Peter Feaver thinks Obama "is ducking a public debate of America’s wars." The timing of the Iraq timetable revision leak was very odd:
…this is a dangerous way to manage the public debate over both wars. Public support for seeing the Iraq war through to the successful conclusion of its current trajectory is achievable, but not certain. It will take Presidential leadership. Surprisingly more difficult, I suspect, will be preserving public support for the Afghan part of the broader war. That, too, will take a lot of presidential leadership. I will have more to say on that topic soon. But for now the takeaway is that President Obama will probably have to put a bit more effort into selling both his Iraq and Afghanistan policies than his roll-outs have provided thus far.
The Dish 