We’re heading for the decisive moment with President Obama and Gen. McChrystal. To clarify the circumstances that either McChrystal will face if he stays in command or his successor will face — on the presumption that Obama didn’t decide yesterday morning to chuck a strategy it took him three months to forge — I put together this list at the Washington Independent. It’s long, and it certainly indicates the biases I hold that are no secret to any regular reader, but I hope it identifies the most crucial points of inflection, re-analysis and decision if the strategy is going to remain the same in Afghanistan.

You’ll notice that withdrawal is not on here. Neither is the relationship with President Karzai Those are not a decision for General Whomever, though he has input on both. They’re decisions for Obama. We can all agree that whatever civilian-military relations lessons emerge from this episode, those are still foremost — some decisions are clearly and exclusively presidential.