What British "negotiating" with the Taliban is all about

Just good sense--no reason for all the ruckus (and certainly not Jack Layton's "plan" to negotiate a ceasefire with the Taliban):

It is common practice in the business of counter-insurgency to fight the enemy and at the same time to put out feelers to see whether deals or compromises might be possible to bring the violence to an end.

In Northern Ireland, 3,000 people died in the Troubles but the conflict ended not through military defeat of the IRA but after years of often covert negotiations with its leadership, initially through a senior officer of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

In Iraq, the violent attacks on British troops in Basra were brought to an abrupt halt not just because the last remaining unit of 500 soldiers at the Basra Palace moved out to the relative safety of the airbase outside the city, but also because of a deal with the local Shia militia leaders who pledged to hold fire in return for the release of detained extremists and a general agreement to find a political way forward.

It is now being claimed that MI6 is carrying out a clandestine role in Afghanistan, negotiating with the Taleban leadership to effect a peaceful end to the insurgency – a move that, if true, would fly in the face of the Government’s declared position of not negotiating with the former Islamic rulers who are ruthlessly slaughtering civilians and killing British and other Nato troops. However, in a country such as Afghanistan, with its long history of warfare and the widespread hatred for foreign interventionists, whether British, American or Russian, such a concept would be bound to fail, partly because the real Taleban leadership – only about a dozen senior commanders – resides in Pakistan, notably in the city of Quetta, but mostly because the top of its hierarchy has no interest or reason to do deals.

They are, as senior intelligence sources acknowledged, unreconcilable. There are no characters like Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness in the Taleban high command. The Taleban commanders want to be back in power in Kabul and would have no truck with well-meaning MI6 officers dropping in on them.

What is really happening is that the Government of President Hamid Karzai, supported by Britain and other members of the 40-nation international security force in Afghanistan, is attempting to “peel off” lower-ranking members of the Taleban who are less committed to the insurgency and might be persuaded to drop their weapons and join the political process.

MI6 is playing its part in meeting likely candidates, but its role, according to senior British government officials, is strictly in line with Kabul’s strategy of reconciliation.

The Taleban is judged to have three tiers: the hard-core leadership that rejects any kind of reconciliation and has strong links with al-Qaeda; a middle layer that is committed to the cause but is not necessarily beyond redemption; and the massed ranks of young, out-of-work Afghans or hard-up farmers who fight for the Taleban for $10 to $18 (£5-£9) a day to boost their income. Within the middle and lowest tiers there is scope for persuasion.

“Given the character of a country like Afghanistan, it would be inconceivable not to come across people who at some point will have had links to the Taleban, but that does not mean that we are following a policy of engagement with the Taleban. That is entirely wrong,” an official at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.

Update: What the American ambassador at Kabul says:

...
Washington has remained wary of directly endorsing talks with a terrorist group that provided sanctuary to al-Qa'eda, the organisation responsible for the Sept 11 attacks.

However, Mr Woods said that America supported a "serious reconciliation programme with those elements of the Taliban who are prepared to accept the constitution and the authority of the elected government" of President Hamid Karzai.

"The only place where we have concern would be the members of the Taliban with close connection to al-Qa'eda, the reason being that al-Qa'eda is an international threat," he said...