The Jig is Up for the Ghani Government in Afghanistan

There was once a time when the puppet government in Afghanistan convened a loya jirga it was front-page news. No longer. You have to wade seven-paragraphs deep into David Zucchino's "Taliban and U.S. Start New Round of Talks in Qatar" to learn that

Mr. Ghani on Monday convened a traditional grand council assembly, known as a loya jirga, to discuss peace for Afghanistan. About 3,000 delegates from around the country, selected in a process dominated by Mr. Ghani’s supporters, are meeting this week to reach a consensus on peace and a postwar Afghanistan. Their decisions are not legally binding.

Zucchino reported on a bombshell the day prior (see "U.S. Military Stops Counting How Much of Afghanistan Is Controlled by Taliban"). The U.S. military will no longer report how much territory it controls in the country. These assessments, sanguine to begin with, were really the only way for the casual observer to gauge how the war was going. Forums like The Long War Journal would use the same data and come up with a different picture, one more favorable to the Taliban.

The best statement concerning this turn events is provided by John Sopko:

The decision to end the assessments, which have been produced in various forms since at least 2010, was published in the latest quarterly report by the American special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

“We’re troubled by it,” the inspector general, John F. Sopko, said in an interview. “It’s like turning off the scoreboard at a football game and saying scoring a touchdown or field goal isn’t important.”

I'd say that when the scoreboard goes dark the game is over.

Combine this with Zalmay Khalilzad statement that "he hopes to reach a final peace agreement before the elections" in September and it's a pretty safe bet that the jig is up for the Ghani government in Kabul.