If It's In Time Magazine Then Truly Everyone Knows It

Time Magazine is not a very good publication (I would submit to you as evidence the picture at the beginning of the article I am about to link to which claims to show a US soldier "tak[ing] aim at a suspected Taliban hideout in the woods of Oshaky, Afghanistan" when he is clearly using his ACOG for the purpose of magnification, not target acquisition) so if they know that the US believes that a political settlement including the Taliban is the eventual outcome in Afghanistan, then pretty much all the cards are on the table. US leaders know we cannot be in Afghanistan for too much longer, the Taliban knows that we know it, and we know that the Taliban knows that we know. The point of all this knowing is that we cannot hope to achieve much of anything with the current surge.
The fact of the matter is that the Taliban can simply wait a year or two until we start to draw down before they go back on the offensive and they know it. And although I am very reluctant to draw historical analogies (especially ones that involve Vietnam as it has become cliche) I can't help but think that this surge is simply Obama's Christmas Bombing. So why waste time with a surge that the Taliban know they can wait out, that we know that the Taliban can wait out, and that the Taliban know that we know that they can wait out?
So what does this say about counterinsurgency more generally? That a foreign army cannot fake resolve. A legitimate and capable host nation partner is absolutely essential. Which brings us to the real problem for the US in Afghanistan. No Afghani institution(s) have the ability to resist the Taliban in the Pashtun parts of the country and this is a fundamental that will not change in a year or 18 months.