Ab Editor - I think that assuming a lack of willingness to talk on the part of Al Qaeda is just that - an assumption.
I firmly believe that invading a country in order to prop up a corrupt puppet democracy is not the best way to engage the indiginous population's resistance - and the length of time and singular failure of anything approaching what could be called a result ('Getting the job done' as Bush used to say before he moseyed off into the sunset and left armageddon behind him) has proven that point.
It is an easy position to take - they won't talk so we'll bomb them into our way of thinking.
But it hasn't happened has it? So dialogue remains the only feasible alternative, difficult though it may be, it has to be better than the present situation, which is resulting in a soldier dying outslde his barracks on a sunny day in May.