Really? I'm no expert, but I thought that the bigger problem was that Bush ignored Afghanistan from about 3/03 on.

I doubt that anything we could have done would have achieved the sort of success they are trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Our response to 9/11 should have been to bomb the crap out of selected al Qaeda targets and then build them a bunch of schools, hospitals, infrastructure, etc. That approach might have saved a bunch of American lives. It definitely would have saved us a bunch of money. It would not have resulted in people in that part of the world loving America, but it probably would have reduced the number of people who will hate us for generations to come. Another advantage to that approach is that we are unbelievably good at that sort of thing. Once we started dropping smart bombs down the chimneys of selected huts in Afghanistan, it would not take long for word to get around that you might be better off not messing with the US.

Maybe Obama made a mistake with his deadline for beginning to pull out troops, but I do not think it is fair to suggest that some other approach would have resulted in a happy ending in Afghanistan. In the end, his approach is probably no worse than any other.