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In hard, realistic, practical terms, what does the Afghan venture gain the US? What does it cost the US? If that calculation comes up negative - and it pretty clearly does - the answer is to go... though realistically it's less about staying or going than trying to devise a face-saving exit strategy and a way to gradually scale down.
Sometimes when an enterprise was ill conceived from the start, you have to cut your losses and take an ego bruise or two, rather than cling, "stay a course" that's going nowhere useful, and take more damage down the line. It's not terminal. The US survived losing in Vietnam, it can survive cutting its losses in Afghanistan.
Let me say it as gently as I can.
Face saving exit?
The fanfare of spreading 'shock and awe', 'with us or against us', 'bombing people to the Stone Age' when embarking on war, forces the US to live up to its hyperbole. Anything short of that does not appear to the world as 'face saving', even to those who are supporters of the US like us.
Therefore, no matter what be the style of exit, it cannot be 'face saving' unless it is on terms of a victor or an exit that gives an appearance of leaving on the US' terms! Right now, it does not indicate either.
On the issue of the US has 'survived' losing Vietnam, I would have preferred not to comment. However, since it has been raised, I will say it is a matter of conjecture. The very fact that you mention Vietnam, indicates that the US has still not 'survived' or reconciled to the 'loss' in Vietnam under circumstances not very pleasant.
One has to understand that winning a war is not child's play. It took years to win WWII, which was also then felt would be over in a jiffy.
What wins wars is National Morale inspite of reverses.
Quotes from Churchill come to mind
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Let us learn our lessons. … Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events… incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant fortune, ugly surprise, awful miscalculations.
Churchill had to
describe a great military disaster, and warn of a possible Nazi German invasion attempt, without casting doubt on eventual victory
prepare his domestic audience for France's falling out of the war without in any way releasing the French Republic to do so
reiterate a policy and an aim unchanged - despite the intervening events -
from his speech of 13th May, in which he had said:
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We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be
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Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
People should not find excuses or be apologetic over minor reverses or momentary impasses by indicating the the US and the US Govt is a lot of dithering coves. I wonder if they are such ditherers, because then one wonders why the same ditherers were not taken to be so when the US stood united to embark on various wars to include Iraq and Afghanistan. Knights in Shining Armour out to save the world cannot suddenly become dithering dolt, can they?!
The war is still not over!
The options are many and many can be tweaked to serve the purpose.
Notwithstanding the posts which attempts to show the US as being disoriented in its policies and endeavours, I don't think it is so. The US is quite focussed; more focussed than many, and they are aware of what they are doing and they have the wherewithal to ensure their will, even if the economy is not ideal.