Still long road to peace in Afghanistan

The United States military said it had launched a defensive airstrike on Taliban fighters actively attacking a government forces checkpoint in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Wednesday.

It was the first strike of its kind since the two parties signed a peace agreement in Doha on Saturday, also the first in 11 days since their reduction-in-violence agreement began, and occurred just hours after the US president had what he called a "very good talk" with a key Taliban leader and negotiator on the phone.

The strike's apparently awkward timing renewed suspicions and pessimism over the prospects of Saturday's agreement, which includes a Taliban commitment to forsake acts of terror as well as ties with terrorist groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida, the withdrawal of US and allied troops, and intra-Afghan negotiations.

While the agreement does not suffice to guarantee that Afghans will beat their swords into plowshares, this latest development should not blind us to the ray of hope the agreement delivers, nor the need for continuous endeavors to make sure the agreement does not end up becoming a useless piece of paper.

Of course there are utilitarian pursuits behind the US president's enthusiasm for the deal. Nobody can tell with certainty whether or how things may change after the dust settles on the November elections that will decide whether he stays in the White House or leaves.

With the Taliban and the Afghan government still at loggerheads on whether the release of Taliban prisoners should be a precondition or goal of their negotiations, the variables that stand in the way of peace are simply too many to allow for premature optimism. Not least the suspicion that the Taliban agreed to Washington's conditions so that it can have a free hand in domestic infighting.

The Afghan government on Wednesday reported 30 Taliban attacks across the country over the previous 24 hours, which left four civilians and 11 government soldiers dead, along with 17 insurgents. The Taliban has also confirmed they "resumed normal operations" against government forces on Monday.

What is important going forward is to watch if, as the US military's chairman of the joint chiefs of staff told the US Senate in a hearing, the Taliban is indeed scaling down violence; and if, as the Taliban spokesman said in a Tweet, they're "implementing all parts of the agreement one after another in order to keep the fighting reduced".

Although US troops withdrawal is a crucial part of the agreement, peace in Afghanistan will require a lot more than that.

While there may be many things that are not happening that are worth celebrating, less violence and fewer deaths do not count as peace.