The Afghanistan troop withdraws

The number announced, 33,000, is more than I was expecting but it is heavily back-loaded into late next year. Withdraws for this year are about as minimal as I expected. I am not counting the chickens before they hatch. There is plenty of potential for the withdraw schedule to slip due to "changing circumstances" -- although fresh evidence that the war goes poorly would be better interpreted as a reason to speed up the drawdown than for slowing it.