What price peace? This can be an infamous backdrop to warmongering but it's also a crucial question to ask at almost every stage in a conflict.

In Nepal, the last ceasefire between the Maoists and Kathmandu broke down because the government of the day, closely allied with the Royal Palace and the Royal Nepali Army, thought the notion of a constituent assembly too threatening to the future of monarchy. Whatever they may say, the Maoists are not monarchists. Some form of republic is their ultimate goal.

So the last government allowed peace to collapse, arguably even collaborating in the atrocity at Doramba in 2003, because the monarchy was seen as too high a price to pay. War crimes may not be too vivid a description of the massacre of unarmed people at Doramba, and this is a chicken that will come home to roost. But the thinking was that constitutional monarchy was more important than peace.

Now things may just be different. Nepal's long decline has continued unabated, even under a more broad-based government with clear participation across, say, 75 percent of the political spectrum. The word 'peace' is uttered daily by ministers, monarch, media and probably every other citizen of the kingdom. Yet war is unabated and the tunnel has no end, let alone a light. Committees, conflict resolution seminars and candlelight vigils urging peace at any cost are weak gruel alongside bloodshed and lives permanently altered by violence.

So what price peace? Surely this is the question of the moment and not just for the government or the occupant of the throne. Nor do guerrilla groups, however successful and well-organised, have the right to dictate terms. The Maoists are a player here and will never be victorious enough to call all the shots. So too, India, the main regional power, and Nepal's many friends in the wider world. They can call for calm until they're blue in their national faces. It simply doesn't wash.

The final arbiter on all of this has to be the Nepali people, that much abused and misrepresented group. They must have a voice. And the time is ripe for it to be heard. Just examine the international precedents that are so relevant right now. The United Nations and Washington spared no expense to organise what appear to have been successful elections in Afghanistan.

The same uneasy alliance is moving heaven and earth and shedding a lot of blood to let the Iraqi people be heard in January.

I for one think the vote will go ahead in Iraq and the result will both vindicate some of America's behaviour in the country and alarm those in Washington who fear political Islam.

Billions upon billions have been poured into war ravaged lands to let peoples' voices still the clamour of violence. Serbia, East Timor, Cambodia in the 1990s, Guatemala; all these troubled places have used a whiff of democracy to divert energies and establish a voice at the international table. I would argue that Nepal is better placed to consult its citizens than any of those countries and let there be no artificial limits to distract from the main question.

What price peace? Will it cost a monarchy? Will it mean that Mao is well and truly dead? Will it mean UN mediation, a regional force to deal with holdouts? A truth and reconciliation effort? War crimes investigations?
Economic development on a grand scale and an arms embargo? It's not my call, it's not the king's, neither G P Koirala's nor Comrade Prachanda's.

No, this is a matter for the people of Nepal and it's high time they were asked for their opinion.