Interesting little bug. Attempting to reply to tequila's post (#4), but quote is capture jmm's (#2). Anyways...

Quote Originally Posted by tequila
People who argue for CT are arguing for a total shift in strategy, where Afghanistan is basically written off. Who controls Afghanistan is not strategically important --- what is important is killing or crippling al-Qaeda.
No argument here, and outside the NGO-sphere I don't think anyone considers any other objective remotely as important.

The Taliban, in this frame, are not relevant nor a threat to the U.S. homeland. We should attempt to split the Taliban from al-Qaeda, under the theory that the Taliban only want Islamic revolution in Afghanistan and have no interest in warring with the U.S.

CT advocates posit that COIN is too costly and politically unsustainable, with amorphous, pie-in-the-sky goal. CT represents a much more sustainable and less costly method in fighting the real threat, which is identified as the AQ organization.
Only if you can cleave enough native insurgents from al Qaeda quickly and enough numbers to make a difference. And presumably you need to do it in a way so that you're not catching the same amount of grief from your (potentially former) host nation allies.

AQI did half of the work for the Coalition in Anbar, and it helped that they were fighting a war not only against the Coalition and the host government, but going at it with a parallel Shia insurgency as well. Their relationships with their Triangle allies were only a few years in the making before the Awakening. AQC, on the other hand, appears well entrenched with the radical Deobandis on both sides of the AfPak line.

I can accept in theory that coopting an adversary to get a bigger fish is a great idea, but I'd be surprised the execution didn't look a lot like counterinsurgency.