A new beginning?

It is part of the tragedy in Afghanistan that even at a moment when the inconceivable has been achieved and peace appears to be close at hand with the power-sharing agreement signed by the four Afghan factions in Bonn, Germany, on Wednesday, that such a development must be viewed with a great deal of reservation.

After nine days of intense bargaining, the four factions agreed to end more than 20 years of factional rivalry and warfare in Afghanistan by forming a broad-based government that will rule Afghanistan for the coming six months until a loya jirga, a traditional Afghan assembly comprising regional elders and leaders, appoints an 18-month transitional government.

The delicate balancing that has gone into the forging of this milestone agreement can be judged just by looking at the make-up of the agreed-upon Cabinet: Out of its 30 members, 11 belong to the country's Pashtun ethnic majority and seven to the Tajik, reflecting the 38 percent and 25 percent population share of the two groups.

Moreover, apart from mirroring local Afghan tribal stakes, the deal also had to take into account the interests of the external supporters of those factions, mainly Afghanistan's immediate neighbors Pakistan, Iran and the former Soviet states of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as well as, of course, some of the major powers of the world, chiefly the United States.

Those factors alone could raise questions as to the feasibility of maintaining stability in post-Taliban Afghanistan. But the country's recent history offers little certainty that peace will prevail and life will improve for the more than 14 million Afghans, whose lives have already been shattered by more than 20 years of war.

And even if it is true, as some analysts believe, that the agreement constitutes a defeat for the existing warlords and the emergence of a new generation of Afghan leaders, who believe in conflict solving through political processes rather than through the strength of arms, skepticism prevails. So the question that continues to hang on the lips of many observers who have been anxiously watching the developments is, how long can this peace last?

Moreover, the war against the Taliban is not yet over by a long shot. And although military observers seem to be little impressed by the threats made by the Taliban and diehard "foreigners" -- Islamic extremists, Chechens and others -- who are allied with them, that they will carry on the war from their mountain strongholds, the fact that peace has not really come to Afghanistan yet cannot be ignored.

Then there are also the millions of refugees still living in misery in camps in Pakistan and other neighboring countries. Those millions of people obviously must be taken care of -- a task the new Afghan government cannot possibly do without international assistance.

Nevertheless, the very fact that an agreement has been possible at all, despite the deep ethnic rivalries, inspires the hope that a better future may indeed be in the making in this war-ravaged country. The Northern Alliance deserves credit for accepting at the last moment fewer seats in the government than they had initially demanded and by conceding to allow international peacekeepers to oversee security during this interim period. Of no less historical significance is the inclusion of two women in the new interim government.

So, there is good news as well as bad contained in Wednesdays' Bonn agreement. Considering the most recent developments, however, it could be said that, at the very least, peace seems to have become a plausible alternative for Afghanistan.