IT WAS INEVITABLE THAT BARACK Obama's decision to draw down 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer would be controversial. Most Democrats—as well as a growing cohort of Republicans and, according to the polls, a majority of Americans—were looking for a bigger, faster pullout. The Pentagon was hoping for something slower. General David Petraeus, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, must be particularly disappointed that the counterinsurgency strategy that has made progress in the Taliban's southern heartland won't be attempted in the rougher terrain of Afghanistan's east. The problem, as ever, is that there are no clear paths to success and far too many moving pieces in Afghanistan. The President took into account the trajectories of all those pieces and made some difficult choices that may not prove unwise.
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