Between "dominate the enemy" and "stabilize" there is a missing step :"prevent, resolve or defeat the resistance."

As I said up front, a resistance insurgency is a continuation of warfare, and the natural response of a population to a foreign invasion and occupation. One must either be very clear that this was a drive by punitive operation and that we are not staying for lunch, let alone to "stabilize"; or one must defeat or in some way deal with the resistance that will naturally result.

We tend to make matters worse by wishing away the resistance, and then putting an illegitimate government in place that motivates the rise of a revolution to go along with the resistance.