Peace Overtures to the Taliban: Widening Rift Between the US and Its European Partners in Afghanistan.

While the international intervention in Afghanistan has entered its seventh year, few would deny that the NATO's maiden operation outside Europe has run into deep trouble. The US-led coalition's combat-cum-reconstruction efforts evidently suffered from a perilous drift; the lack of strategic coherence and coordination became palpable and growing dissonance over a series of issues between the US on one hand and its European NATO partners on the other came into open during the last two years. In this backdrop, the move on the part of the President Karzai to open a dialogue with the resurgent Taliban and supported by several European states, especially Britain, which many perceived as an act of frustration and desperation if not abject surrender, further underlined the perceptional differences between Washington and its European allies on the seeming stalemate in Afghanistan. This paper first brings out the cracks within the international coalition; next the arguments of the supporters of engaging the Taliban in a dialogue are recounted; thirdly, the hazardous implications of this course of action are examined. The concluding section suggests that the proposed talks were a premature move; indeed, any step on the part of the international community to leave the war-torn country to its fate at this juncture would amount to a breach of trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]