That notion evidently extends to elements of the Taliban. Mark Sedra, a Canadian expert on Afghanistan, says high-level U.S. officials, who he declined to name, admitted during a private Washington think-tank conference earlier this year that there was no purely military solution to Afghanistan’s problems and expressed a “willingness” to negotiate with “moderate” Taliban figures. Four administration officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing policy deliberations, told NEWSWEEK that Washington has already assented to efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to talk with Taliban factions that do not share the nihilist religious extremism of Supreme Leader Mullah Omar. “If the Afghans want to peel away so-called [Taliban] ‘reasonables,’ we’re fine with that,” one of the officials said. Those inside the administration who object, said another of the officials, have been somewhat mollified by the use of semantic legerdemain: “We say it’s not negotiation. It’s dialogue.”
