Well, I think you've raised two questions.
The first one was about Pakistan. In my mind, there's no question that Pakistan really is at the root of this evil: the Taliban. It created the Taliban, and it continues.... Even when the Northern Alliance was at the gateway to Kabul back in 2001, he was trying to stop—and did for awhile—the bombing of the Taliban, and he tried to dictate the new Afghan government at the time.
But as you point out, the danger now is there are tribal areas where Pakistani troops have gone in that are really out of control. So Musharraf, as usual—as he has with the issue of Kashmir, though I won't get into that—is playing a double game with the issue of Afghanistan. The game is to say, oh, look, I know how dangerous the Taliban are and I'll go after them, and we've suffered heavy casualties. At the same time he's afraid; he wants to say in power and knows there are elements in his country that want him out of power. It is a military dictatorship. So at the same time, he encourages and continues to arm....
I mean, the Taliban could not have begun to have done the things they've done militarily without the help of the Pakistani army. Now, it's true, the Pakistanis have...and there other people than the Pashtun tribe. The whole movement has new adherents; there are some Uzbeks, and there are the Pashtuns on either side of the border. But the point is that it's all in line with Pakistan's goal, which really goes beyond Musharraf—but he's trying to carry it out—to control Afghanistan, like they say, as a buffer against India.
So we have to put the greatest possible pressure on Musharraf. The Americans have been very late in doing this. I think it's no secret that Canada and Holland, together, for some months now, have been trying to put on economic pressure. We don't know much about this, because it's been kept quiet. And now Bush has weighed in. But we don't know exactly what kind of pressure it is, and I think it has to be very strong to force Pakistan....
The second question you raised, about an international conference, sounds fine in principle. I'm not sure this is the right time. I would rather wait until.... I mean, now the Taliban could claim, well, we are a major force. I'd rather they got a few more black eyes and were hurt a little more and were definitely seen to be losing before we had an international conference.
The Taliban will have supporters. There'll be some in Pakistan among the ISI and the military who will support the Taliban.
Iran doesn't make sense. A lot of things don't make sense. Iran, of course, is Shia; the Taliban is Sunni, but we now know, in the last few days, of increasing evidence of Iranian-designed and -provided weapons being found not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan.
So I think, in principle, a conference is a good idea. I'm not sure this is the right time.