I too am a realist. It is idealistic to think that mere suppression of the Taliban through brute force, coupled with buckets of cash and development projects to temporarily bribe good behavior in the populace will work. History tells us it can achieve temporary effects at best.

I see in the current ISAF strategy an effort to create just such a temporary suppression effect, just long enough to declare victory, and depart. Perhaps that is a bit of realism as well, and not idealistic wishing that makes them think it will produce perm. effects, and that any proclamations of that as our goal being calculated lies to appease the court of global opinion. But it won't help us resolve the AQ problem, and that is still the mission.

The Taliban see themselves as a government in exile. If we wanted to take out the Karzai government we'd be drinking tea with the Taliban right now plotting just how we would make that happen. But because we don't want to take out the Karzai government, but merely force an incorporation of Taliban and Northern Alliance influences in one government such plotting is "idealistic"? No, it is cold, hard realism. Use the tool that works. Make hard compromises. Work with people you would not hang out with. Get the job done, and move on. Do the Taliban want the entire thing? Perhaps, perhaps not. We'll know better when we talk to them. They do indeed have the time, and if they can get their foot in the door at the low cost of admission of simply helping the US with AQ (who they really don't like that much to begin with), I suspect yes, they will evict that bad house guest and bide their time as to achieving their ultimate ends. We'll be long gone, dealing with other problems elsewhere by then.

"Realism" is not avoiding difficult workable solutions in favor of solutions that cannot work. To think we can build an Afghan nation that is stable to solve this problem, or defeat the Pashtun populace's quest for participation in governance and opportunity on their own, or that the Northern Alliance will allow such participation legally of their own volition is the Idealism in play here.