The Taliban will not win (in the "long term")
I got inspired to write: http://www.viewpointonline.net/what-...e-taliban.html
btw, I realize this is not really the debate most people here are talking about. But it does seem to me that a lot of people, as they discuss tactical blunders and administrative failures also take it for granted that Afghanistan is somehow "naturally" fated to be a Taliban state, as is the tribal area of Pakistan. I disagree. Change is already underway and NATO itself is just one of the tools Allah is using to make the changes he seems to want everywhere in the world.
excerpt: The hardcore Taliban will not win. This is the easiest prediction to make as well as the safest. The last Taliban regime conquered most of Afghanistan only after the country had been thoroughly and completely destroyed by the US-Pakistani-Saudi Jihad operation. Even then, success against other ragtag groups of extortionists and religious fanatics was only possible with the critical assistance of superior Pakistani technology and organization. Everything from the rudimentary banking system to the rudimentary communications network was provided by GHQ. Other powers like India, Iran and Russia supported other groups, but nobody had the access or the resources that Pakistan had developed during its long American-sponsored intervention in Afghanistan.
All that has changed. The current Afghan regime and its urban centers are not the same devastated country that the CIA-ISI gifted to the Jihadi warlords and Taliban. The US has completely switched sides and still has huge resources it can commit to the current regime. Russia, Iran and India are all determined to avoid a second coming of the Taliban. Last but not the least, the Taliban themselves are not one firmly disciplined group. The Mullah Umar group may have significant legitimacy in the eyes of all jihadi factions, but the young Turks of the TTP don’t really take orders from anyone. The Haqqani network is supposed to be a “veritable arm” of the finest intelligence agency in the world, but 10 years of double and triple games cannot have failed to take a toll on that beautiful relationship. The core dream may be intact but it has to work with the REALLY insane fanatics of the TTP type on one side, the more moderate nationalist and pragmatic local Afghan leaders on the other, and a Pakistani intelligence service that is, at a minimum, playing all three sides. Nothing good will come of it.
In fact I will go out on a limb and make a bolder prediction: there won’t be even a temporary phase in which the finest intelligence agency in the world tries to revive a coalition of “good Taliban” to get a piece of the pie in Afghanistan. Well before the Americans leave, the Pakistani establishment will suffer a final unpleasant rupture with its beloved good Taliban. ALL Taliban, good, bad and ugly, will be at war with the Pakistani state AND the American supported Afghan state. It doesn’t matter whether the deep state has or has not arranged the MMA-2 (PTI and JI) coalition in KP to ensure smooth sailing for its plans. Those plans (if they exist, by now, who knows) will come to nothing. The ruling elite is the ruling elite. Their future is as part of globalized capital (American, Chinese, Saudi, it hardly matters). Even Imran Khan will be re-educated and will discover how important it is to bomb terrorists in FATA. This may sound like a bold prediction to some, but war with the Taliban is coming as surely as the cart follows the horse.
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