The collapse of the Afghan talks is really a tragic event for the regional stability. The talks had created euphoria about peace and the ensuing economic spurt. This region deserves to benefit from the huge Central Asian hydrocarbon resources and economic connectivity as purported by the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. How long this region would remain hostage to the Afghan war which has lingered for 19 years and become the longest US war causing it huge loss in human life and resources going into trillions of dollars. The sufferings of the Afghani people have been enormous. They have been living with severe conditions of civil strife for the past five decades. Their courage and resilience is just unprecedented. It was expected that given the fatigue and disgust of the US leadership with this purposeless war, the talks would finally upend the civil strife in that rugged country. President Donald Trump showed greater interest in getting out of the Afghan quagmire. He showed change of heart towards Pakistan seeking its help in nudging the Taliban towards fruitful talks. Pakistan did play its part keeping in view the economic and strategic benefits to be accrued from peace and normalcy in the neighboring Afghanistan. The talks were encouraged and abetted by all the major countries including the Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China. Much has been written about the failure of the peace talks. Afghanistan is a complex country with a difficult terrain, extra-conservative society immersed in traditions and custom as rigid as religiously ordained articles of faith, and endowed with mobile, hardworking, simple and modest people. The society is fractured by powerful religious centers, clan affiliations and ethnic loyalties. Barring the urban swaths, the Afghans are immersed in rigid traditions particularly regarding girls’ education, marriage, divorce, job and movement. The education in a seminary takes precedence over modern education. Such societies always resist change inspired locally or by a foreign force. The American attempts to bring about political, economic and social change in this country met stiff resistance from the conservative Afghans. Therefore, the social and economic changes the American purported to introduce in Afghanistan were slow and restricted to urban swaths. Rather, this sustained the long violent struggle of the Taliban against the presence of foreign troops on Afghani soil. However, Donald Trump’s surprise announcement to withdraw an invitation to the Taliban and the Afghan government to meet with him at Camp David left the status of the peace talks in a limbo. Much more efforts would be required for a reset of the negotiations taking care of the previous mistakes made by both sides. To cap, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had reached a tentative agreement with the Taliban for withdrawal of the US troops over a period of 16 months in return for pledges from the Taliban to break with Al-Qaeda, deny space to international terrorist outfits, reduce violence and negotiate with the Afghan regime-all pledges with no mechanism to enforce them. The agreement had inherent flaws. It was leaving Afghan regime in a lurch giving the Taliban a free hand to step up their offensive against it. It was feared by the US establishment that Ashraf Ghani would meet the fate of President Najibullah, overthrown and killed after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1989. They all impressed on President Trump to focus on upending the war in Afghanistan rather than the withdrawal of the American forces, ‘working with, rather than excluding, the elected representatives of the Afghan people’. The Taliban were reluctant to talk with the Ashraf Ghani regime considering it illegitimate or a US puppet. Ambassador Khalil’s negotiation with the Taliban to the exclusion of Ashraf Ghani led the Militia to conclude that they would come into power without any political cohabitation with the elected Afghan regime. This added to their intransigence relative to the status of the Ashraf Ghani regime, though they were fighting with foreign forces, Afghan National Army and other militant outfits. The second flaw in the process was to give a secondary place to ceasefire. Ambassador Khalil talked of the reduction of violence and not cessation of it. Again, the Islamic State of Khorasan was freely indulging in violent attacks without any admonition from Taliban. The US is in a fix in Afghanistan. The more it tries to extract itself with dignity, the deeper it gets stuck in this quagmire The third flaw in the process was about the partial withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan. It purported to reduce the present level of 14000 to 9000 troops. The US leader was made to understand this could have been done even without going into the hassle of negotiations. Keeping some 9000 troops in non-combat position in Afghanistan would reduce the burden on the exchequer of the US and give him the needed brag to sell to his voters. Maybe, he was reminded of the folly of his predecessor to abruptly withdraw from Iraq creating a power vacuum which was immediately filled in by Al-Qaeda. The US had to spend more resources for the resetting of the country and the obliteration of the terrorist outfits that mushroomed in the country. The US is in a fix in Afghanistan. The more it tries to extract itself with dignity, the deeper it gets stuck in this quagmire. There are many factors working against its presence in Afghanistan. There is a sort of consensus among the regional countries including China and Russia for its withdrawal. Nevertheless, long conflicts and civil wars tend to create many vested interests. In this country also, the war lords, poppy cultivators, drug dealers, corrupt but influential contractors being the direct beneficiaries of the war and uncertain conditions all would like the war and the US presence to continue. India benefitted enormously from the war by opening a new front against Pakistan destabilizing its most strategic province from the Afghan territory. With all these strong pulls and pushes, the US leadership would have to invent an innovative mechanism to find a way for a dignified exit from this treacherous land if not negotiations. The odds are heavily stacked against it. The writer was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books