Bill:

The article is a pass along from Ms. Skye.

The interesting issue for me goes back to the previous comments of transition from "clear" to "hold."

I liken it to a person trying to buy a failing business, under forced sale circumstances, with the expectation that it can be improved.

First, the battle is with the lawyers, current management and financiers (not the customer base). The initial challenge is to get clear title and control.

Second, the fun begins. What was wrong with the prior business that needs to be fixed/can be fixed to serve the customer base? Are the terms of acquisition such that they do not impede the anticipated turn-around? What if the old business owner opens a new improved version across the street, or just takes his original customer base with him?

Clear is one thing, and a fairly straight-forward activity with a limited set of players, opponents.

Hold is like moving from a one-level chess board to an interactive video game that creates its own internal and interactive feedback, response, demand and threat layers.

Each is a completely different problem set with hold being affected by the terms and conditions of clearance.

In Iraq, there was a viable, if disheveled, societal capacity which, despite our handling/mishandling, would someday provide an exit strategy, no matter how rough-and-tumble.

Afghanistan was very different. After the relatively simple clearance effort, we opposed the basic approach of propping up the old King and letting them get on with whatever they were going to get on with, despite serious societal and government damage caused from prior wars.

Here, instead of being the lawyer in the forced sale, we elected to take over the business, with great consequences and challenges, no clear business plan, an unclear customer base and mission, and with the last owner actively competing for his prior customers.

Against that backdrop, we decided to "outsource" our management responsibilities and strategies to a some of the prior employees who, in essence, brought little productive capabilities to the problem.

There is no rocket science to why we are where we are.

The question of "Winning" is arguably not on the table (Stephen Walt, Rory Stewart, etc...) so much as a transition/exit.

The only new buyers for the business as a whole are Abdullah2, the Karzais, and the Mullah. The competitors interested in carving-up some or all of it surrounding nations (Pakistan,Iran, India, China, Russia, etc...), and internal regional lords (with or without backing from nations).

The option of "doubling down" by the US, in terms of increased blood, treasure and troops, is gone, but to open issues remain:

Is there an option to recapture/replace leadership that would allow, for example, a do-over from the failed outsource strategy? (I think not, but....)

In the various "carve-up" scenarios, does an opportunity exist for us to save face, opportunities, a continuing role, or, at the least, to hurt our competitors so that, at the least, our next business efforts will be improved (or not further damaged)?

If it was my problem to solve, I believe that I would look for someone like Ambassador Crocker who can have formal/informal, direct/indirect talks with neighbors and competitors, while undertaking an clear-eyed inventory.

After that, I would make the plan and execute it.

The problems are, however, that our plan is not not in a vacuum since the landscape is under constant change, and that our plan may be a multi-level one attempting (as the SOFA did) to, essentially, do different things on paper than all parties thought they were negotiating.

While not so graphically dramatic as the helos on the roof of the Saigon Embassy, it is pretty obvious that what Ambassador Crocker sought (and reasonably expected with patience and perseverance) from the SOFA was cut short by US domestic political agendas (the election schedule), so much of what could have been reasonably been done for various US parties got left on the negotiation room floor.

Obviously, for the same reasons, this path could occur again with the continuing lament: If only the US had more time and patience.....