RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Guardian:

The US has agreed in principle to release high-ranking Taliban officials from Guantánamo Bay in return for the Afghan insurgents’ agreement to open a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar, the Guardian has learned.

According to sources familiar with the talks in the US and in Afghanistan, the handful of Taliban figures will include Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan.

More controversially, the Taliban are demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund. Washington is reported to be considering formally handing him over to the custody of another country, possibly Qatar.

The releases would be to reciprocate for Tuesday’s announcement from the Taliban that they are prepared to open a political office in Qatar to conduct peace negotiations “with the international community” – the most significant political breakthrough in ten years of the Afghan conflict.

The Taliban are holding just one American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, a 25-year-old sergeant captured in June 2009, but it is not clear whether he would be freed as part of the deal.

“To take this step, the [Obama] administration have to have sufficient confidence that the Taliban are going to reciprocate,” said Vali Nasr, who was an Obama administration adviser on the Afghan peace process until last year. “It is going to be really risky. Guantánamo is a very sensitive issue politically.”

Shouldn’t prisoner releases like, you know, happen at the end of a negotiations, not the beginning?

Just asking.

Be that as it may, I’m sure this “good faith gesture” by the US will be handsomely rewarded. No doubt the Taliban will promise to behave if they are allowed into the Afghan government – for about 24 hours after US troops are gone.

Mullah Omar will have a hard time beating the record of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who betrayed the Sunnis in his government less than 12 hrs after the last combat troops left Iraq. We can only hope that the Taliban wait a decent interval before chasing Hamid Karzai from the presidential palace and establishing their rule once again.