The London conference on Afghanistan has accommodated reconciliation between many partners and at many levels. Its prime focus, and outcome, has been the grand plan of the Afghanistan president, Hamid Karzai, to wave the olive branch at the Taliban. Mr Karzai has been pushing for ‘talks’ with the Taliban for some time, but his allies in the West had so long held back from giving in to the demand completely though they did, time and again, raise the bogey of the “good Taliban” themselves. With the date for a withdrawal now firmly set at 2011 and a consensus already reached among allies to promote the ‘Afghanization’ of the war, Mr Karzai has got a patient hearing. His reconciliation plan has received a nod from the allies — who have also volunteered to foot the bill — although his enthusiasm may have been cut short by the insistence of the United States of America to deny al Qaida and its sympathizers the peace feelers. Notwithstanding the dampener, Mr Karzai’s peace drive wins him back the agency he had been hankering for, particularly after the controversial elections. In a sense, therefore, the London conference has provided an occasion for a reconciliation between Mr Karzai and his allies.

The reintegration plan, as it stands now, involves wooing the foot soldiers of the Taliban through employment, education and pecuniary benefits. There is a larger plan for the Taliban honchos ensconced in the highlands of Pakistan which would, of course, involve closer coordination with Afghanistan’s eastern neighbour. Pakistan has quickly grabbed the opportunity for itself in order to marginalize India, which was excluded from an earlier summit on Afghanistan in Turkey and has now been forced to accept the policy of open accommodation of the Taliban that it had resisted so long. A major reconciliation of interests is already taking place among the nations of South Asia. Despite all that, however, the Taliban initiative may not work. There is little guarantee that the beneficiaries of the policy will not turn their backs on the benefactors, once the occupation forces leave Afghanistan. The greater fear is that ‘reconciliation’ through bribery may provoke more violent backlashes from the Taliban, as was seen recently in Kabul, or leave the Afghan society more fractured than ever before. Sell-outs have left a dangerous legacy in Afghanistan. Neither buyers nor the bought have found peace.