For US interests pure CT probably works, so long as we back off from targeting nationalist insurgents and focus solely on AQ leadership and the foreign fighters they bring in.

GIRoA's interests are adequately served by the stalemate we are in currently, particularly as it assures our continued presence to both protect them and bring in large sums of money. If GIRoA wanted to resolve the insurgency they would embrace reconciliation and work this out. In listening to a former senior Afghan security official a few days ago he was quickly able to list the handful of tribes from which the bulk of the insurgency comes from, and equally quick to accuse the Coalition for not understanding this and addressing the problem.

I thought, gee, that is really your problem, not ours, and why is it that GIRoA has not reached out to achieve a reconciliation with the leadership of those few tribes? Simple answer is that that would require a Northern Alliance-based government to share what, with Coalition protection, it need not share. So long as we stay it is not in their interest to resolve this. As soon as we depart it is.

This is not a "war" that we must either "win" or "lose" and we do ourselves a disservice when we couch it in such terms. This is merely one node of a much larger problem that we are supposed to be dealing with, best that we put it in the proper perspective sooner rather than later...