The Contours of a Conflict Become Clear

In recent days we've heard the behind-the-scenes story of how Obama made his decision to escalate troops in Afghanistan. Key to the decision was a promise from the Pentagon that the mission could be accomplished by Summer 2011 and the troops brought home. Johnathan Alter's new book has the story, and the excerpt in Newsweek talks about how angry the Administration was with the Pentagon's attempts to force a longer commitment to Afghanistan before ending with this from VP Biden:

It wasn't a secret that someone in the military would likely have been fired had Biden been president. But the vice president admitted to other advisers that it was better that Obama was in charge and showing more mercy toward the Pentagon. The generals thought they were working him over, Biden said privately, but the president had the upper hand. He was a step ahead of them, and as much as some of them thought they had obliterated the July 2011 deadline for beginning a withdrawal, they were mistaken.

At the conclusion of an interview in his West Wing office, Biden was adamant. "In July of 2011 you're going to see a whole lot of people moving out. Bet on it," Biden said as he wheeled to leave the room, late for lunch with the president. He turned at the door and said once more, "Bet. On. It."

So its interesting to see this today, linked to by Andrew Sullivan:

While, current U.S. policy states that we'll begin withdrawing our forces in 2011 there was a universal recognition that any real effort to apply COIN in Afghanistan would take a very long time. While the subject wasn't addressed (except for one question at the final Q&A roundtable) my impression was that all of the speakers (British, Canadian and U.S.) were operating under the assumption that forces would be in place well beyond 2011.

I heard no discussion about how to conduct any sort of hand off to the Afghans within 18 months, alterations to COIN theory or doctrine or trains of thought about alternate ways militaries could support/conduct COIN without significant numbers of forces on the ground. I would interpret that to mean that the military has been given the word (explicitly or implicitly) that that 2011 deadline is NOT set in stone. I would, in fact, go further and predict that barring some unforeseen change in the operating environment we will almost definitely have a significant presence in Afghanistan for some time.

Somethings got to give here. Either Biden was flapping his gums (not at all impossible) or the military is in for a surprise. We'll know more this summer if Obama sticks to his guns, as we find out if the scheduled Iraqi drawdown takes place as scheduled. Keep your fingers crossed.