Pakistan has long demanded a seat at the negotiation table about Afghanistan's future. It did its very best to prevent direct negotiations between the Taliban and the U.S. and its attached Afghan puppet Karzai. It earlier arrested Taliban politicians like Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar who were involved in direct negotiations and it may have been involved in the recent attack on the Peace Council head Burhanuddin Rabbani who was trying to establish other direct contacts with the Taliban.

It seems that now the U.S. and its Afghan puppet Karzai have given in to this Pakistani demand:

A spokesman for Mr Karzai, Siamak Herawi, reiterated on Sunday that peace talks with the Taliban were suspended and that a new peace strategy would be spelled out "very soon".

On Friday, Mr Karzai made it clear where the efforts should focus.

He said: "[Taliban leader] Mullah Omar doesn't have an address… their peace emissary turns out to be a killer, whom should we talk to?

"The Afghan nation asks me who's the other party that you hold talks with? My answer is, Pakistan."

This is a very significant step Karzai is taking and it is unlikely he would take it without U.S. support. Direct negotiations with Pakistan which include its interest could indeed lead to a solution that is more stable and peaceful than the current situation.

The quite bellicose accusations by Admiral Mullen against Pakistan were walked back first by annonymous officials and then by Obama himself:

President Barack Obama is declining to endorse strong criticism of Pakistan leveled by the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while saying Pakistan must do more to deal with insurgents.

This suggests that the fight between the military industrial complex, which wants to see the war to continue to keep the money flowing towards it, and the administration which needs to get the U.S. out of the $12 billion per month wars for overall economic reasons has for now been won by the civil side.

But the internal fight in the U.S. is not yet over. The U.S. military can easily spoil any new negotiations by enraging the Pakistani side. A special force raid into Pakistan that leaves some Pakistani soldiers dead is all that is needed to prolong or even escalate the issue. India, which has no border with Afghanistan, is of course also still working against Pakistan's negotiation interests.

If Obama really wants to set a new route out of Afghanistan he must now take serious steps to prevent such spoilers of a comprehensive Afghan peace solution even after the tenths anniversary of the war.