We had a chance to make peace with the Haqqani's in the early days of the Afghanistan war. It would have meant basically ceding control of Khost, Paktika, And Paktia provinces to a former Taliban leader, which are mineral rich areas of course. Those provinces border the Pakistan's FATA where the Haqqani's also have a lot of influence. Giving them back control would have meant cutting off a large area for the flow of fighters/munitions into Afghanistan and if the Pakistan government was on board they could have diverted resources elsewhere along the border to help increase security. Instead the CIA tried to blow up his convoy on the way to talks and missed him and his sons.

Would it have all worked out, IDK? Haqqani was more of a mob boss than a die hard Islamist. He might have even tried to play everybody. But the U.S. has a long history of getting in bed with bastards as long as they were our bastards. I don't know if that's right or wrong, and certainly we shouldn't support cruel leaders to advance corporate interest like the days of the Banana Republics (Iraq not withstanding) but we had options to make peace with moderate Taliban back in the day. I don't think there are any moderates left now.