After his speech tonight, I seem to be more upbeat about the prospects for the war in Afghanistan under President Obama's leadership than some of my friends. Obviously, the July 2011 date for beginning a drawdown deserves criticism. On the other hand, the pace and character of the drawdown is to be conditions-based, so I think the quasi-deadline needn't be too damaging.
As important, the July 2011 date also buys Obama time. It enables him to push off pressure to begin withdrawing, or to rethink the basic strategy, for 18 months. We've come pretty far from all the talk about off ramps at three or six-month intervals in 2010 that we were hearing just a little while ago.
In a way, Obama is now saying: We're surging and fighting for the next 18 months; see you in July 2011. That's about as good as we were going to get.
