Part of the problem is that Afghanistan has always been a country in name only - it makes the Balkans look like Kubaya country in comparison. IMO so far the United States has played this smart - weaken the Taliban, alter the political balance in the region, let some of the tribal players do the dirty work, and avoid large numbers of foreign ground troops - a factor that tends to united the different factions in Afghanistan. It requires a lot more finesse than just going in Soviet (or British) style with a large army to try and teach the tribes a lesson - but we've seen that the big-army approach generally doesn't work very well. Since bin Laden and most of Al Quida are foreigners, many warlords won't have a qualm about turning him over if they think they'll live to enjoy the bounty money - and if the Taliban is out of the picture, that becomes possible. You may consider that cynical, but that's basically the ground truth here - the United States has a mortal enemy holed up in Afghanistan, and we need to get to him and kill him. This isn't Kosovo, where the United States had no compelling national interest and no business in that region...