(CNN) -- The first CIA agents landed in Afghanistan on September 26, 2001, beginning direct American efforts to overthrow the Taliban. Ten years later, the United States is still fighting the Taliban, and the recent assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, shows that we are far from total victory. The terrorist training camps are gone and al Qaeda's top leaders are dead or on the run. Nonetheless, Afghanistan remains riddled with violence, corruption and hatred. The citizens of Afghanistan continue to suffer from crushing poverty, immobility and intimidation. President Obama in June made it clear that the United States would not continue to fight indefinitely in Afghanistan. The president announced that he would withdraw about one-third of the roughly 100,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan by summer 2012. He also pledged a fuller disengagement by 2014, when "the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security." Subsequent discussions revealed that the White House expected to keep no more than 25,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, about half the U.S. deployment in Germany.
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Jeremi Suri: When we leave Afghanistan, 10 years of progress could be lost
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Suri: We must not hand over power to a strongman, like Karzai, which discredits U.S.
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We must insist Pakistan fights extremism within its borders and without, Suri writes
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We must invest in institutions, public works, he says, and especially schools
Although @placeholder must withdraw from Afghanistan, they must do so in a way that supports positive changes.