King Gyanendra, addressing the Royal Nepali Army's cadet graduation ceremony at Kharipati on Monday, said: "The alternative to democracy is democracy, not terrorism."

There will be very few people in Nepal who will disagree with that: not even the political party leadership which excels in seeing a dark cloud behind every silver lining. For some Kathmandu-based diplomats, who were present at the king's address, it was exactly what they wanted to hear. And most Nepali people would whole-heartedly endorse their monarch's sentiment. So where is the problem?

In fact, we seem agreed on just about everything about the future course this country should take. We all know (or should admit we know deep down) there is no military solution to the insurgency. Even some in the Maoist leadership have admitted this publicly. In reality, all that the revolution has achieved in the past decade is to bring ruin and misery to Nepal and Nepalis, postpone reforms, demolish democracy, dismantle hard-earned freedoms, encourage rightwing adventurism and push us to militaristic tendencies.

We are now long past the stage where either side will improve its bargaining position in future talks by trying to get the upper hand militarily. The yearning for peace is so strong that they will only earn the collective curse of all Nepali people if they drag this on. The hope that the other side will split and self-destruct is also a delusion: the state is more resilient than the Maoists think and a split in rebels ranks may unleash more virulent, even ethnic-laced, warfare in future.

If everyone is for peace what is everyone waiting for? If the leaders mean what they say there shouldn't be any problem to kickstart the peace process. (If they say one thing and do another, then we have a problem.) The only obstacles to peace we see are ijjat, ego, competition for the peace dividend, and a winner-takes-all attitude. None of these obstacles are intractable. In fact, whoever puts forward the first peace overture with, let's say a unilateral ceasefire proposal, is going to make the other side look like a warmonger. The people will not see peace-making as an admission of weakness. It takes more courage to work for a resolution than to keep fighting.

What's stopping us then from accepting UN or other mediation, what do we have to lose? Why not agree to a roundtable conference to discuss constitutional reforms-there isn't a constitution in the world that can't be improved. The Maoists could be publicly offered a face-saving reward of rehabilitation, troop induction, training and employment which they would look foolish to refuse even in the eyes of their own cadre.

Delaying a resolution by engaging in deadlocked debate about which comes first, peace or democracy, doesn't get us anywhere. We need both, together. That should be our new year resolution for 2062.