afx: The US pursued and prosecuted a successful strategy in Afghanistan prior to the handover to NATO forces. The problem was that the NATO forces, by and large, did not want to fight (the exception being the Canadians).

Most of the NATO forces confine themselves to their own areas of operation and do not actively patrol and do not seek out the Taliban or al-Qaeda forces in battle.

Granted, there are other problems there, the largest being the Karzai government, but the Obama “surge” you reference has been in the planning stages for a while now.