Why so surprised? Why? Crikey, it was inevitable that we were never going to "win" - we knew that going in in spades back in '06. Unless we deployed in our hundreds of thousands, without restrictive ROE, and without the media on our case - along with a coherent, joined up and intelligent political strategy for the long term - it was always going to be this way. The Army deployed for 6 month spells, each Brigade Cdr with his own 'vision' (of how to win a DSO and how to protect the Army), each subaltern determined to win the MC: the RAF for less and in far fewer numbers (of platforms) to mean anything. The RN (not inc Royal) where they could...
This is in no way meant to belittle anything or anyone - there were clearly amazing individual and collective actions on the battlefield, in the skies and in places like the Role 3, DFAC, etc.
But I'm afraid that politics - real and inter-service - made this unwinable. We lost.