President Obama promised to speak about the war in Afghanistan for the first time in months. But the changing Associated Press’s headline on Liz Sidoti’s coverage says it all:

“Obama to talk about conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan” (AP headline at 6:41 AM)
“Obama lashes defense establishment, Congress” (AP headline at 2:25 pm)

So rather than devote the speech to America’s wars, Obama instead made news on domestic politics. But that’s not to say President Obama ignored the wars. As Sidoti reports on Obama’s Afghanistan comments:

Turning to the two current foreign wars engaging the United States, Obama spoke of fierce fighting against Taliban and other insurgents leading up to Thursday’s national elections in Afghanistan.
He said U.S. troops are working to secure polling places so the elections can go forward and Afghans can choose their own future.
Attaining that peaceful future “will not be quick, nor easy,” Obama said.

As for the four questions I wondered this morning (and kindly reprinted by Mike Allen in Playbook), Obama answered one of them, but gave little insight into the other three.

As for the question he did answer: In March, President Obama offered “a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” Today, he amended that goal to also target extremists besides al Qaeda, saying “our new strategy has a clear mission and defined goals — to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies.” (emphasis added)

President Obama said little about the election, although he seemed to lower the stakes: In March, he said US troops would “provide security in advance of the important presidential elections in Afghanistan in August.” Today, he repeated that sentiment, but dropped the word “important.”

And on the question on the size and length of our troop commitments, President Obama said nothing except that “at every step of the way, we will assess our efforts to defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies”, which is either a vague reference to the soon-to-be-released metrics, or a calibrated statement opening the door to either future troop surges or withdrawals.

This may all seem like parsing – and it is. But that’s because the President says so little about Afghanistan (as POLITICO recently documented), and the future direction of Administration policy (let alone the war) is largely unknown.

Nevertheless, I applaud President Obama for offering a full-throated defense of his Afghanistan strategy, even if much went unsaid. As we enter a critical period of the war, let’s hope it’s not another four months before our Commander-in-Chief rallies the nation to support the effort.