Glad you joined the discourse - and provided this astute observation:

Put another way, can we ever facilitate central government power over Pashtun areas in a way that compliments their daily way of life, as opposed to being two pieces of sand paper rubbing against each other? If the honest answer is no, then we have some serious decisions within decisions that have to be made. Why we would have elements of a overall strategy that work at cross purposes is depressing at times.
We are both depressed for the same reasons. The answer to your question is, of course, affirmative - if we were willing to spend the decades slowly building Jim Gant's small tribal infrastructures and melding them with a very accommodating central government (add honesty and integrity to the adjectives).

As it stands, our dialog will be that of the two French officers (you can stay the MAJ; I'll play the LT cuz I agree with his bottom line). So, the "decisions within decisions" is probably pre-ordained.

You hit Iraq right on the head. Iraq was ruled by a very centralized, authoritarian police state for decades. In such situations, a rather authoritarian population-centric "COIN" strategy will work because the people are used to it. Of course, it also involves quite a bit of local honey (just as Saddam did) as Mike Few and Niel Smith are waxing fine in another thread.

Best as always

Mike