I think if you look at the roots of the military presence as currently now in Afghanistan, there's one big difference from the Russians: the Russians invaded. The troop presence that's currently there came out of the Bonn agreement, and there were Afghan parties there, everybody except the Taliban. So many of the Afghan parties still have an interest, however tenuous, in the current peace and stability in Afghanistan and in the growth of stability in Afghanistan.
On April 17th, 2007. See this statement in context.