Obama announced his plan to send 30k more troops into Afghanistan last night.  He talked about the need to wipe out the Taliban and Al Qaeda planning to do us harm; furthermore, he discussed how Pakistan has stepped up the fight against extremist along there side of the border and how that is important in the fight. How successful this strategy is will be measured by a wide range of nuanced factors: there is one factor that is not nuanced though and his name is Osama Bin Laden. If this strategy ends up with a dead or captured Osama, the average American will most likely look at it as a success. If it does not, it will be a much tougher sell.