The conflict in Afghanistan is an extremely complex phenomenon with diverse sets of actors being involved. Until today, no unanimous or single explanation or definition of the conflict in Afghanistan exists. There seems to be as many explanations as there are commentators and pundits. Taliban, as a major party to this long-standing conflict, are still an ambiguous entity for many.

The understanding and perceptions as to what the Taliban movement is and what it stands for are diverse and scattered. The government of Afghanistan and the many individuals who occupy positions of power and influence within the government tend to have diverging views on what the Taliban movement is and how best to approach them and deal with the issue of negotiations.

For some, the Taliban, as frugal and lowly villagers from the plains of the south and east, are genuine Mujahids who have foregone their lives in the holy cause of serving their religion. Yet for others, the Taliban constitute a reactionary and fundamentalist entity that are hopelessly married to mindless violence and oppose any form of progressive civility.

For many others, the Taliban are the result of a secret, movie-like enterprise orchestrated by a number of world powers and controlled by them from behind the scenes. For many others, the Taliban are the foot soldiers in a proxy war against Afghanistan brutally waged by Afghanistan's neighbors.

Yet for others, Taliban are an indispensable part of the international terrorism spearheaded by al-Qaeda. The perceptions are radically diverse. But careful exploration of this phenomenon and arriving at a definite and precise understanding of what the Taliban are and what they represent and stand for is crucial.

As the beatings on the drum of peace get louder and as the government of Afghanistan and its international partners including the U.S. find it increasingly urgent to seek paths of negotiation with this movement, it becomes yet more pertinent to better know the Taliban. Forming a consensus on a realistic definition of this movement has taken on much more urgency given the fact that the government and the international community are pinning their hopes on a successful outcome of the talks.

The entire narrative of talks and negotiations with Taliban towards reaching a political settlement is predicated on the assumption that the present political and Constitutional arrangements can somehow accommodate the entire range of ideological underpinnings of the Taliban as a movement.

The planners and participants in this process of outreach to Taliban believe that, in a miraculous turn of events, it would be possible to absorb the movement into the current system although the Taliban themselves have time and again refuted such claims. The reintegration component of the so-called peace process being pursued by the government of Afghanistan aims at weaning away the rank and file of the insurgency.

Towards this objective, so far, thousands of insurgents have been voluntarily disarmed and some of them have been provided alternative livelihoods. These reintegration efforts are, in fact, a continuation of what the "Peace Strengthening Commission" under Mr. Sibghatullah Mujaddidi did for many years.

Although the efforts are a major step towards the right direction, there are significant problems with this process. Many of the insurgents that are reintegrated tend to be local insurgents with limited ties to any of the major insurgent groups including the Taliban and the Hizb-I Islami.

The disarmament and reintegration of these insurgents has little if any strategic impact on the ability of these major insurgent groups to challenge the government and the international military coalition. Moreover, the approach focuses only on those areas in the north and west that have been traditionally more stable. In areas with heavy Taliban presence in many southern and eastern provinces, the reintegration efforts have proved to be ineffective.

The other component of the so-called peace process pursued by the government of Afghanistan is comprised of efforts towards reconciliation with the senior leadership of the major insurgent groups. What is evident is that this component, far from being a success, is at a dead-end with major insurgent groups including the Taliban and Hizb-I Islami having given up on this option.

The Hizb-I Islami recently announced it has stopped talks with the government of Afghanistan. Taliban have never taken seriously the offer of talks with the government of Afghanistan. While the government of Afghanistan's efforts towards reaching a political settlement continues to be born out of frustration and desperation rather than any strategic plan, it has pushed the government towards disregarding some of the most fundamental aspects of what and who the Taliban are.

This has severely undermined the position of the government and has further weakened the prospects for the reconciliation process churning out any substantive results. There have been and there continue to be a multitude of factors that render impossible the proposition that Taliban and the present political, Constitutional and even cultural set-up are compatible.

The larger narrative of "national reconciliation", currently being pursued in Afghanistan, is applicable to the situations of civil war whereby the parties do not have open ideological commitments. With the Taliban being fiercely ideological and harboring almost all the characteristics of a fascist movement (that rejects outright any notion of co-existence with other political identities), the forced discourse of "national reconciliation" is rendered meaningless.

The U.S.-led efforts at talking with Taliban are equally futile and condemned to failure in the face of all the direct and indirect indications that such a process is far from being able to produce any lasting guarantee that the Taliban will abjure violence.

The irony is that, during the reign of Taliban, the U.S. conducted upwards of twenty rounds of negotiation with Taliban – negotiations that all landed in abject failure. Being intimately familiar with the capacity and willingness of the Taliban to engage in serious negotiations, it is surprising to see how some in Washington publicly voice hope that American talks with Taliban will produce a durable outcome towards the goal of pacifying Afghanistan.

It is crucial for all the stakeholders in the Afghanistan conflict to revisit and reassess their assumptions and understanding of the nature of Taliban and other major insurgent groups such as the Hizb-I Islami. It would be only in the light of an improved understanding that realistic agendas could be set and courses of actions explored.