On the British move to talk to Taliban...

In terms of playing politics and the divide-and-conquer game, the Brits are far superior than the Americans.

Watch how it plays it out in Afghanistan, with the Americans move being to add (or reduce) military force to the area, essentially playing the cat-and-mouse game with the insurgents and Talibans. The Americans haven't really changed much of their game plan, because the whole thing comes out from the military's play book. It's almost like there is no hindsight or Plan B that the Americans can and will do.

Contrast that to how the Brits approach it. When the military doesn't seem to be working, politicians step in. But instead of politicians talking military talk, they try their hands to divide and conquer the opponents. Now, Gordon Brown, the newly minted PM, is suggesting that the insurgents (and in fact, Taliban) are really not one big bad guys, but a bunch of loosely defined tribes that the Brits can talk to, and negotiate with. What was left unsaid is that, the politicians knew what they play well, which is to go in, stratify the opponents, and divide them in groups, to ultimately master them.

That's the playbook that the Brits play so well in the colonial days, in India, in Hong Kong, and in Africa. That's how the Brits could maintain and rule its Commonwealth for more than a hundred years with so much success. I would argue that, ultimately, it'll be politics that win the day in Afghanistan and, indeed, Iraq.