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If the London Conference on Afghanistan held last week demonstrated anything, it is that it's only a matter of time until India loses whatever strategic leverage it previously enjoyed compared with Pakistan in the country.

The plan floated at the conference is based on the flawed assumption among much of the international community that there's a "good' Taliban, one which can be weaned away from the "bad' elements. Yet the consensus reached in London, born out of fatigue among Western nations (especially the United States and Britain) now eyeing a hasty late 2010 or early 2011 withdrawal, is not much different from the numerous failed peace deals that former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cobbled together with the tribal communities of North-West Frontier...