Which Afghanistan will it be?

AHMAD NADEEM / Reuters

An Afghan policeman stands guard at the site of an explosion in Kandahar city on Thursday.By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent

KABUL – What will Afghanistan look like in 2015? That depends a lot on how you see the country – and the conflict – in 2011.

There are basically two camps: unbounded optimists who see great things in Afghanistan’s future and pessimists who see a quagmire that can only get worse.

The billion-dollar question – especially for U.S. taxpayers – is which view will prevail?