How peace can be achieved in Afghanistan?

Image source: WikiCommons, Photo credit: Sergeant Brandon Aird US Army 

As the date for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan gets nearer, peace and stability still seems a long way off. By the end of 2014, less than two years away, most international combat troops are planning to leave, handing over the responsibility of securing the country to the Afghan National Army (ANA).

Although foreign forces hope to have further weakened the Taliban by the time they depart, reality on the ground seems to suggest that the Taliban will still have the capability to wage war against the Afghan government, who they view as puppets to the United States (US) and are corrupting the country.

Over the last few years their has been an international effort to bring both the Taliban and Afghan government to the negotiating table to discuss how to bring peace and stability, but on every occasion, disagreement or outright rejection by both sides has lead to a stalemate.

The most recent attempt to bring stability to the region was in early February this year when the British Prime Minister David Cameron held peace talks between leaders of Britain, Afghanistan and Pakistan, in a bid to bring stability to the region. Although many issues were discussed, but with out representatives of the Taliban not been present, the future peace and security were not solved.

Unfortunately, I don't think the objectives of the US and NATO to bring stability to Afghanistan and its people will be achieved, especially when any signs of peace talks by both sides seem unlikely in the near future. The Taliban are a disbanded force hiding out in Pakistan waiting to attack foreign and Afghan forces, and when international troops leave, they are likely to regroup and return to Afghanistan in a bid to either remove the Karzai government or take control over some areas of the country.

To bring peace and stability in Afghanistan will involve spending more resources to developing the countries non-existent infrastructure and helping the people, who many are drawn to the Taliban due to the corrupt and incompetent government. The international community also needs to end their interference into Afghan politics which feeds the corruption. Finally, all sides of the conflict, including the Taliban need to meet as equals to discuss how Afghanistan and the wider region can achieve long term peace and stability, if not this conflict could spread into regional civil war.

Another unfortunate truth is that all these solutions are unlikely in the current situation.