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An extensive analysis has been underway at the White House to determine the strategy and appropriate troop commitment for the Afghanistan War.

Even as some Democrats are calling for a troop freeze, and Republicans for a "surge", the president has taken his time to fully understand a decision that will be a major marker for his presidency and the country.

Now the New York Times reports that President Obama's senior advisors are close to recommending an increase in the troop level:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan, but President Obama remains unsatisfied with answers he has gotten about how vigorously the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan would help execute a new strategy, administration officials said Tuesday.

 Here's General David Petreus:

 And here, according to the Plum Line, is the likely GOP response to the president's decision:

Republican leaders are gearing up to critize Obama’s eventual decision on the way forward in Afghanistan even if it falls modestly short of sending an additional 40,000 troops, a senior GOP aide says.

But there’s an interesting caveat, one that underscores the political challenges the GOP will face as they respond to Obama’s decision: What if he decides to send less than 40,000 troops, but the decision is endorsed by the commanding officer, General Stanley McChrystal?

Republicans have repeatedly called on Obama to follow the advice of his commander, who has reportedly sought 40,000 additional troops. With some of Obama’s top advisers coalescing around a plan to send around 30,000 more troops, GOP leaders are laying the groundwork to criticize anything short of 40,000 as a failure to give his commander the resources he said he needed, the GOP aide tells me.

“There better be a hell of a compelling reason for ignoring the advice of our generals on the ground or Republicans will ensure that this Administration spend the next few years explaining to the American people how dismissing our military’s advice has made our troops and our country safer,” the aide says.