I sincerely doubt Obama's goal is to create an American satellite out of Afghanistan. Since at least the time that he took office, Obama has stated his goal (and thus America's goal) is to keep Afghanistan from being used as a place from which al Qaeda can operate. Here's what Obama said last week regarding this:

I can tell you, as I've said before, that it is in our strategic interest, in our national security interest to make sure that al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively in those areas.  We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks.  And Afghanistan's stability is important to that process.

I think it could be argued that the U.S. and its NATO allies have already done this. I doubt further military action will "dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks". Rather I think that will take effective police work. I believe fighting terrorism is best done as part of a criminal investigation and prosecution. Using the military does the opposite of fighting terrorism, I think it encourages terrorism and gives those who would use those tactics a rallying point for gaining new recruits.