{"id":330235,"date":"2010-02-17T08:47:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T13:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=76768"},"modified":"2010-02-17T08:47:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T13:47:06","slug":"could-baradar%e2%80%99s-arrest-damage-taliban-reconciliation-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/330235","title":{"rendered":"Could Baradar\u2019s Arrest Damage Taliban Reconciliation Efforts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has a (somewhat disorganized) story<\/a> co-written by its very knowledgeable reporter Carlotta Gall that suggests the arrest of top Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar<\/a> by a U.S.-Pakistani team last week might convince the Taliban that there’s no hope in peace talks with the Karzai government in Afghanistan. <\/span>While there’s a bunch of contrary evidence in the piece as well, a number of sources ostensibly close to the Taliban say that Baradar, who was reportedly in the peace camp within the Taliban’s inner circle, represented the best chance of bridge-building between the old and new Afghan governments. Alternatively, the piece reports, Pakistanis — who apparently aided in the arrest out of pique over being shut out of negotiations with the Taliban (which may not be happening!) — may have taken in Baradar precisely to negotiate with him, or to send a message to the Taliban through Baradar. (Although a U.S. official derides this as a “conspiracy theory.”) Confused yet?<\/p>\n

The explanations are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But they may be less important than their effects. Consider this quote:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMullah Brother can create change in the Taliban leadership, if he is used in mediation or peace-talking efforts to convince other Taliban to come over, but if he is put in jail as a prisoner, we don\u2019t think the peace process will be productive,\u201d said Hajji Baridad, a tribal elder from Kandahar.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If so, simply keeping Baradar in prison and using him for intelligence on Taliban whereabouts<\/a> would be a short-sighted gambit. Separating detentions from diplomacy usually turns out to be a mistake, as the British remember from their unhappier times in Ireland.<\/p>\n

By the way, the Obama administration, the military and the CIA isn’t saying a word about Baradar on the record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has a (somewhat disorganized) story co-written by its very knowledgeable reporter Carlotta Gall that suggests the arrest of top Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar by a U.S.-Pakistani team last week might convince the Taliban that there’s no hope in peace talks with the Karzai government in Afghanistan. While there’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}