This New York Times story is laden with tea leaves and significant political implications:

LONDON — The top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, rejected calls for scaling down military objectives there on Thursday and said Washington did not have unlimited time to settle on a new strategy to pursue the eight-year-old war. [snip]

He was speaking in Britain — a close American ally in Afghanistan — a day after he participated by video link from London in a White house strategy session on Afghanistan that included President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and an array of senior advisors.

General McChrystal was asked by a member of an audience that included retired military commanders and security specialists whether he would support an idea put forward by Vice President Biden of scaling back the American military presence in Afghanistan to focus on tracking down Al Qaeda leaders in place of the current broader effort now underway to defeat the Taliban.

“The short answer is: no,” he said. “You have to navigate from where you are, not where you wish to be. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy.”