If your implication is that World War II is the model -- you fight until the other side unconditionally surrenders, you win, and "they" are gone for good -- that's really not the historical model at all. It's certainly not what Clausewitz recommends, and indeed most US generals were aghast when FDR announced it as our goal. More common in the last 500 years in Europe has been one side throwing in the towel when it became clear that their political objectives could not be acheived or could only be acheived at a cost not worth paying. True, there was usually a fairly clear battlefield success and definitive end to the war with one side suing for peace, but not often was "victory" the way you seem to use the term acheieved.

So, what exactly are our political objectives in Afghanistan?

Is it a a centrally governed, pluralistic, secular, democratic state with very low levels of violence, drug trade under control, economic development under way, and allied with thye United States?

Is it simply a geographic area from which no jihadis are going to come attack the U.S. or U.S. interests?

There's a heck of a lot of differnce between victory by each of those goals. I don't see how you can possibly define victory without choosing a desired end state.

The way you seem to use the term victory it's hard to see why you consider Iraq a victory. The indigenous Sunni insurgenc was our principal enemy a few years ago. Gen. Petreaus and others struck deals with them that caused them to switch sides. He did not defeat them. Was that a victory, or was that "exit strategy" thinking?

Likewise in Afghanistan, there seems to be rethinking about our political objectives going on -- moving from something more like my first alternative towards my second. Is that defeatism?