US Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a NATO leaders meeting this week, has foreshadowed a new strategy for Afghanistan. It remains to be seen whether it will be an effective one.

The intention is to do a deal with moderate elements in the Taleban and try to split the Taleban movement. This is a traditional British approach (most notably recently in Northern Ireland). The intention is to find a negotiated settlement to the conflict and to look for the guerrilla elements that are tired of the fighting and so are willing to consider a compromise deal. (The “true believers” will of course be determined to fight on - as we have tragically seen this week in NI)

The US has also foreshadowed increasing the US military presence in the country by transferring troops from Iraq. Australia will probably be among the countries asked to supply more troops.

Who ever won the November 2008 presidential election, there would have been a new strategy. Both main candidates were very critical of Bush’s lack of attention to Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan. Afghanistan had never received the sort of military attention that Bush lavished on Iraq.

After almost eight years of fighting, Afghani President Hamid Karzai is still just basically the mayor of Kabul the country’s capital city. The southern part of the rural area is still dominated by the Taleban. Last year he floated with the Americans the possibility that he might need to form a coalition government, which would include some Taleban elements. The Bush Administration was outraged. The Obama Administration is evidently more pragmatic and Biden seems to have taken up the idea in some form. As the British have shown over the decades, there is some wisdom in this approach.

It is necessary to distinguish between the Taleban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. The Talaban first came to prominence in 1994. The Soviets had been forced out of the country and the country was now wracked by civil war between the competing Afghani warlords. There was widespread poverty and corruption. The Talban (“seekers” - theological students) promised a new start based on strict Koranic law. They were honest and efficient and became quite popular with some ordinary people. The Americans liked their strict attitude towards drugs. The downside is that they were barbaric and medieval (by modern western human rights standards eg their appalling treatment of women).

Their leader was a village religious leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. He had lost the sight of his right eye fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Given his record of brutality, only strict Islamic governments actually recognized his government (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates). Other governments decided to sit back and wait to see who would eventually get control over all the country.

Meanwhile by the late 1990s Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda movement were on the run from the Clinton Administration. Bin Laden (from Saudi Arabia) had helped the Afghanis fight off the Soviet invaders in the 1980s. He ran a base (“al-Qaeda” is Arabic for “the base”) and he had recruited “Afghan Arabs” to fight the communists. Having beaten the Soviets he then turned his attention to the US and Israel, using Islamic African countries as his base. By the late 1990s the Clinton Administration was trying to kill him in retaliation.

Mullah Omar allowed him to return to Afghanistan. He took no part in the domestic politics. He had a far larger agenda for the Islamic world, especially the Arab part of it. He had little interest in Afghanistan as such.

Afghanistan’s life changed again after 9/11: September 11 2001. The US (now led by the new President Bush) wanted Osama bin Laden for the terrorist attacks in the US. Mullah Omar refused to hand him over. The US (with some Australian forces) invaded in late 2001 to get Osama bin Laden. (As we now know, the instructions were to kill him rather than capture him alive to be put on trial - the US did not want him in a court revealing what he knew about some of the US’s contacts with Saudi Arabia!)

Meanwhile, Mullah Omar fled the capital. He was last seen about eight years ago on the back of a motorcycle. We are still looking for a one-eyed Afghani on a motor bike. (He did not approve of personality cults and so there are few photos of what he actually looks like and so finding him has been even more difficult).

Osama bin Laden fought on in the Tora Bora mountains in the south and apparently eventually fled the area in December 2002. There is continuing doubt as to where he is - or even whether he is still alive. He has no role in Afghani politics today.

Meanwhile the remnants of the Taleban went back to their core business: fighting. They continued to put up a great resistance to the US-led forces, especially in the border territory in the south of the country (where they can draw upon support from some Pakistani elements).

President Karzai last year raised the possibility of inviting some of the more moderate Taleban elements to join his government. In effect: if you can’t beat them, invite them to join you. Bush didn’t like the idea but Obama evidently figures he has to be more flexible - not least given the lack of popularity of Karzai himself.

This will still mean fighting on in Afghanistan (which is still touch and go from a western point of view) and there is still the possibility that Australia will be asked to provide more troops. But it may be the beginning of a new domestic political alignment within Afghanistan.

Obama’s basic problem is that he has to do something quickly about Afghanistan. After a few more months this will become - in the public’s eye - “Obama’s War” and no longer “Bush’s War”. Depending on the conflict’s outcome, it could be his first major foreign policy failure. Therefore some new thinking is certainly required.