I know "Iraq is the central front in the War on Terror," which seriously underestimates numerous threats to attaining our goal of containing and/or eliminating the Jihadists, but is Afghanistan not important at all? Reason I ask is because developments there of late should alarm the entire spectrum here in the States and in the free West, et cetera... in general.

First there is the Waziristan Accord. Here is a more recent assessment of the situation in the NWFP of Pakistan.

Second, as John points out, the British may have made a secret deal with the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan after facing fierce opposition from Taliban forces.

Finally, Bill Frist concludes today that we need to support efforts to bring the Taliban into the new Afghanistan government. "[I]f that's accomplished, we'll be successful" he says.

I don't know that I'd call that a success, would you? Let's at least get them to quit killing people first, or flip moderate entities within the Taliban to push for some change in course from within the group to bring them into the political fold. May not be possible, and may have already been tried...

I have serious concerns that if they are brought into the weak Afghanistan government, then they'll destroy it and with it all progress made. And is a Taliban -- or even a neoTaliban -- in Afghanistan acceptable in any way, anyway?

[UPDATED] Dr. Frist didn't like how that sounded either. But still, Afghanistan has a lot of work to do and should get more attention, IMO.