覚書 "The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan"(2008, Harvard) by Robert D.Crews and Amin Tarzi

"The Taliban and the Crisis of
Afghanistan"(2008, Harvard) by Robert D.Crews and Amin Tarzi, which
seems to be a good book, and have some question.
(1) As the word of Wahid Muzdha, it is said taht: On December 6,
Taliban Cabinet met in Kandahar under the leadership of Defence
Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund and decided that Taliban would
transfer power to the tribal council headed by Hamid Karzai.They also
declared that their forces would surrender their weapons to the same
council. On the following day, December 7, the birthplace of the
Taliban movement, and the last major city in its control, was in the
hands of a tribal council - thus ending the Taliban movement`s
seven-year quest to establish am exemplary Islamic emirate in
Afghanistan.(p.278)
Is it true? And does it mean that Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
officially relinquished its legitimacy of rule and recognized the
legitimacy of Karzai's leadership at that moment?
(2) By Muzhda's account, Osama bin Laden consistently undermined
figures like Wakil Ahmad Mutawakkil, who served as foreign minister
from mid-1997. Indeed, from 2000 or so, the movement was at war with
itself, Muzhda asserts, with Bin Laden supposedly naming Mutawakkil
as the second target, after United States,of his Jihad. (p.268)
Is it true?

(concluding remark)

As with the initial appearance of this movement of "knowledge seekers[Taliban]" from the madrasas and orpfhaneges of Afghanistan-Pakistan border, international actors played a central role in creating the conditions for their reemergence. Yet here it was the policies of the United States, the guardian of the central Afghan state, that contributed to the instability that neo-Taliban rethoric of a religiously inspired law and order sought to combat.
Having insisted on a tightly centralized state to the exclusion of models that might have shared power among Afghanistan7s diverse regions, the Americans then failed to back Kabul's authority. Rather than construct a viable state that would gain legitimacy among wide variety of Afghan social groups, Karzai's backers undermined his authority by depriving him of a proper treasury and by continuing to wield military power through punitive expeditions that turned communities against the post-Taliban government but failed to to provide security. As in 1994, Afghan sought not only order, but justice. Like the rulers of Afghanistan before them. the masters of Kabul had not resolved the crisis of the Afghan state and its dislocation from the diverse communities that make up that country. The Pax Americana promised development but only expanded the wide fissures cutting through Afghan society and, in mobilizing diverse foes against the center, rekindled memories of grievance feeding thirty years of war.