LONDON — When Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna underscored the folly of making a distinction "between good Taliban and bad Taliban" at the Afghanistan Conference in London earlier this year, he was completely out of sync with the larger mood at the conference. As a result, Indian diplomacy was set back when Indian concerns were summarily ignored.
The West had made up its mind that it was not a question of if, but when and how to exit Afghanistan.
The diplomatic debacle at the London conference and the continued targeting of Indian interests in Afghanistan forced a major rethink of Delhi's Af-Pak policy. No wonder Krishna was a different man at the Afghanistan conference in Kabul early last month. He dropped his mantra of "no differentiating between good and bad Taliban" while continuing to reject hardline elements as credible Afghan interlocutors. This change in tone reflects the bind in which India finds itself in Afghanistan.