Hekmatyar’s uncompromising militancy—especially his willingness to fight the Taliban and his consequences-be-damned approach to Afghan collateral damage–may turn out to be the music that the region’s interested powers want to hear.,However, a choice between conducting an unpopular counterinsurgency campaign reliant on foreign troops or unleashing Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to take on the Taliban by himself is not much of a choice at all.