From the Taliban end, the nine rounds of secret peace talks held in Qatar for nearly a year didn’t at all look China Hanging vacuum bags like readying the country for peace. This is because it avoided playing a political hand in deference to the US wish to do nothing that might displease Islamabad. This would have been to formally conclude an agreement, and get Mr Ghani to endorse it — against his own wishes and the wishes of most Afghans. This is the crucial difference between the Taliban or Pakistan era, and present-day Afghanistan. Bomb blasts and complex assaults by the Taliban inside Afghanistan were the order of the day for the past two years.Just days before the projected signing, the Taliban took credit for two massive car bomb attacks in Kabul. 

This placed it on the same side as the Taliban and Pakistan.The US-Taliban deal is off for now, but the Americans can backtrack. The Taliban saw no need to win hearts and minds. He also revealed that secret preparations were on to separately host Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Camp David near Washington this week. If Washington now gives whole-hearted backing to holding the Afghan presidential election due later this month, a new domestic Afghan dynamic in favour of republicanism can be rekindled.It was evident for some time that the US wanted to exit Afghanistan for domestic reasons, leaving behind a skeletal counter-terrorism force.It was evident for some time that the US wanted to exit Afghanistan for domestic reasons, leaving behind a skeletal counter-terrorism force.Yet, the Trump administration had gone along, doing peace talks in secret, for which the foundation was laid during the Obama administration. It regards as an American "puppet” any government in Afghanistan brought into being through an election process under the country’s post-Taliban constitution and given sanction by the Constitution Jirga. Many across the world, other than Pakistan, the Taliban’s Arab backers and Pakistan’s "iron friend” China, will breathe a sigh of relief. It was clear the Taliban will fill the vacuum as the Americans retreat. 

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