THE Afghan Taliban attack on Ghazni city is another indication of the increasing disarray inside Afghanistan and US policy circles. While the numbers are in dispute, it appears to be fairly clear that hundreds of people have already died in the fighting. Not only is the city of Ghazni itself under attack, the vast majority of the province’s rural districts are either disputed or under the control of the Taliban. If the latter do succeed in capturing the whole province, it would be the first time they controlled one in the 17-year-old US-led war in the country. Given the proximity of Ghazni to Kabul and its connecting the capital city to Kandahar in the south, the Afghan security forces, in coordination with US troops, may eventually succeed in a counter-offensive to at least push the Taliban outside the city limits and secure the highway again. But the Taliban offensive has already underlined the need for a more urgent dialogue process among the warring sides in Afghanistan.

The endless war in Afghanistan has only one solution: a political peace process. Hawks in Afghanistan and US policy circles may use the latest Taliban attack to argue that now is not the time to engage in dialogue with an enemy that, if still far from winning the war, has battlefield momentum on its side. Similarly, inside Taliban circles the continuing weakness of the Afghan security forces and the relatively limited effect of the aerial bombardment that the US has militarily limited itself to could be reasons to argue against immediate dialogue. Why engage in talks now when dialogue later — at a stage when the Afghan government is weaker still and US political will to sustain an endless war virtually nil — could win the Taliban greater concessions in a post-war framework for the country? But the logic of the hawks is only to perpetuate war in a country that has already suffered near-continuous conflict for two generations.

The Taliban may be able to contest half of Afghanistan’s districts and control swathes of the countryside, but the state supported by the outside world is not on the verge of collapse. Neither are the Afghan government and its military forces, with the limited foreign assistance at their disposal, going to decisively win the war against the Taliban. Protracted conflicts are immensely complicated and the path to peace anything but easy. A short-lived Taliban ceasefire earlier this year demonstrated that the leadership is still capable of enforcing discipline while the joyous reaction of ordinary Afghans showed that the country is looking for and willing to make peace. Some details of preliminary talks between the US and the Taliban have emerged in recent weeks. The Afghan government does not appear to want to be a spoiler at the moment. It may only be half a chance, but all sides must grasp the possibility of peace eagerly.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2018