Nine years to make a dustier Beirut

That's all I can think when I read this:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests, Pakistani and American officials said....

Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans. Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.

In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban leadership.

Boy, nothing screams stability and prosperity like "tri-partite power sharing between heavily armed factions in a narco-state".

No, wait, that doesn't sound right at all.

So, if this comes through the endgame will be more or less what people predicted years ago: the Taliban win, in that they survive and return to some kind of operation power. (I continue to believe that Karzai's position within any power-sharing arrangement will be brief, and possibly end on a lightpost.) Pakistan maintains its strategic depth in Afghanistan, and India gets a little more boxed in.

Sure makes the last few dozen dead Canadians worth it, doesn't it?