Imran's charisma could help bring peace in Afghanistan

The "Afghan endgame" - they've been calling it that for at least a decade - is good for a fair bit of irony if not much else. First Pakistan was forever the bad guy because of its connections with, indeed influence over, the Taleban. We used to call it 'alleged' influence in the local press, since we had cut the umbilical cord with the Taleban immediately after US President Bush's "with us or against us" ultimatum, hadn't we? Why else, as Musharraf kept asking Bush and Blair every time accusations of ISI-Taleban wheeling and dealing came up, would we expose all their ammo dumps so you could take them out on the first day of the war?
That, actually, was what convinced the Taleban that we had really dumped them, and led to anti-army sermons from pro-Taleban clerics in mosques up and down the country; and subsequently our own little never-ending war against terrorism that has taken upwards of 80,000 thousand lives so far.
Now that same 'alleged' influence has placed us right back in the lap of Uncle Sam. And since we know deep inside, our establishment knows well at least, that we have at best limited influence over the Taleban, we're riding on the faint hope that field commanders directing Afghanistan's snowballing insurgency hold us in such high esteem as the Americans suspect they have all along. Which, as we know again, is more Fox News than fact, though of course not entirely untrue either. It's quite complicated.
But Pakistan's bit in all this is not nearly as ironic as the American desperation to talk to the Taleban. Anybody with even a slightly strong memory will remember how George W. Bush stood tall and rejected the idea of ever talking to them. "We don't negotiate with terrorists," he thundered when the Pakistanis suggested that separating Al Qaeda and the Taleban might be a better way of approaching the war.
Now look at them. Bending over backwards to negotiate an exit. To the point of humiliating the same Afghan government that they paid billions to set up and bolster. Just like this week, when Kabul announced talks with the Taleban in some European country within a fortnight. You can bet that Kabul didn't just make a solo announcement. There must have been some consultation with the Americans beforehand. Yet the Taleban, once again, just threw cold water on the whole thing making everybody from Ashraf Ghani (Afghan president) to Zalmay Khalilzad (US special envoy) look silly. All this irony stems from the war's utter failure. The American army, Afghan army, Nato and International Security Assistance Force threw every gadget, bomb and counter insurgency strategy at a rag-tag militia and still couldn't win.
And, please don't forget, the best facilities the Taleban had were AK-47 rifles, outdated (and easy to monitor) wireless communication systems and primitive field medical facilities at best. Still they've been steadily taking more and more territory since at least 2006. So now everybody wants to get together and simply ask the insurgents to end the war. And, seriously, the best they can do is say please since they're simply out of 'or else' type of threats.
That's where Pakistan comes in. The trouble is that despite agreeing on most important things, the Taleban simply refuse to recognise or parley with the legitimate Afghan government. And since they just didn't listen when everybody else said please, perhaps Imran Khan's personal charisma will make the difference.
And how much irony will Imran appreciate about the matter when a certain cleric Baradar makes his way to Islamabad in a few days to hear Imran more or less repeat what Zalmay has been saying for the last year? Baradar spent 10 long years in a dark Pakistani prison, after all, and shall now be greeted at the PM house as an honoured guest. Now he's supposed to reset the insurgency's long held position, backed by steady on-ground gains paid for in blood, just because Imran thinks it's the right thing to do?
Yet perhaps the biggest irony awaits us if the Taleban do listen and finally wrap up the war, because that's what the Americans are itching for before they can formally declare victory and go home. Fine way to win a trillion-dollar war that took thousands of lives and displaced millions, isn't it, especially after a negotiated return of the Taleban to Kabul almost two decades after being bombed out of it?
Shahab Jafry is a senior journalist based in Lahore