Complicities

The international conference held in London on Thursday ratified this new plan, which Hamid Karzai explained at some length without causing any stir. Washington set the tone. Barack Obama's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, as well as his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, made it known that as far as they were concerned the Taliban are part of the "political landscape" in Afghanistan and ought to be included in the government. The conclusion was given before the discussion, so the dialog between the parties must be well-advanced. Meetings with active Taliban members took place on January 8 in Dubai. The subsequent denials haven't fooled anyone. The Taliban are socially acceptable once again in the eyes of Washington. As they were when they were installed in Kabul, courted by the United States, which saw them as favored partners to bring the ambitions of oil services company Unocal to the desired conclusion, with a certain Karzai, employee of the firm, acting as intermediary with the Kabul mullahs. A return to "Go."

Then there's the other component of Barack Obama's program, an accelerated military surge in Afghanistan involving a greater commitment from NATO allies, to the great displeasure of the mass of public opinion in the countries that have been enlisted. In France, according to an Ifop-l'Humanité poll, 80 percent of those questioned are opposed to these reinforcements. Nicolas Sarkozy's convoluted statements on the issue amused Hillary Clinton, who was at the Élysée on Friday. "Not one more French combatant in Afghanistan," proclaims the president, who replaces the term "soldiers" with "trainers." No one is fooled.