As the Senate Armed Services Committee today began hearings on President Obama's plan to raise troop levels in Afghanistan, here's one noteworthy exchange between US Senator Jack Reed and Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

REED:  Mr. Secretary, some of the criticism of even talking about a date regardless of whether it's a hard unconditional withdrawal as in Iraq or proposal of the president is that it would embolden the enemy on one hand, or on the other hand they would lie low and wait us out.

It strikes me is that the Taliban has been emboldened quite aggressively over the last several years without any type of deadline and if they sit it out what will you do if they simply gave up the operational space to us for 18 months or two years.

GATES:  Well we certainly would welcome them not being active for the next 18 months because it would give us open field running with our allies and the Afghans to build capacity. 

I think as you make the point, we are already in a situation in which they are embolden and in which they are being aggressive and where they have the momentum right now and so it's not clear to me what more they could do then they're doing right now. 

The forces that we're sending in are intended, in the first instance, as the Admiral has said, is to reverse that momentum and deny them the ability to control territory.