Staying the Course in Afghanistan

It looks more and more as if we're going to be occupying Afghanistan for a long, long time, short of a major defeat with troop losses more than we can stomach or an economic collapse:

Following a number of other Pentagon officials making it a point to downplay NATO’s goal of ending the Afghan War by the end of 2014 (which will be over 13 years after it began), Gen. David Petraeus has chimed in, rejecting the date as unlikely.

Noting that the Taliban remain “resilient” through repeated US escalations of the war, Petraeus told ABC News that he doubted the end of 2014 date and said no commander would ever express confidence in that date.

This appears to be okay with Obama.  You know, why don't Republicans love Obama?  He pretty much does what they want so much of the time.

Addendum: One other possibility is that this is a ploy to make the Taliban think we're staying, so that we can negotiate with them from a position of strength.