Word: talibanize
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...Still, it won't be that simple. Currently, the U.S. and the Afghan government are offering to deal with those Taliban willing to reconcile with the current political order, and it's not clear that there are going to be many takers. And the Taliban leadership has demands of its own: while Mullah Omar has lately been promising that a Taliban regime would not threaten the security of any other state in the world (translation: no sanctuary for al-Qaeda), he and those around him insist that there can be talks only when Western armies agree to leave Afghanistan...
...Pakistan can do and is willing to do in the fight. The Pakistani military reiterated during Gates' visit last week that it has no intention of going after the Afghan insurgent sanctuaries in North Waziristan. The Pakistanis claimed that their forces were overstretched by their offensives against the Pakistan Taliban in Swat and South Waziristan and that a new offensive is beyond their capability. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley...
...While the Pakistani military is willing to fight those extremists who challenge the Pakistani state's authority, it is more inclined to view the Afghan Taliban as a potential strategic ally and asset. And dozens of visits from U.S. officials over the past year have failed to persuade Pakistan to adopt Washington's view that the Afghan Taliban are a menace to Pakistan. Instead, Pakistan continues to see its primary security challenge as emanating from India, which it views as the power behind the Karzai government in Afghanistan. So right now, the Afghan Taliban and associated Afghan insurgent groups based...
...Instead of trying to crush the Taliban as the U.S. had hoped it would, Pakistan is talking to the movement's leaders and urging Washington to do the same. Pakistan hopes to orchestrate a political settlement in which the Taliban and other Pakistan-friendly Pashtuns would be given far greater influence in a new regime but would agree to share power with other communities and cut ties with al-Qaeda...
...language from U.S. officials in recent weeks suggests that some version of Pakistan's perspective may prevail. The Karzai government has also been discreetly reaching out to the Taliban leadership for some time, and U.N. officials in Kabul are openly calling for such talks, urging the Afghan government to enable them by having the names of a number of senior Taliban leaders taken off a U.N. terrorist-watch list so they can travel. Turkey is even offering to broker regional peace talks involving the Taliban and Afghanistan's neighbors. (See pictures of the presidential election in Afghanistan...