GOP skeptical of Taliban talks

“Talking to them now, before we make a commitment about a
post-2014 footprint, is giving them a wrong signal,” Sen. Lindsey Graham
(R-S.C.) told reporters. “The best way to talk with the Taliban is ensure them
you will defeat them on the battlefield, and they’re not assured of that.”

{mosads}Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said that while reconciliation between
the Afghan government and the Taliban would be a positive step, she didn’t see
that happening at the moment.

“I’m very skeptical at this point,” she told The Hill. “Until
they feel they’re defeated, I think it’s difficult to come to any kind of
lasting resolution.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he wasn’t discouraging the
talks, so long as they don’t lead to the release of Taliban prisoners, which
could be a demand of the Taliban during the negotiations.

“But certainly, I’d be very pessimistic about any concrete
results,” he said.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the top Republican on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, said he’d had a “good conversation” with the State
Department on Monday, and he did think the talks were a good thing.

U.S. officials announced Tuesday that they would begin
direct negotiations with the Taliban in the coming days in Doha, Qatar. 

The Taliban said in a
statement Tuesday that it was setting up a political office in Qatar and
supported a peaceful solution to the conflict. The statement also said the
Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base to threaten other
nations, a U.S. precondition to holding to the talks.

Obama administration officials said that starting the talks
with the Taliban was a major first step, but they also downplayed their
expectations for what would result from the negotiations.

The officials emphasized that the key to the talks’ success
was negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban, and not the between
the Taliban and the U.S.

“It’s going to be a long, hard process if, indeed, it advances
significantly at all,” one senior administration official said on a conference
call with reporters.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was more
optimistic than his Republican counterparts over the prospects of the talks,
saying that the U.S. and Afghan government are entering them in a position of
strength.

“This is the right context to hold it because the Taliban is
in a weaker position militarily,” Levin said.