Last winter...Khalilzad suggested that Washington change the balance of power in Afghanistan by fracturing the ruling Taliban militia from within and offering assistance to the anti-Taliban northern alliance..."Though policy-makers are loath to say it openly, Afghanistan is ruled by a rogue regime, the Taliban," he wrote. "Acting now is essential."
By last year he had decided they were a problem.
After the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, Khalilzad, like many other experts on Afghanistan, hoped the Taliban would bring stability to the country, which had slipped into a cycle of brutal fighting among warlords after the Soviet invasion ended in 1989.
"The Taliban does not practice the anti-U.S. style of fundamentalism practiced by Iran," Khalilzad, then a senior strategist at Rand, wrote in October 1996.
About four years ago, Khalilzad helped entertain Taliban leaders in Texas. At the time, Khalilzad was a consultant for a company hired by the California-based Unocal Corp., which was trying to get the Taliban to back a multibillion-dollar pipeline through Afghanistan
However about 4 years ago he was attempting to have US corporations work with them.