"NightWatch" for Oct. 7 reported: "Multiple news services have reported meetings hosted by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah between representatives of the Kabul government and the Taliban. Both Taliban and Afghan government spokesmen have denied that the talks were official. Both have acknowledged that talks occurred. ... Mediated talks between enemies accompanied by denials always signify the first step toward power sharing."

Intervening powers seldom if ever win Fourth Generation wars militarily, though they may lose them militarily. Rather, if they win, which means they witness the re-emergence of a state, they do so politically.

Here we see what might be called the "Afghan Advantage." Unlike most Fourth Generation situations, including Iraq, in Afghanistan we face one predominant enemy, the Taliban. That means the United States will have someone to negotiate with who can actually deliver, and can do so on a country-wide scale.

Usually any "deal" in a Fourth Generation war environment can only be local. The local sheik, clan leader, gang leader or militia captain can deliver only in his own back yard. Foreign occupiers must try to assemble, then maintain, a fragile, endlessly complex network of local deals, most of which tend to unravel. Ceasing to juggle leads not to stability but to the collapse of all deals and a return to chaos. That is one reason why occupiers find they cannot get out.

The situation in Afghanistan is more favorable. If we can make a deal with the Taliban, they can enforce it throughout most of the country. They can speak for the Pashtun, the people with whom the United States is at war. The United States can get out without Afghanistan falling back into chaos. The Taliban have shown they can govern, even to the point of shutting down the opium trade.

The action of the Saudi government in sponsoring talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai's regime and the Taliban is something the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should welcome and support. As quickly as it can without upsetting the applecart, the United States should also start to talk with the Taliban.

As the "NightWatch" report indicated, the obvious direction of the talks should be toward some sort of power-sharing. That will only be a temporary arrangement; the Pashtun, Uzbeks and Tajiks will sort out their differences in the usual way, by fighting.

But an Afghan coalition government that includes the Taliban could give the United States and NATO what they need: an opportunity to get out. It is not too difficult to envision how such a government might be put together.

The Taliban would get some seats in the Afghan Cabinet meeting in the capital, Kabul, and control over the provinces they regard as their homeland. They would promise not to invite al-Qaida to set up new bases in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida now has no need for Afghan bases, since it has better ones in Pakistan, the country that is its current strategic focus.

Karzai would be expelled from power in Kabul, possibly much to his own relief, no doubt, perhaps to be replaced by a restored monarchy. The monarchy was popular in Afghanistan and would be accepted by most Afghans as a legitimate government.

Pipe dreams of a democratic, secular, modern Afghanistan would vanish, as pipe dreams always do. The United States and NATO would get out of Afghanistan without suffering an obvious defeat. In the history of Afghan wars, that is the best outcome an invader can hope for.

As Winston Churchill said, "Better 'jaw, jaw' than 'war, war.'"

-- (William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation.)

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