I agree that Obama does not appear to have the fortitude to fight it out in Afghanistan. It will be a ‘Long War’. One of the most obvious clues to appear is the replacement of Gates within the year and replacement of Petraeus at Centcom concurrently or soon after. Gates goes first, then Petraeus, IMHO. It will be all-telling who will follow Gates as SecDef. Dennis Kucinich?

Then we suffer a war of a thousand cuts, with no strategic direction, in Afghanistan. And the political pressure builds rapidly for an expedient total withdrawal from Afghanistan.

I agree that Afghanistan can be seem as a long term festering wound, with ‘sanctuaries’ in Pakistan; a frustrating ‘no win’ conflict for the US military. It can also be seen as a flanking action on that dangerous entity called ‘Pakistan’, with America (and not much of NATO) nation-building on the north of Pakistan, and the Hindus of India holding down the eastern flank. Either Pakistan controls itself, or descends into Civil War. Control (or revolution with militant Islam winning) would at least clarify our situation. Civil War would allow us (and India) to intervene in the chaos and resolve our respective problems.
And also not to mention we are on Iran’s eastern flank in Afghanistan, while on their western flank in Iraq. Viewed this way, it starts to look more like Cold War containment.

And that, in my opinion, is where the Obama Administration either has no strategic vision or recoils from the diffulties ahead, and seeks something more appealing to his ‘audience’, but possibly with worse outcomes.