A lot of media discussion and official effort in Washington, Kabul and Islamabad is spent on the possibility of solving the Taliban war in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Peace talks. But they are almost certain to fail because of a basic flaw. Peace talks only succeed when both sides are convinced that they cannot win the war by military means. That is why US was not interested in peace talks in 2001. Now US has realised that it cannot defeat the Taliban militarily. But Taliban today believe that US has lost the war and they will get the whole Afghanistan after 2014. So why should they compromise for less than complete victory? The answer is that they should not.
The most likely scenario for peace talks is somewhere around 2016. Why be so pessimist? US will withdraw from Afghanistan although it will probably keep some military bases. Then Taliban will launch an all out attack to capture Kabul. If successful, there will be a Taliban government. I think this is highly unlikely but will discuss it later. Most probably there will be a stalemate with some area under control of Taliban and some under Kabul government. When it becomes clear to Taliban that they willl not be able to win the war, they willl finally consider peace talks. It helps that US will not be able to supervise those talks which will be only between Afghans themselves. What kind of final settlement will result is hard to predict, but any peace is better than civil war.
Over the long term, people of Afghanistan will be gradually exposed to mobile phones and satellite TV. These two things result in a fundamental change in the thinking of the people. You can see the result of this Live TV news and SMS revolution in the decline of Pakistan army, the Arab revolutions and the Lokpal bill in India. More and more young people will desire to have a share in the decision-making process. This means democracy, even in Taliban areas. So democracy will come to Afghanistan, but not very soon.
Predictions? Continued US-Taliban stalemate till 2014, Taliban-Kabul stalemate till 2015, peace talks and ceasefire around 2016, local and national democracy in all of Afghanistan 2025. This is as optimistic as I can be.
