As feared, hopes of Afghan peace have crumbled quickly. The ‘moderate’ new Taliban chief, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, stresses that “Jihad will continue till an Islamic sharia system is enforced in the country.” He adds that notions of dialogue with the government are “propaganda of the enemy”. Is it now time to unpack the infamous ‘plan C’ and carve up Afghanistan?If Mansoor is “playing to his own audience and trying to consolidate his position”, as Thomas Ruttig of the Afghan Analysts Network believes, the Taliban insurgency will get more vicious before it dials down. When ideologues are cornered, as Mansoor is with the succession drama, they scurry to their hardline roots and return only when able to negotiate from a position of strength. The carnage of the Kabul bombings in early August dispelled a myth that began with the news of Mullah Omar’s death. There was hope that many Taliban fighters, upon hearing this news, would disappear to do some soul searching. A few days later, they would emerge deflated and ready to put down arms. This has not happened because three years ago, according to scholar Antonio Giustozzi, the Taliban “decentralised their insurgency as much as they could” in response to US drone strikes.While the non-Haqqani network Taliban, especially Mullah Omar’s family, may be angry at Mansoor for deceiving them, they will see no reason to stray from the path of reclaiming Afghanistan. Especially when they are gaining in battles against Kabul and the complete drawdown of US forces nears in 2016. A similar situation brews in Gaza where Islamic State (IS) allied Salafists duel Hamas for control of the strip but unite in actions against Israel.Mullah Omar, without a doubt, was the spiritual spear of the Taliban. However, the death of a man absent from day-to-day command for over a decade could never have jammed the insurgency at a tactical level. The White House may again slow down the troop exit schedule but you wonder how much patience Congress has for Kabul’s training wheels. Deputy US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently warned: “We cannot and should not be the guarantor of Afghan security in perpetuity.”Some in the Afghan government see the succession crisis as an opportunity to divide and conquer the Taliban. The Balkh province governor, Atta Mohammed Nur, thinks “defeating the Taliban is a very real possibility now”. His alliance with Tajik warlord, and old foe, Rashid Dostum though indicates that few among the Soviet-era mujahideen trust Kabul to contain the militancy without US muscle. Moreover, such regional pacts only weaken an already under-fire President Ghani.Anatol Lieven, writing for The New York Times, says Kabul should use Taliban infighting to “isolate the hard-liners in Afghanistan”. That said, the moderates will not bite unless Ghani grants sweeping regional autonomy. Lest we forget, all Taliban lost their perks after 2001, not just the diehards. Afghanistan’s US-style presidential system will need a revamp before countrywide devolution is possible. In 2002, many Afghans wanted King Zahir Shah back. Even as a token monarch, he could be the uniting force in a divided country. However, the warlords and Islamists rejected this idea. Shah’s 1964 Constitution had been far too secular for comfort, and they feared an erosion of power if Afghanistan took a step back in history. The Cold War US had not been a fan either. A National Security Archive report from 1970 painted Shah’s rule as a “party-less parliament, the powerless prime minister and a King reluctant either to use or delegate his authority”.Shashank Joshi, writing for the BBC online, believes the post-Mullah Omar Taliban “may be strong enough to keep waging war but too weak to make peace”. In short, the balkanisation of the group may result in a similar fate for Afghanistan. If the government cannot outgrow its “mayor of Kabul” tag, the country could return to the civil war era of the 1990s. There are few happy omens around. The Afghan national army has shrunk by 8.5 percent from its tally in February last year, mainly due to desertions. Competing factions could also emerge inside the Afghan security forces after 2016.A UK member of parliament named Tobias Ellwood saw this coming in 2011. Worried that Afghanistan faced a “bleak future” after international presence faded, he devised “plan C” to divide the country into eight zones. Each zone would work under a local council overseen by some foreign power. This setup would allow for better representation and faster reaction times to on-ground situations. Although discussed by senior members of the US and UK cabinets, the plan was never put into action. Perhaps there was enough optimism then about crushing the militants wholesale for it not to merit attention. Now, the other shoe has dropped and there is no going back. Otherwise, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan will have been for naught. The writer is a freelance columnist and audio engineer based in Islamabad