...in shortening the search for Bin Laden. He went into hiding in a place that is easy to hide. It was going to take lots of ground intel to find him and that takes time. Remember, one of the biggest "oh shits" regarding 9/11 was we realized that you needed more than just satellite intel, you needed guys on the ground, with sources, on a global basis. We had limited capabilities because in the 90s, with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 89, we had depleated much of that in favor of using technology (we figured, we wouldn't need spys because USSR was dead). And at the time, we didn't view terrorism as a "war". Soooo, it was going to take time to build up the intel channel, and that ultimately is what got Bin Laden.

But also, I disagree with your perception of the mission, it clearly wasn't that, because after we got Bin Laden, we stayed another 10 years. That may have been what you, and most of us wanted it to be, but we were clearly in there, hoping to build up a nation, so it could hold ground against the taliban.

Also, we got rid of Al-Qaeda, pretty quickly. Heck, it was reported here that Rumsfield was made an offer by the Taliban to surrender, pretty early on. American hubris is what kept us in Afghanistan, Iraq wasn't going to change that.

I really don't think there is a very high correlation at all. I think Iraq was more/less the biggest foreign policy blunder in my lifetime, but I do not believe doing that really bent the curve of what was going on in Afghanistan one way or another.