it out, too. karzai is a pivotal figure, the person who's going to essentially sign the exit orders for the u.s. military from afghanistan. the obama administration figured this out. so they have to work with him. and he actually controls a substantial amount of real estate and power. he is himself a power broker in afghanistan. where he has to make some choices and he's definitely keeping the u.s. calendar in mind making the choices is to what extent he's going to be able to run the show when the u.s. is no longer providing the backbone of security that it is now and to what extent he will have to share power and work deals and work arrangements to make the country function. and, by most assessments he wants that to happen but the worst thing for him right now is to have the u.s. pulling the strings on how he makes those deals. >> is there anything to the fact that this could be -- it is the cliche, darkest before the dawn. the fact is we have more troops