Dahuyan:

Agree with the BIG insight: Planning better was not the problem, nor the route to the "if only we would have...." solution.

First, planning better should have materially changed the task/mission.

Second, as you say, the occupying power can not be the occupied, nor create the legitimacy to or of them. No matter how many cups of tea or soup eaten with knives.

The occupier has to find its legitimate role and stay within that. Huge pressure, huge influence is OK, but the outcomes of that can not become the local solution---just the occupier's quick hit.

Sustainable solutions have to emerge from and be rooted in them, not us.

Finding a different path AFTER you went down a road is very very tricky.

Like most on this site, we were not involved in the big decision---just what followed---and doing the best with what was in front of us.

Maybe, with Ken's wisdom, it has and always will be that way, but the question that Emma Sky leaves behind: What next? is still unanswered.

Personally, as ugly as it may look: Iraq is doing what I expected---finding its sea legs in a very tough circumstance---but with some good fortune (a short boom in oil prices).

Afghanistan, on the other hand: Boy, I hope some decent transition planning starts soon.