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It Ain't Over Yet!

Ground War Strategies Part 4: What's Next for the Taliban?

Excellent analysis from Stratfor.com. Here is an excerpt:
Political Hand Grenades

In precipitously handing the cities to the Northern Alliance, the Taliban tossed two political hand grenades at the United States.

First, they generated an immediate crisis in relations between the United States and Pakistan. Islamabad invested a tremendous amount of money and both domestic and foreign political capital into securing control of Afghanistan via the Taliban. With the Taliban swept from power, Pakistan now needs to ensure it does not lose all its influence in Afghanistan to Russia and Iran, which back the Northern Alliance.

Pakistan fears the primarily Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara Northern Alliance will marginalize the role of Pushtuns, Pakistan's allies, in the new Afghan government. While promising to forge a broad-based government, the Northern Alliance has done little to dispel this fear, rejecting any former Taliban members in the new government and downplaying any potential role for exiled Pushtun king Mohammed Zahir Shah.

The United States needs Islamabad not only as a base of operations and to influence the Pushtun tribes but also to cut off sources of Taliban support inside Pakistan. Thus, Washington's first priority is to hammer out a deal between the Northern Alliance and Pakistan instead of mopping up al Qaeda.

A second grenade is the Northern Alliance itself. The Alliance is anything but allied. It encompasses the oft-conflicting interests and egos of several ethnically and regionally distinct armies. Alliance factions have fought each other as frequently as they have fought the Taliban, and with Mullah Mohammed Omar out of the way, they are once again focused on dividing the spoils.

Alliance squabbling will complicate the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. It will saddle Washington with the burden of nation-building and relief operations and thus tie up transportation assets and troops. It will also render the Afghan border with Pakistan harder to secure from the Afghan side.