Does China hold key to the Afghan puzzle?

That sounds a bit far-fetched when compared to what's actually going on in Pipelineistan.

Kabul has committed to a huge 7,000-member security force to guard the $10-billion, 1,800 km long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline within Afghanistan, assuming it will really be finished by December 2018. Optimistically, heavy work on clearing TAPI's passage -- and that includes demining -- will begin in April.

Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov already ordered state companies Turkmengaz and Turkmengazneftstroi to begin building the country's 214-km section of TAPI. The pipeline will also travel 773 km in Afghanistan and 827 km in Pakistan before entering India. Whether all this frenzy will actually materialize by 2018 is open to never-ending question.

Meanwhile, what is the CIA up to?

Former acting CIA director Michael Morell is now spinning ... "the reemergence of Afghanistan as an issue," so "the debate on how many troops we [the US] keep in Afghanistan is going to reopen."

The Pentagon for its part is spinning the need for 10,000 boots on the ground. The top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, wants his 10,000 with a vengeance; "My intent would be to keep as much as I could, for as long as I could." Enduring Freedom forever, indeed -- as the Pentagon has been forced to admit, on the record, that the Afghan security forces are incapable of "operating entirely on their own" despite a whopping Washington investment of $60 billion-plus since 2002.

The latest Pentagon reports describe security in Afghanistan going down, down, down. Which brings us to Helmand.

Only a few days before the Islamabad meeting, US special forces shadowing Afghan troops got into a tremendous firefight with the Taliban in Helmand. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook, in trademark newspeak, didn't call it "combat" -- but rather a "train, advise and assist" mission.

The Taliban control more territory in Afghanistan -- no less than four Helmand districts -- than at any time since 2001. Civilians are caught in the crossfire. And yet Pentagon special forces and air strikes in Helmand are just qualified as sightseeing.

In the end, everything comes back to Helmand. Why Helmand? My Pashtun interlocutors loosen up and say it with a mouthful: it's all about the involvement of the CIA in the heroin trade in Afghanistan; "The Americans simply can't let it go."

So here we are delving into perhaps a new chapter in a gas and poppy epic at the heart of Eurasia. The Taliban, divided or not, have come up with their ultimate red line; no talking with Kabul until they get a direct talk with Washington. From a Taliban point of view, it makes total sense. Pipelineistan? Fine, but we want our cut (that's the same story since the first Clinton administration). CIA heroin? Fine, you can keep it, but we want our cut.

My Pashtun interlocutors, about to board a flight to Peshawar, lay out the road map. The Taliban want their Qatar office -- a really nice palace -- officially recognized as a representation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan; that's what the country was from 1996 to 2001. They want the UN -- not to mention the US -- to remove the Taliban from its "most wanted" list. They want all Taliban prisoners released from Afghan jails.

Will that happen? Of course not. So now it's up to Beijing to come up with a win-win scenario.