing, or perhaps even able, to say who is involved, from either side.
The members of Afghan President Karzai's 70-member "peace council" appear to know less about what is going on than most. "Senior Taliban officials" are engaged in the talks, say some; "people who report to Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura," say others.
Given the high degree of decentralized organization of the Taliban infrastructure, however, and its degree of penetration in large parts of the country, those descriptions could encompass a very large number of people, and include players far removed from the topmost level.