The prisoner swap itself isn't really the important thing here. View it as a part of the backdrop for the upcoming runoff between Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik once connected to the Northern Alliance, and Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun. This overture to the Taliban is a message to the eventual president-elect that America will bypass or shoulder out Kabul if and when it wants to do so ( i.e., we won't let you torpedo our goals the way Karzai did). How much of a difference this will make so late in the game is certainly debatable.

Don't mistake this as a defense of Obama. The dude is feckless.