President Obama Rejects All Four Afghanistan Options, Seeks Revisions

A senior administration official has revealed to The Associated Press that President Barack Obama has asked his national security team to make revisions to the four proposed Afghanistan war options in order to include more specific provisions in regards to the topic of when American troops would turn responsibility over to the Afghanistan government.

President Obama's request comes just before his scheduled eight-day trip to Asia and it was confirmed earlier in the week that no final decision would be made about selecting an Afghanistan war option until the president returned from his trip overseas. Although it is no secret that a significant influx of U.S. troops is all but inevitable, President Obama appeared resistant to the option that included sending as many as 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

According to The Associated Press, President Obama expressed his belief that the national security team was attempting to influence him to rush his decision in order to enable them to take immediate action and as a result, he stiffened his position to seek more specific information.

The most serious concerns that President Obama appears to have about the options that have been proposed are that they are relatively vague in terms of specified timelines as well as when the Afghanistan government would intervene and take over operations, which would potentially enable our troops to return home.