Report: NSC Given Until Friday To Come Up With Afghan Withdrawal Timetable

By Steve Hynd

Spencer Ackerman has a great piece today based around a leaking staffer inside the National Security Council's deliberations on Afghnaistan strategy. The staffer noted that everyone at the NSC is annoyed with Ambassador Eikenberry for apparently leaking his own cables to Obama and confirms that the NSC has been told to go back to the drawing board and come up with less military-heavy options.

But I think Spencer buries the lede. There's this:

“They are pulling together the alternatives [Obama] requested” on refining options for resourcing the war, the NSC staffer continued. “They have until Friday to give him three new ones with withdrawal timetables.”

That's utterly new. Until now, the administration's hawks have strongly resisted any use of the T-word, trotting out retreads of Bush/Iraq era arguments that any timetable would mean the "enemy" could just wait out the U.S. Public speeches have emphasized an open-ended military commitment to Afghanistan for however long it takes.

Obama has apparently refused four options for a long war and insisted on an exit ramp to go along with any surge. It's exactly what his position was on Iraq and what eventually happened after two years and more of progressives saying that only a timetable would force a corrupt and indolent local government, with a sense of entitlement to shame a Californian teen, to step up to the plate.

Update: Reuters is quoting SecDef Gates as telling reporters that:

Obama wanted through his decision on troop levels to "signal resolve and at the same time, signal to the Afghans as well as to the American people that this isn't an open-ended commitment."

Would anyone like to bet against a surge being backed by a timetable for withdrawal,at this stage?

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

John Cole has a good take.