The bad news is that the President has also announced a timetable for departure. If you were a Taliban chieftan, what would you do? You would announce to all and sundry that after that deadline "we Taliban will still be here and those Americans won't be, their cowardly President says so."
Now suppose you are an Afghani trying to figure out with whom to ally, who would you choose? If you have any sense you'll lie low until the Americans leave while assuring the Taliban of your support.
The President had to straddle two very different viewpoints in his speech, and the result was as awkward as straddles normally are. I fear those extra troops are being sent in harm's way to no good purpose, their mission compromised by the timetable for departure.
