The Taliban, in or out of power, will have to be monitored with drones and satellites. That can occur without a Western military presence, and attacks can be carried out, by special forces, or by drones, or by useful missiles from afar, whenever the need arises. There is no need to spend money trying to refashion Muslim Afghanistan. As for the "good" Afghans -- i.e., those who don't like the Taliban but remain Muslims -- the Talliban is their problem, as their greatest (and unrecognized) problem is Islam itself.

And since there is nothing the West can do about this, except get out of the way and hope that some Muslim Afghans will begin to become at first dimly, and then more brightly, aware that for their own good Islam has to be constrained.

Infidels can't help them out save to talk amongst ourselves about all the ways that Islam explains the failures -- political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral -- of Muslim states and peoples, and hope that we are overheard, and that it forces some Muslims to bethink themselves.