Understanding Afghanistan enough to leave

[Louis VI the Fat]

It is time to "Listen to the mountains". The only reason to have been there at all was to capture/kill Bin Laden & Company.

Yes. But.

The but is the notion that as soon as the troops leave, the Taleban will move back in and start plotting 9/11's again. So the troops stayed until a stable and democratic Afghanistan without Taleban could be formed. This standard was set too high.

As we are now slowly giving up on the illusion of leaving behind a democratic Afghanistan, the question becomes: what is the lowest standard of people we are willing to deal with that can form some kind of stable Afghanistan?