Negotiating With the Taliban

The United States, by double-proxy, is looking to negotiate with the Taliban. The former Afghan regime that hosted al-Qaeda, that regressed Afghanistan to a permanent state of terror and repression, that treated animals better than women and demolished art in the name of spiritual purity, is now being sought after by the United States for negotiations.

To be sure, the Bush administration isn't out there, openly advocating this. It's having its man and puppet in Kabul, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, seek the intercession of Saudi Arabia, which could then seek to persuade the Taliban to go to the negotiating table. But have no illusions. Karzai since 2001 has been an instrument of American policy. He's smart, a Pashtun (like the Taliban) and a tribal elder long connected to southern Afghanistan (unlike the Taliban). He's also terribly weak--a lousy politician who confuses compromise with eternal accommodation, whether those being accommodated are war lords, drug lords or overlords (the United States and NATO).

"But," reports The Times, "But Mr. Karzai said his appeals had failed to yield any talks, and his tone suggested a degree of frustration with the Saudi government for not having acted more decisively. Nor was there any indication that senior Taliban leaders were ready for talks on any grounds that the Karzai government and its Western backers would be likely to accept."

Amazingly, the story made less than a ripple in the America media. Here we are, seeking negotiations with the regime Mr. Bush considers a synonym of al-Qaeda, and The Times puts the story somewhere on an inside page while the rest of the press ignores it in favor of, say, Sarah Palin's admittedly absorbing foreign policy train wrecks. I wonder what she thinks about negotiating with the Taliban. Or do they have a right to privacy?