The Hill News

It remains to be seen how President Obama will explain his decision on the Afghanistan drawdown tonight, but if early reports are to be believed, he has listened to the military and ignored those within the administration and his own party arguing for a shift to a counterterrorism strategy.

If he does announce a withdrawal of only a token number of troops this month, and not front-loading the drawdown, Obama would be heeding the advice of outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chief commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. Both have advocated keeping a substantial number of the 30,000 “surge” troops through next year’s fighting season. Yet public opinion in general now favors the removal of the troops as quickly as possible.

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