Obama's only way out of Afghanistan is to talk

The Afghan conflict has reached a stalemate. The US knows the Taliban are its route to withdrawal

Tariq Ali
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 January 2012

"....So, lithium reserves notwithstanding, it has become more and more difficult to sustain the Nato presence in the country. The 42 countries engaged in the occupation can no longer help the embarrassing marionette in Kabul to dance a good show. And a quick-fix election organised at high cost by western PR firms, essentially for the benefit of western public opinion, no longer does the trick.

In essence both sides confront a stalemate. The insurgents cannot win militarily, but they have made a Nato victory impossible. The US could only win the "just war" by destroying the country and wiping out a million or two Afghans – but that is politically unfeasible. Negotiations are the only possible route to a settlement and US withdrawal from the country.

What we are witnessing is the end of a disastrous occupation that achieved even less than the Russian version did during the 1980s. Within the United States, realist critics of imperial adventures have been warning of hubris for some time. John Mearsheimer, avoiding euphemisms of every sort, pointed out acutely in The Tragedy of Great Power Politics that the foreign policy of his country was devoted not to good governance or liberal values, let alone peace – but to the defence of US interests against those of other states. And it was this fact that would determine the politics of the 21st century......"