The commander said it bluntly: Western forces in Afghanistan will never be able to win the war against insurgents and may need to include the Taliban in any long-term solutions. This is what Brigadier-General Mark Carleton-Smith told a newspaper in the UK.
Before him, there was a call by Pakistani governor Owais Ghani who told the US that they had to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban.
The governor said the US must broker a power-sharing agreement with Taliban head Mullah Omar to establish peace in the region.
His call came as tensions rose between the U.S. and Pakistan, with the Pakistani military denying shooting down an unmanned American spy plane in its airspace.
The army said it had found the wreckage of the suspected U.S. spy plane near the border, but maintained it had not shot it down.
Frustrated in its attempt to smoke out Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan - Osama bin Laden in particular - by a lack of local contacts, the U.S. has been forced to resort to using unmanned Predator spy drones over the region.
But the switch in tactics has led to angry protests from Pakistan after the drones killed civilians and strained diplomatic relations.
The Taliban must be given the same rights as the Hamas and the Hizbollah. The Hamas in Palestine participated in elections and won. They were robbed of their government that is true but the fact remains that they will run in elections in the future and they may win again. In Aceh this happened to the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM). And the GAM won in the elections – using a different name indeed – and this after years of guerilla warfare against the Indonesian government.
In Lebanon, the Hizbullah treated as a terror organization, participates in parliamentary elections in the country. They win parliamentary seats and they may one day even form the government in that country. Then why not the Taliban?
There are many other similarities. For example, When the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone was ousted from power, they were given the right to participate elections. Later on they were phased out naturally when they did not win popular support.
“If the Taliban were given a right to participate in free and fair elections in Afghanistan, their justifications in conducting attacks against coalition forces will evaporate. If they win, then coalition forces can withdraw because the people have made their choice. If they are defeated, then their legitimacy would evaporate,” said some commentators on the idea of a peace deal with the Taliban.
The British commander was clear however.  Western forces in Afghanistan will never be able to win the war against insurgents and may need to include the Taliban in any long-term solution, Britain's senior commander in the country says in a report.
An absolute military victory in Afghanistan is impossible he added. Is that not sufficient to make the Western extremists understand that they are fighting an unpopular war that they will not win despite the propaganda and the obvious lies they are saying about the war?
“What foreign forces must now come to grips with, he said, is reducing the level of insurgency so that it can be managed by Afghan forces and no longer poses a major threat.
"We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency … I don’t think we should expect that when we go there won’t be roaming bands of armed men in this part of the world," Carleton-Smith was quoted as saying.
"That would be unrealistic and probably incredible."
As such, striking a deal with the Taliban could be considered as a strategic option, Carleton-Smith said. It is an idea that has been repeatedly — and recently — advanced by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
While the Taliban rejected all ideas of a talk with the Nato, there is nothing that can say they will not be prepared to talk if the Nato and the West tells the US that fighting indefinitely in Afghanistan will not bring the solution Washington want.
The Taliban can also be allowed to keep the control of the lands that it has under its power now. It will be futile to send in Afghan troops to fight the Taliban when the same troops will only run away or join the Taliban in the fight against the US puppet regime in Kabul.
President Hamid Karzia did offer peace talks with the Taliban but it was rejected by a senior Taliban. The Taliban have repeatedly said they will not negotiate until foreign troops have left the country but this too can be dealt with by recognizing the Taliban’s power base as a legitimate one.
Hence, the solution to the Afghan problem is first of all to start diplomatic talks with the Taliban’s leadership, including with Mullah Omar. The next thing is to agree that the Taliban is existent and is a powerful group that can help rebuild Afghanistan. After that, it will be easier to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table and discuss the future of the country.

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