Let me just assure you that first of all I have spent half of my adult life in the public sector in government in the United States and politics and the other half of my adult life in academe in the United States as a professor.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Education | Higher education 'market' warning

"When talking to the Taliban, three powers have to be on the same page: the United States, the Pakistan army and the government, " said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a politics professor at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.

WSJ: Pakistani Taliban Call Off Peace Talks