There are signs - although seemingly contradictory - that the Afghan situation is ahead of a major change, after all the sides concerned with the Afghan affairs, especially the countries that are militarily involved in this country and the aid donor countries, made sure that proceeding with the current strategy is not only pointless, but represents the shortest way toward huge loss and disaster. Tomorrow, London hosts an international conference on Afghanistan following wide-ranging meetings in Ankara, during which a tripartite Afghan-Pakistani-Turkish Summit was held. In London, just like what occurred in Ankara, the discussion focuses on how to pull out and withdraw without allowing Mullah Omar to return to his Afghan “Emirate” on the debris of all what the American and NATO interference did, at the level of consolidating a new democratic regime and on the debris of billions of dollars and thousands of victims. General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan, announced that increasing his country's forces aims at weakening Taliban, while British General Nick Carter, the commander of forces in Helmand, announced that preparations are underway to wage a broad assault in the region on the strongholds of Mullah Omar fighters. In parallel, President Barack Obama will ask the Congress for funds amounting to 14 billion dollars, allocated to train the Afghan Army and police forces and prepare them to take over security in more areas that were liberated from the influence of Taliban, in the framework of the US withdrawal plan which is supposed to be implemented next year. This means that the NATO forces will seek to intensify military action against the fighters of Mullah Omar in their strongholds, and will provide immense support for the government forces, in order to manipulate any defeat for Taliban for the purpose of consolidating the central authority. But such manipulation remains at risk in the absence of a broad political base for this authority and in the areas where the influence and hegemony of Taliban might have declined. At the political level, it seems that the United States and Britain – despite their support for the results of the recent presidential elections that renewed the mandate of President Hamid Karzai – started to pave the way for announcing displeasure with the outcome of his mandate which has so far failed to attract Afghans to power. While British Foreign Minister David Miliband speaks about corruption within the Afghan Government, US Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry did not hesitate to consider that Karzai “is no longer an appropriate strategic partner,” according to a letter he sent to the administration, one that stirred up much controversy at the time. According to the ambassador, Karzai still “refuses to bear responsibility for any sovereign burden in the fields of defense, power, and development.” Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun [of the Popalzai tribe], still relies on the alliance of tribal minorities in his ruling, and was not able to attract a Pashtun base to empower himself for many reasons, including the historical infiltration caused by Taliban in their ranks, and their transboundary affiliation with Pakistan, its extremist movements, and Al-Qaeda. Here lies the Afghan predicament. Neither the military action, nor the immense aid or reconciliation ideas led to the required infiltration under Karzai's mandate. This is where the idea of openness to the moderates in Taliban or Pashtun sides that aligned with Mullah Omar comes. The only condition set by the Americans and their NATO allies to define the moderate sides within Taliban is the lack of association with Al-Qaeda. Therefore, the battle might be shifted off Taliban in Afghanistan, after US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discovered that this group is part of the Afghan social fabric. Thus, we should focus on where to capture part of this fabric. This need was early realized by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Pashtun Hizb-i-Islami [Islamic Party], who has long struggled against the Soviets and assumed key roles in all the stages of the Afghan crisis and who was a former ally for Pakistan, then Iran, and then Taliban. Ever since his conflict with Tehran to which he resorted with the fall down of Taliban, back then when he returned to his country, he has started preparing himself for the role the Americans and their allies expect from a strong Pashtun figure who enjoys indisputable power and publicity among the Pashtuns. Once he announced the end of his alliance with Taliban and Al-Qaeda, he allowed 19 members of his party to be members in the Afghan Parliament and allowed a leader in Kabul's branch to take over a ministry in the new government of Karzai. He supported this new openness to the government by an initiative vis-à-vis the foreign forces, one that abandons “Jihad against foreign occupation forces” and rests on a truce and on withdrawing these forces to bases inside Afghanistan before their [complete] withdrawal, according to a timetable, as well as forming a temporary government that prepares for elections in a year. Will the previous Taliban member Hekmatyar be the life vest for the United States and the NATO forces to leave the Afghan predicament, whether by conducting reconciliation with Karzai or through direct negotiations with him, ones that render him the most powerful man in Afghanistan?
