AFPAK is moot to AQ's operations and mission. Much like Iraq, it is merely the ring in the bull's nose that allows a much smaller, weaker creature to exert influence over a much more powerful one.

"terrain means nothing" is one of those insurgency 101 lessons that always gets set aside, typically when a frustrated counterinsurgent is reduced to only measuring success in terms of body count and terrain held.

AQ's mission and organization cannot be "contained" in some location. Nor can it be "defeated" by denying it some location. The conditions AQ feeds upon lay within the conditions of insurgency that simmer in so many nations across the greater Middle East. None of these conditions are being addressed by operations in AFPAK, nor are they being addressed by security force capacity building operations in any of those afore mentioned nations. Security forces merely manage the manifestations of these conditions.

Unlike the bull, it is within our power to simply reach up and remove the ring from our nose. But then where would the bull go? What would the bull do? At least the bull knows where to stand when held by the nose.