The attacks were the latest in a series of spectacular insurgent strikes that have made reconciliation seem remote. In September, the Pentagon blamed the Haqqani network for a truck bombing of a combat outpost west of Kabul that wounded 77 U.S. troops and for an assault by gunmen on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
A week after the embassy strike, a suicide bomber killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, which is in charge of reconciliation negotiations for the government.
U.S. officials have said they were unsure whether the attacks were a reflection of insurgent military weakness, a rejection of talks or a burst of aggression designed to improve the militants’ negotiating position — similar to the escalation of U.S. attacks on the Haqqani network.
“I don’t think we could have any more of a robust military effort at this point,” said a second administration official of the U.S. combat effort, “given what’s been done on the Afghan side of the border over the last few weeks, given the ongoing kind of other efforts to target [Haqqani] leadership,” including recent drone strikes on Haqqani sanctuaries in western Pakistan. “That will continue as aggressively and robustly as it has.”
But, the official said, “that does not mean . . . that it will necessarily foreclose opportunities on the talk side, recognizing that we have to keep an open mind.”
In recent months, U.S. officials have held preliminary talks with the umbrella Taliban organization, led by Mohammad Omar, and the Haqqani network. This effort, this official said, is to “make sure that we explore all opportunities that have the potential to bring this to a successful resolution.”
Another uncertainty is whether Pakistan is willing or able to support the U.S. plan. The administration has concluded that Pakistan will never launch an all-out military offensive against Haqqani sanctuaries in the North Waziristan tribal region and has stopped exhorting it to do so.
Instead, after publicly accusing Pakistan’s intelligence service of aiding and directing the insurgents, the administration has offered a new compact. The price of attaining its desired position of influence over Afghanistan’s future, Clinton and others in a high-powered delegation told Pakistan during a visit there last week, is intelligence and military assistance in U.S. strikes against the Haqqani leadership, along with pressure on the insurgents to negotiate.
With trust between the two governments at an all-time low, U.S. officials expressed little confidence in complete Pakistani compliance. But they cited both negative and positive reinforcements, including the ongoing suspension of already-approved U.S. military assistance and congressional action to impose strict conditions on all forms of aid to Pakistan.
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