After seven years of war in Afghanistan the unthinkable is being thought, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad Last week, a 50-man tribal council of Pakistani and Afghan leaders in Islamabad called for "negotiations with opposition groups" to end the insurgencies mauling their countries. Asked whether this included the Taliban, Owais Ghani, governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province and head of the Pakistani delegation, was trenchant. "Of course," he said. His is not a lone voice. In September, at the request of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting between Afghan government officials and "former members" of Taliban, including ministers deposed by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Taliban leader Mullah Omar reportedly accepted the Saudi mediation. Karzai says the contacts are "preparation for negotiations". And they have the blessing of his American and NATO backers. Recent statements by Western government officials signify what is the most important policy change in Afghanistan since US-led forces overthrew the Taliban regime and installed Karzai in its place. Gone now is the post-9/11 rhetoric of Afghanistan being the frontline in the "global war on terrorism", where the "extremism" of the Taliban regime was being vanquished by the forces of freedom, democracy and "nation-building". Instead comes an admission that there is no military solution in Afghanistan and that any political solution means talking to the Taliban. "We are not going to win this war," said recently retired British Commander in Afghanistan, Mark Carleton-Smith. And negotiations with the Taliban were "precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this". On 10 October US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said talks with "reconcilable" Taliban would be "part of an exit strategy" from Afghanistan. The reason for the change is obvious. The US and NATO are losing the war in Afghanistan. Diplomats in Kabul says the Taliban controls perhaps 10 per cent of the country and has "influence" in half. Attacks on NATO and US forces are at a six-year peak, incurring a higher death toll than Iraq. And the more foreign soldiers die, the more their armies resort to airpower, shifting the cost of war onto civilians. One American study says 2,300 Afghans have been killed by the US and NATO forces since 2006, 80 per cent by air strikes. For most Afghans the US and NATO are no longer liberators; they are occupiers. There's also the recognition that the Afghan insurgency has grown into a Pakistani one. The so- called Pakistani Taliban control parts of the borderlands with Afghanistan and are extending their reach to Peshawar and Islamabad. Afghanistan has long been a failed state. But the prospect of nuclear-armed Pakistan collapsing sends tremors throughout the region and beyond. It's also clear why the change is happening now. George Bush's tenure in Afghanistan is at a close. On 30 October General David Petraeus became head of the US Central Command, with responsibility for the "greater" Middle East, including Afghanistan and Pakistan. Petraeus won plaudits for reducing violence as head of US forces in Iraq. He hopes to do the same in Afghanistan. But his inaugural trip as Central Command was to Islamabad, on 2 November. Petraeus has said he wanted to separate the Taliban from Al-Qaeda by adopting political strategies aimed at reconciling the former with an Afghan government. He also wants to "leverage" a stake in a stable Afghanistan with neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, India and, say sources, even Iran. Viewed from Islamabad such a revision is welcome. For years Pakistan's army has urged dialogue with the Taliban because of the base it commands among the Pashtun tribes, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. And Pakistan has long argued for an Afghan settlement that enjoys the backing of all its neighbours, not just those preferred by Washington. But it was present relations -- not future reviews -- that were the focus of Pakistani concerns in the meetings with Petraeus. Since August US Special Forces based in Afghanistan have launched 15 missile strikes and one ground raid inside Pakistan in a hunt for Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. A hundred people have been killed, including civilians. The latest blitz was on 31 October when two missile strikes killed 20 people in North and South Waziristan, including, said US officials, a lowly Al-Qaeda commander. The strikes are uncoordinated with the Pakistan army and have been condemned by the government. Petraeus has said nothing about his army's violations of Pakistani territory. America's presidential hopefuls have said plenty. Republican candidate, John McCain, will "speak softly but carry a big stick" when it comes to raids inside Pakistan. And, until recently, Democrat Barack Obama was not even speaking softly. He threatened to send the marines into Pakistan to take out Osama bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda targets if the Pakistan government is "unable or unwilling to act". This adventurism has been tempered a little the closer Obama got to the presidential poll. On 3 November he said: "The most important thing we are going to have to do with respect to Afghanistan is actually deal with Pakistan." Pakistan officials hope such encounters with reality would grow if the Democrat challenger got to the White House. But few are holding their breath. After seven years of failure the Bush administration still couldn't get Afghanistan right, as its last, useless barrages of missiles into Pakistan show.
