I find it difficult to find fault with President Obama's proposed Afghanistan strategy (with the caveat, of course, that at this point I'm taking things at face value). There is a set objective, there is a set deadline for the accomplishment of said objective, there has been little to no talk of 'nation building' (the popular contemporary code word for occupation) and the objective is, in my opinion, worthwhile (I'm a Canadian citizen, and have been tossing away tax dollars on an Afghanistan babysitting campaign while the American forces decided to focus on Iraq, so it's not like I don't have money involved here, either).
There are many criticisms of further involvement in Afghanistan by Western governments that I agree with (the corruption of the Karzai government, for example, and the continued misappropriation of aid money & labor), but none are directly applicable to what Obama has proposed: creating a dense static line of conventional ground forces, squeezing out the fighters in Waziristan and heading home.
Some outlets (in particular, CNN) have chosen to compare this to the 'mistake' made by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This is, frankly, despicable historical revisionism. The Soviet Union was attempting to prop-up a puppet communist government and modernize the region, a move which was vehemently and violently rejected by the radical Mujahideen fighters that had a stranglehold over the superstitious population due to their ties with local religious leaders.
The Soviet Union only became involved in the war at the behest of the Afghanistan government! Now, Soviet tactics are the time were inhumane and brutal, so I don't wish to paint them as the heroes of the conflict, but arguing that it was some tragic 'error' to oppose Osama Bin Laden and his jihad, which was enacted strictly out of a desire to keep Afghanistan locked in a perpetual iron age mentality, is just plain dishonest.
Moreover, the Soviets fared relatively well against the poorly armed Mujahideen - right until the American government & intelligence agencies decided to start up-arming them for use as pawns. The United States happily contributed to the Soviet defeat (for better or worse) and were instrumental in carrying it out - this time around, there is no opposing global super power to ship bigger and better guns to Al-Qaeda forces.
The current plan, as I understand it, is to surround northern Pakistan from two fronts - the American army line from the north and the Pakistan army line from the south. These two fronts can move in to pinch the remaining fighters and, more importantly, cut them off from supplies - starving them out. Osama Bin Laden is a savvy tactician (as evidenced by both his planning of repeated successful attacks and his ability to outlive so many of his contemporary analogues); Northern Pakistan is an excellent place to hide. Army Rangers (as many people have suggested using) would have to deal with incredibly treacherous terrain and weather conditions, choke points for ambush and countless booby traps. Drone aircraft like the MQ-1 Predator cannot navigate the complex valleys, and most certainly can't infiltrate the cave networks.
Encircling Al-Qaeda and forcing them to try and make a break out is a much better plan than attempting to directly attack or capture them, where they would have the advantage due to their familiarity with and manipulation of the terrain. If the strategy succeeds (and I think it will), and Bin Laden is caught or killed, it will be no small matter. Al-Qaeda is much larger than one man, but there are very few intelligent and resourceful Mujahideen veterans (if any) to fill his shoes after he's gone.
Of course, it also needs to be said that this isn't a back & white issue: all the while that American troops are on the ground in Afghanistan, plenty of innocent civilians are likely to suffer for it (in one way or another), Karzai is likely to prosper for it, and even the worst of Al-Qaeda's members are still human beings with their own motivations, agonies and histories. So, is it worth it to mop-up the last remnants of Al-Qaeda, then, when plenty of bystanders will shed blood for it, and when - at the end of the day - we're chasing after people who are not likely as distinct from us in terms of their capacity for evil as we might like to think?
I think it is. Perhaps you disagree.
In any case, I'd love to discuss the matter.