Increasingly frustrated by the “downward spiral” that the U.S. intelligence community sees in Afghanistan, the Pentagon appears to be moving in support of engaging leaders of the resurgent Taliban who are prepared to disassociate themselves from al Qaeda.

While the seeds for that strategy are being planted now, the next U.S. president – be it the current front-runner, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, or his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain – will likely be advised by Pentagon chief Robert Gates and the new chief of the U.S. Central Command (Centcom), Gen. David Petraeus, to support such an effort as the most effective way to stabilize Afghanistan where the “global war on terror” first began seven years ago.

According to the Post, Petraeus has ordered the Team to focused on two major themes – “government-led reconciliation of Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the leveraging of diplomatic and economic initiatives with nearby countries that are influential in the war.” Those are precisely the strategies Rashid and Rubin highlighted in their article as critical to achieving their “Grand Bargain.”

According to a New York Times article earlier this month, the draft of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) – a consensus document of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies – found that the security situation in Afghanistan was in a “downward spiral.” It cited rampant corruption in the government of President Hamid Karzai; the exploding drug trade that now accounts for half of the country’s economy; and increasingly sophisticated attacks by the Taliban that has so far taken the lives of more U.S. and NATO troops in 2008 than in any previous year as the main causes.