LONDON — It would be an understatement to suggest that Indian diplomacy faced a major setback at the Afghanistan Conference in London. India was humiliated and its concerns were summarily ignored. In one stroke, Pakistan rendered New Delhi irrelevant in the evolving security dynamic in Afghanistan.
When Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna underscored the folly of making a distinction "between good Taliban and bad Taliban," he was completely out of sync with the larger mood at the conference. The West has made up its mind that it is not a question of if, but when and how to exit from Afghanistan, which is rapidly becoming a quagmire leaders in Washington and London. Days before this much-hyped conference, senior U.S. military commanders were suggesting that peace talks with the Taliban may be imminent and that Taliban members might even be invited to join the government in Kabul. It is not without significance that British Foreign Secretary David Miliband emphasized in London that the war in Afghanistan had already gone on longer than World War II.
So, instead of devising plans to "win" this war, conference leaders decided that the time had come to woo the "moderate" section of the Taliban to share power in Kabul. Pakistan seems to have convinced the West that it can play the role of mediator in negotiations with the Taliban. Pakistan is attempting to preserve its rapidly diminishing influence in Afghanistan and to force the West into taking its concerns vis-a-vis India more seriously.