According to Bill Frist, US Senate Majority Leader, Taliban fighters were too numerous and too popular to be defeated. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," he said. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."


It seems America wants to concentrate its efforts on resource-rich Iraq and Pakistan on resource-rich Balochistan. Meanwhile, "Enlightened Moderation" and "Islamic Reformation" can be put on hold and Taliban be given trusteeship of Waziristan and parts of Afghanistan.

After 9/11, ISI and CIA have been trying to co-opt some Taliban defectors, although not without much success -and for US perspetive, it makes perfect sense. Their top prioity in Afghanistan is to clear the area of trans-national jihadists associated with Al-Qaeda. If somehow they are able to separate Shariah-enthusiasts ("conservatives") from Khilafa-enthusiasts ("radicals"), then it's anothing but a political and strategic victory for them. Although, I seriously doubt if lines are so sharp between the two groups of enthusiasts and US would be able to create (in the first place) or perpeture (in case of success) the schicsm between them.

Of course, US is in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kinda situation. If they cozy up to "moderate" Taliban, the "anti-implerialist" crowd will blame them for being in cahoots with Islamists, linking it back to US's support for Islamists during Cold War and Afghan War. And if they get tough on Islamists, the same "anti-imperialist" crowd will make outcries about "impostion of Western values", "disrespect of indigenous cultures" blah blah blah..
The sad truth, as I see, is that both the Left and necons, as well as Muslim liberals, have grossly understimated that obscurantism has much wider constituency among the rank and file of Ummah than they seem to have imagined.

On another note, what happened to the "Great Game in Central Asia", the grand Imperialist plan of constucting oil pipelines from Central Asia to Arabian Sea. Many Pakistanis were/are convinced that Bin Laden and Alqaeda has nothing to do with 9/11 attacks and US invaded Afghanistan to occupy the natural resources of Central Asia. I wonder what they have to say about US's lukewarm attitude towards Adghanistan.

And btw, last night, I saw PBS documentary, The Return of the Taliban. Interesting watch!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/view/