The unerring GPS of Fareed Zakaria

I have read the ingenious proposal by Fareed Z. on How to end the war in Afghanistan and am still trying to get the bad (very bad) taste out of my mouth. Why ingenious? It looks like with a few small compromises with Taliban, like selling the Afghanistan's women down the river and some such little confidence-building gestures, peace in Afghanistan could be achieved in a jiffy. But I'll let better people write about this travesty. Meanwhile, a question to the history buffs (or just experts) on this quote:

If you look at any good study of civil wars, what you find is that most of them end in a negotiated settlement.

I suspect that, like the rest of the article, it is full of crapola, but could someone confirm this feeling for me? Or reverse it?

Thanks.