As parties to the conflict in Afghanistan plot their next move following the international conference in London, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have come under focus as the two countries best placed to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table.

However, there is a crucial difference in the roles that Afghanistan and the US and its allies want to assign to Islamabad and Riyadh. While Saudi Arabia has been requested to mediate between the government of President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, Pakistan among other neighbours of Afghanistan was asked to back the Afghan peace process. Islamabad was hoping to play an important role in resolving the Afghan conflict through its contacts with the Mulla Mohammad Omar-led Taliban, but it seems it isn’t seen as a neutral player by the parties to the dispute and, therefore, unacceptable as mediator.

Saudi Arabia didn’t offer its services as a mediator and even then Karzai urged Saudi King Abdullah to guide and assist the Afghan peace process. It is not the first time that Riyadh’s services are being sought not only by Karzai, but also some of the Western powers for leading the peace process. Its possession of Makkah and Madina, two of Islam’s holiest places, and its wealth derived from oil have placed Saudi Arabia in a unique and powerful position in the Islamic world. The Saudis, however, won’t get involved in the complex task of mediation unless they are assured of cooperation by all sides. This was the reason for Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal to put two conditions before his country agreed to mediate. One, he wanted an official request from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia. Second, he wanted the Taliban to give up their ties to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The first condition will be met soon when President Karzai visits Saudi Arabia in keeping with the already announced plans and officially requests King Abdullah to guide the peace process.

It is the second condition that will determine if any peace initiative can be undertaken. It would be unrealistic to expect the Taliban to abandon bin Laden after having sacrificed everything, including their rule and lives, for his sake and those of his al-Qaeda colleagues. This would require a fundamentalist shift in Taliban policy from being an al-Qaeda ally to becoming a partner for peace with Saudi Arabia and eventually sharing power with Karzai. This cannot happen just like that because the Taliban know they are being courted after having been shunned on account of their exploits on the battlefield. Besides, why would the Taliban accept this condition just for joining the Saudi-led peace process that would primarily promote the interests of the US and its allies? In fact, the Taliban aren’t even ready to talk to Karzai, who in their eyes is no more than a US ‘puppet’. They continue to demand withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan and insist that this matter is non-negotiable.

There have been no known contacts between the Saudi government and the Taliban during the last eight years. Those contacts were broken shortly after 9/11 and before the October 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan when Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, brother of Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, visited Kandahar to meet Taliban leader Mulla Omar in a final effort to persuade him to expel bin Laden from Afghanistan. The meeting ended on a bitter note when Mulla Omar told the visiting Saudis that the Taliban cannot act dishonourably by delivering bin Laden and other Muslim guests who had sought refuge in Afghanistan to their enemies.

As for Pakistan’s role, it was interesting to hear Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, his ministry’s spokesman Abdul Basit and others pleading that Islamabad were in a unique position to promote peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. They said Pakistan had approached the Afghan Taliban at all levels of leadership and was able and ready to involve them in peace talks. While it is a good idea to help establish peace in Afghanistan, it was strange for Pakistan to argue in support of talks and reconciliation with the Afghan Taliban at a time when it is waging an all-out war within its borders to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban. More military operations are possible and those ongoing have no timeline. Pakistan, it appears, is still looking for temporary gains instead of formulating a long-term policy in line with its future needs and its place in the world. The Taliban, whether Afghan or Pakistani, have the same worldview and are spiritually and strategically linked to each other. Return of the Afghan Taliban to power, whether by force or some peace process, would definitely raise the spirits of the Pakistani Taliban and likeminded jehadis and thus can lead to fallout on the situation in Pakistan.

While on the question of the ‘fallout’, one cannot help but recall the amusing statement by Foreign Minister Qureshi that Pakistan wanted that there shouldn’t be any fallout of the ‘surge’ of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Except for the minister, perhaps every person in Pakistan is aware of the Afghan fallout on Pakistan for the last three decades and is pretty sure that the ‘surge’ would further destabilise the country. There is bound to be fallout on Pakistan when the world’s most powerful armies are involved in the longest war in the US and NATO history in neighbouring Afghanistan. And the fallout is to be expected because the US and NATO consider Afghanistan and Pakistan’s tribal areas as theatres of the same war and have thus deliberately named their strategy to deal with the challenge as Af-Pak.

Those offering peace dialogue or ‘reintegration’ to the Afghan Taliban seem to be ignorant of the motivation that drives the young militants to take on the world’s only superpower. Though there are definitely fighters in Taliban ranks who may be fighting for reasons other than faith and a higher cause, the idea that most of them could be bought-off is absurd. The terms “Taliban for sale” and “pay for peace” are good for creating a dramatic effect, but such words don’t explain the reality. It is possible that the Taliban would face big human and material losses and also lose control of their strongholds as the ‘surge’ intensifies and money is doled out to recruit anti-Taliban militias, but none should expect them to surrender, sell-off their souls en masse or agree to a peace and power-sharing accord that clashes with their stated goals and principles.

As the Afghan peace process in its present shape is a non-starter, one should expect the opening of one more source of corruption in Afghanistan. The $500 million pledged for this effort is quite a huge amount and it could be doubled if the early results of the campaign to buy-off Taliban fighters show promise. There is every possibility that a substantial number of armed men introduced as Taliban fighters would be paraded before the media and declared as the ones willing to lay down arms in return for jobs and money. Many of them could be fake Taliban and the weapons they surrender would be old and largely unusable. Those familiar with the failed Japan-funded demobilisation and disarmament programme that was supposed to rid Afghanistan of gunmen and weapons would tell you no project could be executed without allowing for some corruption in a country that is the second most corrupt in the world and where according to conservative estimates almost $2.5 billion are paid in bribes annually.

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai @yahoo.com