With new team, Obama looks for Afghan exit: "By naming a new team Thursday to oversee the Afghanistan conflict, President Barack Obama could find it easier to extricate US troops from a grinding war where success has proved elusive.
Obama and his advisers famously clashed with the top brass and outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates over Afghan war strategy in 2009, with military commanders reluctant to back a troop withdrawal starting this July.
Now Gates is stepping down at the Pentagon, General David Petraeus is moving to the CIA from his job as commander in Kabul, and the military's top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, will finish his term in September.
In a tense internal debate that played out in the media, all three men resisted the idea backed by White House civilian advisers for setting a timeline for a troop pullout this year -- until Obama overruled them.
'In the longer term, beyond this year, inevitably if you remove three of the four most prominent advocates from one position, in internal debate, you're going to strengthen the other position,' Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.
The effect of a new team will not be felt for months, as Gates and top officers will remain in place to shape the decision on how many troops will be withdrawn in July, according to Biddle."
