Get Out

This article on Afghanistan, written by a long-time South Asia policy expert (and Obama supporter), gives a good analysis of why we should and can withdraw from Afghanistan. Sample:

But as insurgents, the Taliban remain formidable foes. Our chances of
defeating them are poor. Indeed, some independent observers believe they are
becoming more popular while we are becoming less popular. They, and many
non-Taliban Afghans, regard us, as they regarded the Russians, as foreign,
anti-Muslim invaders. Moreover, they see that the government we are backing is
corrupt and rapacious. Observers report that it is deeply involved in the drug
trade, stealing aid money and even selling US-supplied arms to the Taliban (as
the South Vietnamese government did to the Vietcong). Moreover, it is
ineffective: its writ hardly runs outside Kabul. Most of the country is in the
hands of brutal, predatory warlords. The Karzai government will not last long
after our withdrawal--that was the fate of the Soviet puppet government there
and of our puppet government in Saigon. Forced to choose between the warlords
and the Taliban, Afghans are likely to choose the Taliban. As Gen. Stanley
McChrystal has said, "Key groups have become nostalgic for the security and
justice Taliban rule provided." Thus, we are courting long-term strategic
defeat.

Even in the tactical short run, I believe, trying to defeat the Taliban
is not in America's interest. The harder we try, the more likely terrorism will
be to increase and spread. As the history of every insurgency demonstrates, the
more foreign boots there are on the ground and the harder the foreigners fight,
the more hatred they engender. Substituting drone attacks for ground combat is
no solution. Having been bombed from the air, I can attest that it is more
infuriating than a ground attack.