Missed this before:

People who argue for CT are arguing for a total shift in strategy, where Afghanistan is basically written off.
I don't think that's necessarily the case, at least the writing off Afghanistan part. One could shift, for example, from a strategy designed to defeat the Taliban to a strategy designed to prevent the Taliban from from winning. We'd be ceding most of the Pashtun areas, but we could certainly prevent Taliban control over the non-Pashtun areas, which is a significant part of the country. In other words, it's not all or nothing. In my opinion, abandoning Afghanistan is not a wise move, but neither is trying to achieve everything without the resources and will to see it through. I don't think we have adequate resources and political will, just as important, a reliable partner in Kabul worth defending. If that is true, then the latter strategy is probably just a longer, bloodier road to eventual abandonment.

What I think what really needs to happen is for the US to separate the strategy by separating the fight against AQ (and its associated movements) from the problem of what do to about Afghanistan. I think once one does that it becomes obvious that COIN and CT aren't mutually exclusive and that the "choice" between COIN and CT is a completely false one. For one thing, CT is going to happen regardless as long as we still perceive that AQ remains a threat: If we abandon Afghanistan we'll be doing CT and if we decide on a generational nation-building enterprise in Afghanistan we will be doing CT as well. I think our strategic problem is that we've put blinders on and can only see either-or solutions trying to simultaneously address what are really two different problems.

TLDR version: We really need to see Afghanistan as a problem independent of AQ.

Just my 2 pul.