"... Robert Gates’s statements box McChrystal in?"

Morning-Defense/ here

"... CLOCK TICKING ON McCHRYSTAL? – Gates’s comments on the need to achieve success in Afghanistan by the end of the year are nothing new, and they come as the U.S. did a full-court press in London, with Petraeus, McChrystal, Gates, Chiarelli and others helping to convey the message of American commitment there. Some inside and outside the building fear Gates’s statements box McChrystal in. The general has never had an open-ended commitment – some number of troops need to begin withdrawing by July 2011 – but it doesn’t give him much time after the full complement of forces arrive for the surge only by fall.

"POLITICAL REALITIES" – suggest that Gates has to reiterate how important it is for NATO to show success this year, says John Nagl of CNAS. “Secretary Gates is articulating something that everybody already knows,” he tells POLITICO. “I think Secretary Gates is very conscious of the political realities of an American people who are very tired after 10 years of war and want to see progress, understandably so,” he says.

MULTIPLE MESSAGES – Gates’s comments at NATO were directed as much to the American and European publics as to Karzai and the Afghan people, Nagl says. “By December, McChrystal will show progress in clearing the Taliban, but it’s progress in holding what we’ve cleared that is going to be the long pole in the tent.”

BOTTOM LINE – The push for success – and the Gates’ rhetoric that puts a premium on it by the end of the year says this: “It says that this is going to be an enormously challenging battle on two fronts: the war on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the war for public support here in the United States,” says Nagl..."