By way of Justin Raimondo’s latest editorial at Antiwar.com (which I strongly urge you to read, and with an open mind), I’ve come across this latest development in the long and bloody war in Afghanistan, as recently reported by the Washington Post:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A first possible breakthrough in the 17-year Afghan conflict came in June, when a brief cease-fire during a Muslim holiday produced a spontaneous celebration by Afghan troops, civilians and Taliban fighters. The nationwide yearning for peace became palpable.

Now, in a development that could build on that extraordinary moment, a senior American diplomat and Taliban insurgent officials have reportedly held talks for the first time, meeting in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar and agreeing to hold further sessions. According to Taliban officials, they discussed reprising the truce in August.

Officials in Washington have not acknowledged the meeting, but the State Department confirmed that its senior official dealing with the Afghan region, Alice Wells, traveled last week to Doha, the Qatari capital, partly to “commend the government” for its “ongoing support for peace in Afghanistan.” Qatar has long hosted a Taliban political office.

This is quite significant, and hopefully bodes well for an eventual end to the endless war in Afghanistan, which dates back to at least 1978, when the Afghan army, sympathetic to the country’s Marxist party, overthrew the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan and executed his family. Daoud himself had seized power by means of a military coup several years earlier and ended the Afghan monarchy. After a subsequent series of Marxist-Leninist reforms that were despised by much of the country’s traditionally Islamic population, an Islamist uprising ensued, followed by a complicated power struggle. Soviet Russia then eventually moved in to support the country’s struggling government in late 1979, and the country has suffered a long, torturous, tragic series of wars ever since, of which the U.S. intervention that began in October of 2001, following the 9/11 attacks, is but the latest bloody chapter. Now going on 17 years, it’s been the single longest war that the U.S. government has ever prosecuted.

Even though Afhgan President Ashraf Ghani successfully mediated a cease-fire in June at the close of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, outright peace talks have always been elusive. The Taliban has insisted that they will negotiate only with the U.S., contrary to the U.S. government’s prior insistence that any peace talks consist exclusively of the warring Afghan parties. The Taliban makes no bones about who is the real sheriff in that country.  And even the hawkish Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has indicated a willingness to enter into serious talks with the Taliban.

There are no guarantees, of course, but this latest development seems a promising sign. It seems unlikely that the U.S. would accept any peace agreement that didn’t include at least some American military presence in the country, and whether that would ever be acceptable to the Taliban remains to be seen.

But let’s hope that we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.