Ackerman looks ahead:

[I]f ever John McCain ... wanted to wage a fight against the administration’s plans to start pulling troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011, the new Republicans in the Senate are likely to have his back. (Well, maybe not incoming Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a war skeptic.) The future course of the war is likely to be the first major defense battleground between Obama and the expanded GOP minority in the Senate. And it’s definitely not going to be the last.

If the battle is between those who want to continue the decade-old war in Afghanistan versus those who want to wrap it up, I think McCain will be over-playing his hand. Especially if, by that time, even Washington cannot keep up its pretense about the success of the surge in Iraq (where, by the way, a wave of sectarian bombings just occurred).