They traded 20 years in exchange for everything they could not get - infrastructure, airbases, barracks, plumbing, and a bunch of modern (at least modern enough to raise some eybrows and be a point of concern) weapons.
They won. Rule one of an insurgency, dont lose. They played the patient card - I saw this in 2012/13 - it was different than my first time there in '10 - in '10 the fight was on. In 2012/13 they started to fight delaying type tactics that preserved their assets and people.
THEY FUCKING WON. They made a brilliant (if by accident) strategic move and now they have everything they could have never created or paid for on their own.
- Bitter vet.