The problem is that we don't know whethere the Taliban can build around traditional Afghan nationalism and anti-occupation-ism, or whether some other factors, includintg unforeseen political/economic developments, might change the Afghan political environment. So the metaphor should properly be "like building a sand castle at the beach, without knowing if the tide will be rising or falling."

We (Americans) might get lucky and prevail somehow in less than ten years, but we certainly can't be sure of that.

Why would it take several years for such a large , well equipped, heavily armed, force to defeat of several hundred lightly armed Taliban? Our Special Forces alone probably outnumber the Taliban by five to one, and they are not encombered by any sort of "Rules of War" (that's what makes them "Special").

The Petraeus Doctrine is above all to save the US Military's face. As Prof Cole just pointed out in his preceding piece, Iraq is very unstable politically. All the ethnic tensions that were present before the "Surge" are still there. And now the central government has several hundred thousand trained soldiers under its control, with no mission other than to surpress whatever the central government wants surpressed. Yet Gen Petraeus accredits some permanent benefites to his Surge. (Which I think had the prime purpose of emasculating al Sadr.)

Leaving Afghanistan now is a major defeat for the military-industrial complex. Back to the barracks in shame. To avoid this the strategy is to foster this notion that it will take years of war to defeat this enemy. Don't look at day to day progress, or even year to year.
Just pay attention to Pentagon, and White House pronouncements. And above all don't pay any attention to Informed Comment or Tomdispatch.

OK, maybe I can deal with that, maybe years is fine. But what will it take years to do? How do I recognise that those years are over, and we're done? Is it perhaps when Afganistan invades the USA and forces the removal from power of a vicious dictator, thus ending his threat to his peaceful neighbours, and removing a nursing ground of international terrorism?

It would make a very nice budget cut.!!

I appreciate the level of detail in your post, and I appreciate the strong critique of Washington DC based assumptions.

At the end of the day, the Afghan surge, just like the Iraq surge, was a bad idea. We are committed to a seemingly endless presence in a place we are not appreciated. We fight with weapons and bombs that produce the kind of anti-Americanism we are seeking to extinguish. It is amazing that our political process delivers a strategy that produces the very thing we say we are fighting against.

But, this war will be decided by economics more than anything else. One Trillion dollars has already been invested in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What do we get for that investment? But more importantly, what will we get from the next trillion dollars we invest? And more importantly, should we fix American roads and schools before we try to fix Afghanistan?

Increasingly, the dissident voices will focus on economics.

1) After taking over Marjah, why not distribute $100 to every family?
Call it a stimulus measure. Or reparations for war damage or whatever.
But couldn't this buy good will at a cheap price. 85K people, so I'm guessing there are 20,000 households = $2M.
Compared to the costs of military hardware, weaponry, soldiers, etc it's peanuts.
Not saying it's a panacea, but wouldn't it be a simple good start.

2) I'd combine that with some good salaries for the local gov't admin. At least for key personnel, up their salaries fourfold… and demand accountability.

3) Offer some sort of genuine autonomy and governance for the Southern Pashtun region. It seems this is the de facto situation anyway. Why not formalize it and remove them from Kabul and national resources? Or is offering up such a mini-Taliban quasi-state untenable, and too much like the frontier territories Pakistan doesn't control and is having troubles with.
I'm thinking of trying to get peace for most of Afghanistan, and let the Pashtuns/Taliban govern there own region?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.
Also, I'd be interested to hear any out-of-the-box ideas you might be considering worthy.

Thank you for your continued insights.