Why bring home the surge troops by the summer of 2012? It had been widely expected that President Obama would announce the planned removal of some—perhaps even all—of the surge forces by early 2013. No serious person expected a drawdown of all 33,000 troops—one-third of the total force—within about 15 months.

So why did the president overrule his military commanders and order such a hasty and rapid retreat? Even if all the surge forces were to be withdrawn, the few months between September 2012 and early 2013 make a huge military difference. The commanders in the field were already concerned about the additional risk any substantial drawdown would create for the success of the mission. But they believed they could deal with the risks and continue to make progress—if they had a full fighting season in 2012 with close to the current number of troops. But now they won’t have that. Now it will be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to use the 2012 fighting season both to consolidate the gains in southern Afghanistan and to begin the pivot to the major operations necessary to secure the east, as the campaign plan has envisioned.