Let us put things in a perspective. Lot of people in this forum have demonstrated the lack of ability to comprehend the ground realities.
The main enemy of USA is Al-Qaeda, which is held responsible for the 9/11 event. And USA is giving a good beating to Al-Qaeda. OBL is gone, which is an important achievement.
Taliban did not participated in 9/11. It was punished for providing shelter to Al-Qaeda. Also, Taliban was not popular in the West for its extreme policies. Particularly the treatment of women and the destruction of famous statues brought it to the spotlight in a negative way. So these reasons paved way for the Afghan invasion under the pretext of WOT.
However, now Americans have realized that Taliban has ideological roots in the Afghan society. It is not going away. Therefore, a policy shift has taken place in US on how to deal with the Taliban. This is why it has been planned to give Taliban a representation in the future of Afghanistan. I believe that this is not a stupid move.
World knows that peace in this region can only be guaranteed if the Afghan Solution is planned and executed properly and on just basis.
USA is using the carrot and stick approach with Taliban to force it to the negotiation table by making it realize that it cannot win through confrontation. We will see how this ends by 2014.