But as Iranians warm up to Talibans, there lies the opportunity for Pakistan to mediate between them and come with a power sharing formula between Pushtun south and non-Pushtun north. Growing influence of ISIS in Afghanistan can act as a catalyst for reaching such an agreement.
Currently Iranians are not thrilled by the idea of US leaving Afghanistan as they know it will fall back into Taliban hands. But once such a formula is agreed upon, we will have a common interest in US leaving the region.
I think it is interesting how comfortable the americans are with leaving afghanistan while taliban are still active and strong in so many parts of the country. despite all the rhetoric against taliban and all the drone and aerial attacks against taliban, american political leaders and military planners have always made one conceptual distinction between al qaeda and taliban - in fact, from the get-go in 2001 and 1990's! they always recognized al qaeda as a extraterritorial, supranational forces with ideological grievances that cannot be settled through economic, territorial or political concessions, and it is this supranational dimension of its motivations that makes its terrorist methods inevitable and almost natural.
by contrast, taliban has always drawn its strength from very specific tribal and local grievances. one cannot imagine a more indigenous and blood-and-soil type of insurgency. taliban, in other words, can be accommodated by very concrete, local concessions - and even when they cannot, taliban lack the transnational appeal and organization to attack american soil, so americans can simply and safely LEAVE. and they gladly do so because they know that where taliban lack global aspirations and resources, they make it up with far superior ability in moblizing local resources and forging unshakable local solidarity with familial and ethnic bonds that cannot be broken with US bombs and bullets; therefore, even if US troops don't leave and choose to stay, they can never finish taliban the way they finished al qaeda. the ideological and organizational differences between a nativist taliban and a rootless al qaeda are the most importants lessons taught to americans after almost two decades of fighting in afghanistan.
and what the war taught an alien force like the US should be apparent and intuitive to regional players like iran and pakistan. which is why the US withdrawal may portend a reconciliation of iran, taliban and pakistan: if US can grasp the territorial and ethnic - rather than religious and ideological - ambitions of taliban and feel safe in exposing its back to a resurgent taliban in leaving afghanistan, then taliban's neighbors (tribes in afghanistan, in pakistan, and iran), too, should be able to see the nature of taliban's aspirations and see in the latter a potentially rational and purely transactional dialogue partner. what it takes is pragmatism, courage and reasonableness.
let's emphasise one thing: among tajiks, taliban, pashtuns, uzbeks, iran and pakistan, their roots and traditional territories intertwine; if sometimes they bring to the table demands and grievances that are too exaggerated or too greedy or too unreasonable, none is *illegitimate*. among zioists, saudis, americans (and the yindoo running dogs that want to ride uncle sam's coattails), or al qaeda, however, their aspirations are always ideological and transcendental; as such, they can never be brought to negotiate with each other because their objectives, albeit phrased in the most beautiful language of religious piety or democratic beliefs, are utterly illegitimate, unpragmatic and irrational, not to mention unreasonable. they are the real nutjobs whose influence on any negotiation among tajiks or pashtuns or taliban is forever one of sabotage and damnation.
russia and china are regional, pragmatic stakeholders with the narrower interest in seeing greater peace and more trade in the region. china and russia want to navigate their priorities for the region through dialogue, collaboration and sometimes hardball bargaining with the major players (iran, pakistan, all the ethnic groups, and taliban); and china and russia know to ignore the rootless and the nutjobs (al qaeda and US). i think chinese and russian leaders see the clear possibility of reciprocal accommodation among the truly indigenous and local stakeholders - hence the reconciliation among iranians, taliban, pakistanis and other afghan forces.
ultimately all the regional players will gain the intellectual clarity of what differentiates them from all the rootless, extra-regional forces and spurn the latter's malicious interference and sabotage of regional peace and prosperity. that intellectual clarity is at once the political foundation of the quadruple alliance of the four leading regional powers.