We went into Iraq because we lacked the ability to get a substantial conventional force into Afghanistan at the time, and we had to give them some appropriate target to engage. Saddam was just the poor stupid bastard who walked into the company orderly room when the 1SGT was looking for a volunteer.

AQ only followed us to Iraq, and we turned that country into a battlefield for AQ to attempt to atrit us upon and break our will to remain in the Middle East.

As to Afghanistan, we were largely mission complete there, and only retained a presence to have a base of operations for going after AQ. During the course of that we enabled the Northern Alliance to create a government and constitution that made it clear to the exiled Taliban that they were legally banned from any chance at economic or political opportunity in their own country, and thereby gave birth to a growing revolutionary insurgency against GIRoA. As we surged forces to counter the growing violence and pushed Northern Alliance police and army units out into the rural areas it fueled a growing resistance insurgency as well.

So, to your quesiton, is this a matter of "declaring victory and going home" or rather a matter of recognizing that the primary reason we stayed following the intitial effort to run AQ out of the country is now accomplished. Our very exit will reduce much of the causation for the resistance insurgency in Afghanistan proper; and without our continued protection I suspect that the Northern Alliance will get much more serious about working out a compromise with the Taliban leadership in Pakistan to address the revolution as well.

Or we can stay and continue to work to CLEAR-HOLD-BUILD our way to "victory."