A presidential decision on a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, long delayed and the subject of bitter dispute inside the White House, may finally be at hand. Key members of the Trump administration’s war council met with the president on August 10 at the summer White House in Bedminster, N.J., and presented him with a trio of options for the 16-year-old conflict, according to senior government officials. These range from an open-ended mission for a beefed-up American military force to a near-complete withdrawal of American forces.

It is, perhaps, a reflection of this unique presidency that the future of America’s longest-running war will be decided at a luxury golf club in New Jersey. But it is a better measure of the president’s disappointment in the current conduct of the fight and in the plans that his national security team have previously presented to him. Trump firmly expressed that disappointment in a heated National Security Council meeting last month, when he declared that the war was being lost and mused about firing Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander in Afghanistan.