The president is expected to fill in details of his post-2014 Afghanistan plan during a commencement address Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Pentagon has been pressing for Obama to keep up to 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, though the White House also has been evaluating options that call for fewer forces.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the Afghan drawdown, which follows the conclusion of the Iraq war in 2011, marks a “turning point” for Obama’s foreign policy agenda.
“Our foreign policy is going to look a lot different going forward than it did in the last decade when Iraq and Afghanistan really dominated the discussion,” Rhodes told reporters traveling with Obama to Afghanistan.