Obama's Afghan announcement
The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has been told by senior White House officials that the President Obama will announce he's sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan over the next six months.
The surprise is not in the numbers, although but the speed. It suggests that he wants a quick victory, and then a phased exit.
His spokesman Robert Gibbs was on this morning saying that "we want to, as quickly as possible, transition the security of the Afghan people over to those national security forces in Afghanistan.
He added on : "This can't be nation-building. It can't be an open-ended forever commitment." A little odd, because counter-insurgency, as opposed to counter-terrorism, implies nation-building.
The danger for the president is that this middling figure will annoy hawks, who'll say it is not what the US commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, wants and not enough to do the job while annoying those who think any new build-up is undesirable.
The criticism has already started from the left. has written letters to the president saying that his announcement will turn the younger generation into disillusioned cynics by proving all politicians are the same.
I’m Mark Mardell, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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