In fact, the reports I've seen say that 30,000 troops are still being considered. What appears to be the sticking point for the president is how he will frame (to sell) the mission in a way which promises to lead to some eventual 'handover' to the Afghans. That's still predicated by the military on using part of the increased forces to militarily train enough Afghans to assume whatever posture they decide is good enough for them say they won something. That's undoubtedly going to be framed as an exit point, but you can bet it will be the nebulous, weakly articulated 'goals' instead of some firm timetable.

What's worrisome about such a splitting of priorities is the prospect that our military can either bear down and commit all the way (something that our present forces are unable to bear without a massive infusion of troops from Iraq. The commanders say that without changing the dwell (home) time for soldiers, they can only guarantee about 11,000 to 17, 000 ready forces. Conservatives are already urging the president to waive the rule), or begin to pull out.

Just shaving the numbers of troops a bit and spreading them around to take on a priority here and there threatens the forces' safety and promises that whatever they are sent there to manage will not be adequately covered by the reduced force. It's naive for the president to expect that he can have it all in Afghanistan by splitting the difference between whatever reservations he might have about the use of force there and whatever his military leadership is insisting they need. He needs to be decisive about whatevercourse he ultimately decides on.

Given his apparent ambivalence to fully commit to a further build-up, his future policy there should be completely geared to leave as soon as our forces can pack up and move, and not so tied to whatever political changes Afghanistan's central government orchestrates. If he half-asses it just to hang on there for some perfect time to leave, he'll only be committing more troops to a loss of life, limb, and livelihood for an ephemeral gain. Our nation's defenders are too valuable to be sacrificed for some political compromise with his own subordinates at the Pentagon. In or out. (I say OUT) But, don't half-ass it.