The logic of the conflict would suggest that the anti-Taliban northern alliance would be the next group to run Afghanistan if the Taliban falls. The northern alliance has fought for five years from mountain strongholds to oust the Muslim fundamentalist regime.
But affairs in Afghanistan have constantly confounded the common wisdom.
Political strategists, meanwhile, grapple with a much less defined goal: how to fill the power vacuum if the Taliban collapses?
For the moment, Western leaders are rallying around a symbol of the past: the 86-year-old former king Mohammad Zaher Shah, who has lived in exile in Rome since being deposed by his cousin in 1973.
EU foreign ministers, meeting in Luxemburg on Monday, examined a French proposal to have the UN set up a transitional government, with the ex-king in a key role.
But the EU objectives could conflict with another initiative by the ex-monarch and the northern alliance. They propose convening a version of the traditional loya jirga, or national council: an emergency council of tribal leaders and military chiefs to craft a new government.
"To give this operation any legitimacy at all, the UN must be involved ... you can't expect a man of 86 [years] to play that much of a dynamic role," said Dick Gupwell, editor of the Eurasia Bulletin at the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels, Belgium.
Gupwell cited the UN political role in the former Indonesian enclave of East Timor and Cambodia, where Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge was blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979.
"If you can resolve Cambodia after Pol Pot was there, I think you can resolve Afghanistan after the Taliban," he said. "It's not an insurmountable problem, but it ain't going to be easy."
Afghanistan is also squeezed between two powerful neighbors: Iran and Pakistan. Both are deeply interested in playing big brother to possible Taliban successors.
Their tug-of-war over Afghanistan shows the country's linguistic and ethnic fault lines.
Iran, a Taliban opponent that has helped arm the northern alliance, endorses the deposed government of Burhanuddin Rabbani -- which is still recognized by the UN -- as an interim political solution. Rabbani, who lives in exile in Tajikistan, is from Afghanistan's Tajik minority that speaks the Persian language of Iran.
But US leaders have lavished praise on Pakistan for its quick support of the anti-terrorist campaign. Pakistan fears losing its influence in Afghanistan and could press US officials to try to keep the northern alliance from taking full power.
The Taliban's base is the majority Pashtun ethnic group, which has linguistic and cultural ties with Pakistan.
Others wonder if the Taliban, once ousted from power, could simply become rebels and keep up the cycle of war.
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