Afghanistan - A political discussion

Afghanistan is a nation with an interesting history – which can be summed up as attempted domination by the rulers of adjoining nations for the past several hundred years.
This state is made up of more than a dozen rather disparate tribal/cultural/linguistic groups with only one over-riding similarity. They are almost all Muslims, but even here they are divided among major (Sunni & Shia) and minor denominations within Islam. The tribes do have a web of common Islamic beliefs and culture.
There are two major languages spoken – Dari Persian, and Pashtun – and several minor languages, but many Afghans are bilingual. The government has always (well, almost always) been a traditional rather weak central monarchy with local and area tribal rule. Since Afghanistan has long been a buffer state between unfriendly neighbors (most recently Great Britain and the USSR), the development of a strong central government along with natural resources and industry has lagged well behind its neighbors: Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan.
Our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven there and seems to have been successful. The Taliban and Al Qaeda seem to have disassociated themselves and less than 100 Al Qaeda fighters remain in Afghan territory – at least according to the CIA.
Currently our policy seems to be to control, disarm and dismember the Taliban so as to prevent its return to power and thus once again provide Al Qaeda with a safe haven. To do this we have attempted to strengthen and encourage the growth of a fairly liberal national government – one which continues the guarantees of personal freedom and civil rights.
There are (at least) two major problems with this policy:
For most of its existence, Afghanistan has not had a strong central government – and when it did have one, that government was seen as repressive; and second, Afghan tribal society tends to be quite conservative and traditional – with traditional Shari’a Islamic law as the basis for moral authority – which runs counter to the civil rights inclusions in the National Constitution, especially women’s rights.
To achieve our current stated policy goals we will probably have to deal directly with the local and regional tribal governments – as we ultimately have done in Western Iraq. The real authority in Afghanistan lies with these local authorities but we have not yet resolved how we can breach the considerable moral and cultural beliefs which separate us.
Will the US be willing to back a strong group of regional governing bodies against the Taliban even if these rulers are essentially undemocratic and authoritarian, or must we remain as the central authority enforcing the power of the weak and corrupt central government?