First, Pakistan does have those troops on the border, and has been quite active in pursuing al-Qaeda. Of course, al-Qaeda members are not Afghan or Pakistani, by and large; they are Arab, and from other countries. Pakistan does not have any interest in attacking the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. In fact, that created a lot of problems for them, in that Taliban would still be in power otherwise, which is what they would prefer.
So they are willing to do that, but they have not used those troops against the Taliban. Until Vice-President Cheney's recent visit, they had never arrested a senior Taliban official on Pakistani soil. They actually denied that there were any such people. President Musharraf personally denied to me, at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting, that there were any Taliban leaders in Quetta. Then they arrested a former defence minister of the Taliban in Quetta. So that calls into question the good faith of their effort.
The military in Pakistan always says that the alternative to military rule is chaos. However, I find that there are very few Pakistanis who believe that. I might add also that the civilian leaders in Pakistan tell U.S. diplomats, “We have to do what they want, or they'll be replaced by some radical Islamists, maybe by the Taliban or something”, which also doesn't appear to be true, from my observation of Pakistan.
I think the military can find another general. The Pakistani political system is mature enough that, despite all of its problems, you can actually have an elected civilian government in Pakistan. It's pretty clear that this is what Pakistanis would want.
I should add, and this is more controversial, that in my view, civilian rule in Pakistan would be more favourable--or at least potentially could be more favourable--to what we are trying to accomplish in Afghanistan, because the military in Pakistan is not just the military, it's actually the ruling party. It has political alliances, and those political alliances are with the Islamist parties. Musharraf's party is in coalition with the pro-Taliban party in the Balochistan provincial government. The Pashtun parties that are opposed to the Taliban actually are in opposition to the military, and would be likely to have more influence if there were an elected civilian government. Of course there would be some problems, but I don't think the blackmail the Pashtun military uses with foreign guests is credible.
Just on the Taliban, I prefer to speak about the insurgency rather than the Taliban, because the Taliban as an organization is only part of the insurgency. There are many people fighting for a variety of reasons. Certainly there are people who can be neutralized or incorporated into the government one way or the other. I think it is much more questionable whether it's possible to create a political or factional split within the structure of the Taliban, which appears to be relatively united under the leadership of Mullah Omar.