Taliban wake-up call for India By M K Bhadrakumar

For the bulk of the Indian strategic community, the unthinkable is happening - the prospect of an Afghan settlement involving the Taliban is increasing.

A sensational expose by an investigative journalist, based on highly sensitive cable traffic last month between the French Embassy in Kabul and Quai d'Orsay in Paris, has thrown light on the Afghan war. For India, it is especially helpful in spotting the war, otherwise hidden behind the global banking meltdown and the India-United States civilian nuclear deal.

Claude Angeli, veteran journalist of Le Canard Enchaine, got hold of a copy of a coded cable by the French deputy chief of mission in Kabul, Francois Fitou, based on a briefing by the heavyweight British diplomat, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who serves as ambassador to Afghanistan. What Sir Sherard told Fitou in confidence is worth recalling:

"The current situation [in Afghanistan] is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the government [of President Hamid Karzai] has lost all trust."

"The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them ... They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic." "We [NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies] should tell them [United States] that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one. In the short term, we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan ... The American strategy is doomed to fail." Britain aimed to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 2010. The only realistic outlook for Afghanistan would be the installation of "an acceptable dictator" and the public opinion should be primed for this.

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Gloomy, but entirely plausible. A perception is growing that with the US government taking responsibility for $5 trillion in liabilities in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and under compulsion to pledge billions to support the financial system, there is bound to be difficulty in bearing the combined cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the US Congressional Budget Office estimated could total $2.4 trillion over the coming decade. No wonder, a feeling is gaining ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan that it is a matter of time before Washington makes a deal with the Taliban for a coalition government.