surge, he was concluding privately that he can't change afghanistan and he began setting deadlines to pull out and a big debate about whether publicly setting deadline was a good idea. in fact, i describe in here one day when henry kissinger comes in to the state department and sits down with people doing negotiations for the taliban and says be careful about thinking that you can negotiate with people when have you already told them you are leaving. he try thad with vietnam and it didn't work out so well. but the second big transition that president obama went through, the discovery that the military saw afghanistan as the last big game in town. the last place to play out the counterinsurgency effort. and he's still fighting that, as recently as the end of last year, the military came to him with a proposal for 100,000 troops for stability operations. the white house said we aren't