Planning the handover

The U.S. may be sending mixed signals about its intention to stay in Iraq, but there's no doubt that it's leaving Afghanistan:

NATO-led international troops will be ready to assume responsibility for security across all of Afghanistan by the end of next year, freeing up thousands of American forces, a top NATO general said Thursday.

There has long been a plan to expand the 10,000-strong NATO force here into Afghanistan's volatile south and east, but the timing for its completion has never been specific. Washington has long sought such a move, hoping to relieve many of its 17,600 front-line troops still here.

It's still questionable whether anything much has been accomplished in Afghanistan; there as in Iraq it's only the occupying troops keeping the country from complete chaos, and even any current stability is only relative.

But because the U.S. had an true international coalition there, it's able to at least call on other states to pick up most of the burden now. Oddly enough, Albania and Estonia haven't been able to do the same in Iraq.