Adding a bit to yesterday's post on the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban reuniting.

What we are watching now is a very substantial reconfiguration of the Pakistani role in the Afghanistan conflict.

Having been threatened with being "bombed back to stone age" in 2001 Pakistan helped the United States' operation in Afghanistan. This angered its own Pashtun population which radicalized and started to operate against the Pakistani government. A bloody civil war ensued between the Pashtun in the Federal Administrated Tribal Area on the border with Pakistan and the Pakistani army which cost over 30,000 people their life.

But finally the rather meager payoff the Pakistani government and military received from the U.S. did no longer compensate for the political costs. U.S. arrogance in the Raimund Davis case, in taking out Osama Bin Laden, in the drone war and in demanding ever more Pakistani action against its own people while at the same time blaming Pakistan for every ill in Afghanistan increased the antipathy. The attack on a Pakistani border post was the final straw that broke the camel's back.

Pakistan is now making peace with its own Pashtun who will united with their brethren in Afghanistan and fight the invaders there. It will do without U.S. money which is anyway more and more based on conditions Pakistan can not reasonably fulfill.

Pakistan will allow the U.S. logistic line to be reopened but will heavily tax every load that passes through. This, the overflight rights it continues to provide and its influence on the Taliban will be its leverage in the negotiations over the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan.

Confronted with a Pakistani firm stand the Obama administration had the the good sense to not allow its hardliners to widen the conflict into an all out war against Pakistan.

This is then also the end of the U.S. war on Afghanistan.

The fighting is not over though and will continue while the negotiations are ongoing. That may take several years. The Taliban will not allow for permanent U.S. troop stationing in Afghanistan which is something the U.S. military and the anti-Iran hardliners very much want. Only a continued war of attrition against U.S. troops will make it clear to them that such a position is too expensive to hold.

The Taliban may agree to join the government or to some other conditions that allows the U.S. to save its face while it leaves. What happens after that is up in the air and will largely be decided by the Afghans themselves.