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Jones called the principals together for a meeting on Monday, October 5, to rehearse for the next NSC meeting. Debate went again to the question of who the primary enemy was.

“We’re just parsing this distinction between the Taliban and al Qaeda too much,” Petraeus said in frustration. “The Taliban is almost becoming a new extremist brand itself.”

“The Taliban and al Qaeda are together when they’re winning,” DNI Blair said. He didn’t have to add the subtext: The Taliban were winning. “They can’t be split apart except when under pressure.”

The U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, was on a secure video screen. She said that al Qaeda, the Taliban and all the groups were “mutually reinforcing.”

There were questions about the prospects for a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

“If we left,” Petraeus said, it would happen “pretty, pretty quickly.”

Gates said that they had to realize that Afghanistan carried a unique symbolism for the jihadist movement. “This was where the jihad was born.”

“We’re struggling to separate groups that are relatively linked,” CIA Director Panetta said.

The logic went like this: A victory for the Taliban counted as victory for al Qaeda, so the U.S. couldn’t walk away from Afghanistan.

But Jim Steinberg, Clinton’s deputy, didn’t see it quite that way. “What do we have to do to win the war?” he asked. “How much do we have to win the war against the Taliban?”

No one answered directly, but Peter Lavoy went back to his usual argument, “Were the Taliban perceived to be winning in Afghanistan, that would be a boost to militants worldwide.”

Eikenberry, on secure video from Kabul, supported that line of reasoning. But as a practical matter, he said, “We should distinguish between the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban. Getting Pakistan to move against the Afghan Taliban would help enormously.” While Pakistan moved against its own Taliban, the ISI still had contacts with the Haqqani network and other affiliates of the Afghan Taliban as part of its hedging strategy.

Mullen reinforced Gates’s point that the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area was the epicenter of terrorism. He also parroted Petraeus’s warning against making too many distinctions among the groups.

Clinton saw little ambiguity. “The Taliban are linked to al Qaeda,” she said firmly. “The Riedel core goal and supporting objectives were correct and proper. We don’t need to change those to discuss the level of effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The debate is about whether we need to conduct a fully resourced, comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign and massive aid to Pakistan.”

That’s not exactly the debate, Petraeus thought. First and foremost, it’s about what the reality is on the ground in terms of these groups. Everything else would come out of that.

Lute reminded Clinton of the context for McChrystal’s counter-insurgency strategy. “You know, the implementation plan signed by General Jones told the field to defeat the Taliban, because of the assumption that that is what is required.”

The Jones directive had said the core goal was to “defeat the extremist insurgency,” meaning the Taliban.

Donilon said, “You have to give meaning to the phrase.” The question after two hours of discussion was still whether they had to defeat the Taliban to achieve the core goal or could they disrupt or degrade them until the Afghan National Security Forces were ready.

Petraeus was sure that it would be difficult if not impossible to build the Afghan security forces in a challenging security environment. He had seen that in Iraq. It was the reality on the ground. But he would have to wait to make that point.

Clinton and Gates went off to George Washington University for a roundtable discussion, where they were interviewed by then CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour. They had dinner at the Blue Duck Tavern afterward, where they seemed to agree on what should be done with Afghanistan and troop levels. Gates and Clinton would be a team inside the Situation Room, a formidable one.

At 2:30 P.M. on October 6, Obama met in the State Dining Room with a bipartisan group of about 30 congressional leaders. It was a chance to update them on the strategy review.

Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican minority whip, offered his party’s support. “If you decide to move forward, we’ll be with you,” said the congressman from Richmond, Virginia.

Obama said that he appreciated the gesture. “I can’t help but notice that when the supplemental came up,” he said, referring to the May request for $94.2 billion for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, “that support wasn’t as forthcoming. I don’t remember that bill sliding through the House. So I’m glad to hear that it’s here today.”

A number of legislators criticized the counterterrorism approach that Biden had been advocating. They interpreted it as a way to reduce the U.S. presence. Troops had to be on the ground, they said, winning popular support and developing human intelligence. None of this could be done from offshore or from the air.

“Let’s just be clear,” Biden said after hearing three versions of this complaint, “that I’m not, and nobody else who’s participating in these meetings is, advocating a strictly counterterrorism policy that would be carried out by a few Special Forces at night with some drones.”

“Look, guys,” the president interjected, “nobody’s talking about leaving Afghanistan.”

McCain said, “I hope the decision won’t be made leisurely,” adding that he respected that the decision was Obama’s as commander in chief.

“John,” Obama replied, “I can assure you I’m not making this decision in a leisurely way. And you’re absolutely right. This is my decision, and I’m the commander in chief.”

What a bracing moment, thought Axelrod.

“Nobody,” Obama continued, “feels more urgency to make this decision—but to make it right—than I do.”

Petraeus and Senator Lindsey Graham had one of their regular conversations that same day. The general had come to admire the Republican’s ability to navigate Washington. He considered Graham to be a brilliant and skillful political chess player. But Graham’s comments a few days earlier on Fox News Sunday were not helping.

The senator had quoted McChrystal as saying that without reinforcements the U.S. would not defeat the Taliban. Eight Americans had just been killed in Afghanistan, Graham said. “The president has a window of time here to seriously deliberate, but it’s running out. And what you saw yesterday is exactly what awaits this country—our troops cannot change momentum. They’re sitting ducks. They need to be reinforced.”

Petraeus told Graham, You’re kind of taking some of Stan’s statements out of context. “Stan doesn’t want to be pitted against the president,” he said. “Stand down, ratchet it down a little bit.”

Graham saw the wisdom in this. He didn’t want to inflame the situation more than McChrystal’s London speech already had.

“If I were the commander in chief, I wouldn’t have appreciated that,” Graham said. “And Stan, I don’t think, meant it. He’s just, he sees what’s coming. What happened Saturday, with the eight deaths, more of that’s coming.”

Petraeus agreed that something had to be done. He said he thought Gates was with him on troop levels. The military chain—Gates, Mullen, Petraeus and McChrystal—would not break ranks in the Situation Room.

In the course of their conversations, Graham offered Petraeus some thoughts on how to deal with the crucial number of troops.

“If there is a number in your mind below which we can’t succeed,” Graham said, “don’t ever create a scenario where that thought is lost. They can ask you for 20 options and you can give them 20 options, but one thing you’ve got to say, ‘This is the fail-safe line right here.’”

Graham continued, “If you’re not strong on this, they’re going to water it down, because that is their instinct, to water it down.” He recommended giving some leeway, so it would be okay if Obama didn’t pick the exact number. “But if you show any weakness here,” he added, if a lower number “becomes attractive in any way, shape or form, you’re in trouble.”

Graham, the Air Force Reserve colonel, advised the general, “I’m a politician. I know exactly how to create back doors for myself. Every good politician always has a back door. The day that you get an issue where there’s no way out is when you’re dangerous to yourself and others.” Help the president, Graham said. “You’re doing him a service by really making it difficult.”

Petraeus said he did not want to make it easy or hard on anybody, including the president. “I am going to just give my best professional military advice, period.”

Yeah, of course, Graham understood. “One thing the president does not ever need to lose sight of: We’ve been in Europe for 60 years and Japan, all these countries. Nobody gives a shit. It is casualties.” Americans being killed and wounded on a regular basis were what mattered. “Go in with the biggest punch you can go in with, and change the dynamics on the ground in terms of casualties.”

Petraeus said they needed 40,000 more U.S. troops, but his failsafe number would probably be 30,000.

Around this time, Mullen also paid Graham a visit. Perched on the couch inside the senator’s office, the admiral said to not worry about how much time Obama was taking to make a decision.

“I just want you to know, Senator Graham, that we’re having good discussions,” Mullen said. “We don’t think it’s taking too long.”

Graham decided to back off and during his next major television appearance he said that the quality of Obama’s final decision mattered more than the quantity of time spent making it.

Both Obama and Emanuel believed Graham was their most reasonable Republican ally, but he had given Petraeus what might be the most crucial advice for securing what the military wanted—not to budge from a bottom-line number.

On Wednesday, October 7, Jones invited Clinton and Gates into his White House office for a private meeting. The president was not happy. The sessions so far had exposed a simple fact: They had not found a way to articulate why the United States was in Afghanistan. What were America’s interests?

They had to find a better way to explain. It was not entirely a public relations gloss they needed, but that was part of it. The initial cause of the war was crystal-clear—retaliation for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the successful effort to deny al Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan. But the war had ambled along somewhat aimlessly, under-resourced for eight years.

The discussion brought into relief, once again, just how unconventional this war was. Fixing the Afghan government was central to the mission if the U.S. was ever going to get out.

Yes, Gates said, they had to focus on governance—the Afghan national government, the provinces, the local districts and the tribes. They had to help the ministries of the central government that were worth supporting, he said. Afghanistan had to get beyond its failed-state status—a giant task.

All three admitted that they were being dragged down with terms like counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. The public didn’t understand what those words meant. There were too many labels. They also agreed that McChrystal’s mission had to be reframed with realistic goals and time limits.

They also skirted the troubling question: What precisely were they trying to do?

Later that day at 3:30 P.M., Obama gathered his team for a three-hour review and discussion of Pakistan.

Lavoy again began by summarizing the intelligence picture. Pakistan suffered from the enduring we’re-with-you, we’re-not-with-you schizophrenia, the continuing dominance of the military-intelligence complex, and President Zardari’s political weakness.

The consensus inside the intelligence community was that Afghanistan would not get straightened out until there was a stable relationship between Pakistan and India. A more mature and less combustible relationship between the two longtime adversaries was more important than building Afghanistan, Lavoy said.

Lavoy revisited the Bush years. “We had engaged Musharraf as though he was Pakistan, which he was.” But with Musharraf out of office and living in London, the U.S. still had not done enough to build relations with other political entities. Deep Pakistani mistrust of American intentions persisted.

Mullen pointed out that the robust military-to-military programs with Pakistan had grown to nearly $2 billion a year for training, equipment and other enterprises. Relations were getting better. The admiral was spending a lot of time with General Kayani, improving trust between the countries.

The real issue was whether U.S. soldiers could conduct operations on the ground in Pakistan. That had traditionally been the red line, but it was the crux of the problem that had to be solved. If they wanted to go to the center of gravity to solve the security problem, that was what they would have to do. But no one raised that issue that day.

Panetta passed around a list proposing the expansion of ten CIA counterterrorist activities. Adding more Predator drones inside Pakistan was one. Another was increasing the size of the areas in which Pakistan permitted drone strikes. There were also suggestions for opening new facilities in Pakistan, working through the ISI to develop more sources within the tribes and embedding U.S. military advisers in Pakistani operational units. Most of the activities would be carried out with Pakistani consent.

Let’s do it, Obama said, approving all the actions on the spot. It was unusual to get an immediate order from the president, particularly since the review sessions had been, up until that point, all talk and no decisions.

Sorting out the budget for how much was being spent on Pakistan was difficult. Jones jotted a note to himself to get a sense of the outstanding requests for resources and equipment in both the white, open world and the black, covert world.

The president returned to India. “We need to move aggressively on India-Pakistan issues in order to try to reduce the tensions between the two countries.”

Secretary Clinton addressed the consequences of not engaging with the Pakistani public for the past several years, contributing to America’s unpopularity there.

“There hadn’t been much public diplomacy in recent years,” she said. The history of the United States abandoning the region after the Cold War still hung over everything.

Meanwhile, “the U.S. relationship with India is growing steadily,” she said, which to say the least was characterized as a negative in Pakistan. When the Pakistani media ran negative stories, there was not enough pushback. Where was a “counter-propaganda plan?” she asked.

“There’s been lack of sufficient funding, people, concepts, structures and authorities,” said Petraeus, chuckling. “Other than that, we’re doing great.”

For much of the Bush presidency, U.S. policy had coddled Musharraf and disregarded the 170 million people in Pakistan. Clinton wanted a decision on multiyear, civilian assistance for Pakistani infrastructure, energy and agriculture, in addition to media outreach.

Biden spun a hypothesis about how a Pashtun leader in Afghanistan influenced Pakistan. It contained enough what ifs that some in the room were quickly confused. Petraeus later told others that the vice president tended to get lost in his own verbiage, erecting straw-man arguments that he could then easily demolish.

The session was grinding to a halt. Obama read through a list of specific questions about how to convince Pakistan that it was in their interest to change.

“There’s no clear answer yet with regard to what induces Pakistan to make a strategic shift in our direction,” he said.

“Why can’t we have straightforward talks with India on why a stable Pakistan is crucial?” Obama asked. India is moving toward a higher place in its global posture. A stable Pakistan would help that.

Among his other questions were: Would the addition of U.S. troops in Afghanistan make Pakistan more or less cooperative? Because of Pakistani corruption, is there a way to funnel U.S. aid directly to the people for whom it’s intended?

Speaking by video, Ambassador Anne Patterson tried to address the aid question. “We need to give Pakistanis some control over projects, although mobilizing the civilian sector would be a good thing to do.”

Obama ended by saying he wanted to improve the U.S. image in Pakistan.

In one discussion about the tensions between Pakistan and India, Holbrooke introduced a new angle. “There’s a global warming dimension of this struggle, Mr. President,” he said.

His words baffled many in the room.

There are tens of thousands of Indian and Pakistani troops encamped on the glaciers in the Himalayas that feed the rivers into Pakistan and India, he said. “Their encampments are melting the glaciers very quickly.” There’s a chance that river valleys in Pakistan and perhaps even India could be flooded.

After the meeting, there were several versions of one question: Was Holbrooke kidding?

He was not. Holbrooke subsequently detailed his concerns in a written report. The diplomat—sensing he was on the outs with Obama—was trying as hard as he could to say something distinctive that would impress the president. He had talked about tripling the number of civilian experts in Afghanistan to 1,000 by the end of the year, calling it “the biggest civilian surge in history.” And Holbrooke had routinely cited what he considered to be major progress in restoring Afghanistan’s agricultural economy. Donilon eventually had to tell him to give the NSC something more than a list of activities and issues. The president wanted a comprehensive strategy from Holbrooke’s office, Donilon said.

It wasn’t until well into the Obama presidency that Holbrooke learned definitively how much the president didn’t care for him. When the president had announced Holbrooke’s appointment a couple of days into the administration, the two had a private moment.

“Mr. President, I want to ask you one favor,” Holbrooke had said, expressing gratitude for the highly visible assignment. “Would you do me the great favor of calling me Richard, for my wife’s sake?” It was her preference. She disliked the name “Dick,” which the president had been using.

At the ceremony, Obama referred to Holbrooke as “Richard.” But later, the president told others that he found the request highly unusual and even strange. Holbrooke was horrified when he learned that his request—which he had repeated to no one—had been circulated by the president.

Petraeus thought the back-and-forth at these sessions was useful on some level, but it was dragging on. Intellectual exploration had its limits. Sensing the drift at the meeting, he wrote optimistically in his small black notebook: “There will be a recommitment to Afghanistan.”