@RAH:
…let the NGO groups to rebuild Afghanistan to be a better place. They will fail since they generally have the wrong worldview but not our problem.

That is precisely our problem. Afghanistan is bordered by Turkmenistan, Uzbekitstan and Kajikistan. North of them are huge Kazakhstan and tiny Kyrgyztan. North of them is Russia. East of them is China. The trans-Caucasus is a choke point between them and the West. Afghanistan-Baluchistan is their shortest (albeit very rough) land route to high seas via the Arabian Sea.

Paying them to grow bio-diesel crops makes a lot of sense because it ameliorates our military logistical problems, gives the Afghani’s freedom of action, and cuts off the Taliban’s air. Perhaps the Paki’s would be amenable to a Helmand-Baluchistan rail route, too.

Pakistan’s East-West rail line from Quetta to Zahedaqn, Iran (also highway 40) would intersect an Afghanistan to Gwadar line, giving Quetta (and Spin Boldak in Afghanistan) an alternative to Highway 25 or the Hyderabad railway routes to the sea.

Autonomous or not, Baluchistan presents an important opening to keeping both Afghanistan and Turkic Central Asia open to the world, not divvied up between Persia, Russia, and China.

Democracy and free trade for Central Asia, sez me! Hmmm, sounds like the Bush Doctrine, and I like it.