The first ~thirty days after 9/11 were full of negotiations with the Taliban as they weren't terrorists but harboring terrorists. Even after the invasion, they could have labeled it as the Taliban agreeing to help bring Bin Laden to justice and they would have been able to save face.
Hell, it might have helped prevent Bin Laden's flight into Pakistan, and have been a tremendous PR victory.
You make a good point, but it leaves the Taliban of late 2001 with a very narrow path to successfully complete negotiations: give up Bin Laden in cooperation with the US and then hope the ramifications from Bin Laden's people are minimal and the US is satisfied to then leave you alone. Might have worked, but they succeeded in the waiting game.
"Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait. There is nothing stronger than those two: patience and time, they will do it all." - Tolstoy, War and Peace
>Bin Laden in cooperation with the US and then hope the ramifications from Bin Laden's people are minimal and the US is satisfied to then leave you alone.
They could have negotiated the kinds of overt military support CIA installed South American despots could only dream of for the low, low price of treating Al Qaeda the way western democracies who are accountable to western voters could never treat them.
With the US's "aid" they could have consolidated power over the nation and legitimized themselves on the world stage. All they had to do was say "we'll turn over the terrorists but we need your help". We'd have gladly held our noses and given them training and equipment so long as they rooted out Al Qaeda. Of course the Taliban didn't want to be a puppet state or a client state. But we didn't want to engage in nation building. It would have been a perfect one night stand.
Hell, it might have helped prevent Bin Laden's flight into Pakistan, and have been a tremendous PR victory.