If you want to see just how little credence Vice President Joe Biden's plan for Afghanistan has inside military circles, look no further than this paragraph from an article written by Peter Spiegel and Yochi Dreazen for the Wall Street Journal:

People familiar with the internal debates say Mr. Obama rejected a strictly counter-terror approach during White House deliberations in early October. One official said Pentagon strategists were asked to draft brief written arguments making the best case for each strategy, but the strategists had difficulties writing out a credible case for the counter-terror approach -- prompting members of Mr. Biden's staff to step in and write the document themselves.

In case that wasn't clear, not a single strategist in the Pentegon was willing to draft a paper to defend the Biden plan. No one wanted to put their name on the document. So, members of Biden's staff -- political appointees -- had to write the brief.