Talk of a win was OP, not me.
That being said, totally disagree with what you say, at least as far as the original aims of the Afghan war.
It absolutely was 100% focused on securing America and crushing terrorism. Just look at all the compromises W. Bush made, rapprochement with Gadaffi, engagement with Assad, turning a blind eye to Dagestan and Chechnya, helping suppress ETIM. Only Iran, Iraq, and NK were untouchable. It was Obama that really screwed the pooch. He turned everyone back into enemies and surprise! Terrorists everywhere!
The initial entry into Afghanistan might have superficially conformed to what might be expected if crushing terrorism was the main aim, But in retrospect it is clear even at that time the Bush Administration was already opportunistically thinking of terrorism in terms of the cover and opportunity it provided for America to rampage through the Middle East reshaping it to facilitate direct American dominion over the middle of Euroasia.
But this was soon made manifest by the hasty shift of focus and weight of military effort from Afghanistan to Iraq when Taliban was not exactly even militarily totally defeated, because iraq was seen as a far bigger and more central prize that can be seized under the pretext of fighting terrorism. At the time the Bush administration did not even beat around the bushes, so to speak, in loudly hinting as soon as what it believed a rapid and inevitable total victory is achieved over Saddam Hussein, Iran, the next big prize, would be on the military invasion menu. Then Syria. This unraveled completely within a couple of years.
In the long run, the abject failure of that grand project in the Middle East would absolutely dwarve the impact of the failure in and later chaotic pull out from Afghanistan as far American influence goes. The only thing that saved America from the full effect of that failure was the unexpected diminution of importance of Mideastern oil and gas 7-8 years later.
Rather than harping on how big of a failure the recent events in Afghanistan betokens, The pullout from Afghanistan should instead be viewed as the final, long delayed, whimper that at long last wrapped up the thunder failure of the great American project to reshape the Middle East via invasion and regime change across the region that it embarked upon with such craven opportunism in the aftermath of 9/11.
