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Over the next few years the Taliban, al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups will be systematically neutralized in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan. Neither government can afford to not allow us to continue to help them rid their countries of these people. The western world has to come to the point where it realizes the GWOT is a long process.
Meanwhile, most likely the Iraqi nation will continue to move ahead in a general right direction and become very stable. The repercussions are being felt across the ME. ME countries are being forced to face the radical Islamic issues of this time. Fundamental concepts GWB has enumerated time in again, will slowly sink into the minds of the Arab and other Muslim dominated states.
Freedom of choice, the right to fair and effective government, etc., shall continue to build. Slowly, the old world's mental makeup will accept the new world's concepts of freedom and equality. But it shall take time.

In case you missed this article. It is interesting. Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times interviews Ismail July 17, 2007. Ismail says the following:

“The Bajaur area has been hit twice by Central Intelligence Agency predator drones, one specifically after Zawahiri. However, at a time when al-Qaeda is reactivated and the Taliban’s main focus is to lay siege of Kabul, via adjacent Nooristan province in Afghanistan, aerial surveillance is considered insufficient.

As a result, a large US base is under construction on a mountaintop at Ghakhi Pass on the Pakistan-Afghanistan (Bajaur) border.

Militants believe this is in preparation for an operation inside Pakistan to clamp down on them as well as to renew the hunt for bin Laden and his associates. As a result, the militants have attacked the new base in an attempt to delay its construction.

“This is a matter of life and death for the mujahideen. We will shed our blood, but we will never let this base be completed,” Dr Ismail told Asia Times Online while standing at the grave of his son, who was killed a few weeks ago by US forces while attacking the base.

The tall and well-built Ismail is the leader of the TNSM and a main source of inspiration for the jihadis in Bajaur. “My son sacrificed his life against American designs to build this base over our heads. I shall never allow them to complete it, I will fight till my last.”

This article is very interesting in light of gandalftb’s post.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IG17Df03.html

Well, it looks like by just building the base we won a battle! You may want to take a gander. The pictures in the article are supposed to be about 3 clicks from the base.