Eventually, ... the US will 'deal' with the Taliban ...

In the LATimes/ here

Some day the war in Afghanistan will end. If it's like most civil wars, it will end in negotiations -- in this case, negotiations with the Taliban. And that's if we're lucky; the leading alternative to a negotiated settlement is a Taliban victory.
In fact, a negotiated settlement is what U.S. and NATO forces say they are fighting for, even though those negotiations will have to include a group most Afghans fear and Americans loathe.....
But how soon should negotiations begin and with whom? And what should we consider a "reasonable outcome?" Those questions have touched off a debate not only among Afghans, but also between the United States and its European allies, and within the Obama administration itself.
.... Karzai, a member of the Pashtun ethnic group like most of the Taliban and about 40% of the Afghan population, has called the insurgents "our disenchanted brothers" and has already talked with some of their leaders. (In a moment of anger at the United States last week, he even threatened to join the Taliban, although nobody in Kabul took that seriously.) The opposition in Kabul, dominated by non-Pashtun groups, scoffs at the idea that the Taliban's leaders are ready for reconciliation.
The issue divides the NATO alliance too. Last month, Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, called for faster progress toward negotiations. "Now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigor and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort," he said.
The Obama administration is more skeptical. It would like to see Karzai broaden the government's base of support, especially if that would also mean some Taliban factions giving up the fight. But the administration also worries about a step into the unknown by an increasingly unpredictable leader.
Officially, the administration supports both Karzai and the peace jirga. "Whatever makes President Karzai more representative ... strengthens him and helps us," McChrystal said. But some U.S. officials worry that Karzai will start negotiating too soon. They'd rather give Obama's surge of 30,000 additional troops a chance to move the balance of power in the government's favor this summer.
The skeptics also worry about what military planners call the "end state." What kind of country, they ask, will Afghanistan become?
The choices will depend in large part on the results of this summer's fighting. The best case scenario is that the insurgency collapses and democracy blossoms. But that doesn't appear likely.
More plausible is a divided insurgency in which dissident Taliban factions and individuals agree to stop fighting. This scenario would be helped by a successful "reintegration" plan to offer employment and protection to defectors. So far, Karzai's efforts in that regard have been ineffective.

But at some point, negotiations will almost certainly have to include the main body of the Taliban, the brutal Islamists who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. Otherwise, a European diplomat here warned, "the insurgency will break out again........That is going to mean hard choices and an imperfect ending.... No one wants to choose between human rights and human lives. But it's an ugly choice we may soon face.