This Is What "Peace Talks & Troops Out" Gets You.

A kind of suicide:

President Karzai also faces a moment of decision: it is clear that the Taliban he hoped he could make peace with has no intention of accepting any kind of deal that Afghanistan's political system as a whole could live with. In 2010, Mr. Muhaqiq had warned: “the new political path that Karzai has chosen will not only destroy him, it will destroy the country. It's a kind of suicide.”

Maybe I've been too hard on Barack Obama, and maybe not. Maybe it's all because of my own kind of perspective on these things, which Brian Fawcett pegs, in an intelligent criticism of my book Come From the Shadows, as that of "an Orwell leftist, which is to say, not tied to any political or environmental faction, openly skeptical of ideology, and loyal only to whoever or whatever is getting screwed."

I'll take it (except the "angry man" bit, maybe not so much). I don't spend too much effort in the book on my own opinions but one thing the overwhelming weight of evidence and informed opinion made it impossible for me to ignore was that the peace talks racket would implode upon on its own contradictions and conceits. The most modest assessment now would have to contain an acknowledgement that this is exactly what has happened.