Clauswitz point on winning was making the enemy feel defenseless. Of course destruction of the enemy army was one way to achieve that objective. But he also talks about focusing on the enemy's "center of gravity." That may or may not be his army. One of the classic ways this was done in his era was by manuevering forces to get between the enemy and their "lines of communication" i.e. their supply lines and lines of retreat.

One of the reasons why it is important for the US to defeat the insurgency is to make that form of warfare less attractive and less likely to be used against our interest. If the insurgency can be defeated, the enemy will have to resort to political means to achieve its objectives and in doing so he will find it difficult to persuade most people to live under a Taliban type society. There is some recognition of the mistakes of the Taliban in Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi.

While this insurgency has its true believers, it is doing a very poor job of making the people think they would be better off under their trule. In fact there is substantial evidence that it is alienating the Iraq population and things like the bombing of a Shia holy site is not calculate to endear them to their cause. Zarqawi seeks to persuade through abuse like a sadistic parent.

When this thread started there was an issue of organizing certain events in connection with achieving an objective. While my question about a to do list, may have understated the complexity, it does sound like a situation that used to be addressed by project management software in the early 90's. I have not looked at that type of software in several years but it might be a solution to managing several different events in connection with achieving the objective.