Barack Obama will make an announcement on sending extra troops to Afghanistan "in the next several weeks", he said today, with his goal being to hand a clean slate to America's next president.
The US president, who has been accused of being indecisive on Afghanistan, told US TV networks during his tour of China that he was "very close" to making a decision and that he did not want his successor to inherit the conflict, as a "multi-year occupation" would not serve the interests of the US.
There have been plenty of reported leaks about what Obama intends to do, but the White House has been adamant that no decision has been taken on a request by the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for up to 40,000 more troops.
Obama echoed the concerns of his defence secretary, Robert Gates, about the reports, saying he is probably angrier than Gates about the drip-drip feed of stories to the media on what the White House intends to do.
"We have these deliberations in the situation room for a reason, because we are making decisions that are life and death," Obama said. "For people to be releasing information during the course of deliberations when we haven't made final decisions yet, I think is not appropriate."
Asked if his decision will end the war, Obama said: "This decision will put us on a path towards ending the war. My preference would be not to hand off anything to the next president. One of the things I'd like is the next president to come in and say, 'I've got a clean slate'."
Obama has insisted that there will be no reduction of US forces soon. He has repeatedly stated that Afghanistan and Pakistan are vital to US strategic interests and that Afghanistan is a "war of necessity".
Obama promised to tell the nation "in very clear terms, what exactly is at stake, what we intend to do, how we're going to succeed, how much it's going to cost, how long it's going to take", without saying when he would make that announcement.
Obama declined to say whether he trusted Hamid Karzai. He praised the Afghan president for holding his country together but admitted: "He has some strengths, but he has some weaknesses. I'm less concerned about any individual than I am with a government as a whole that is having difficulty providing basic services to its people," he added.
Israel
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one of his other vexed foreign policy issues, Obama criticised Israel's latest move to build hundreds of homes in a neighbourhood claimed by Palestinians. Obama said the decision by Israel's rightwing government complicated US efforts to revive a moribund peace process.
Obama told Fox News: "I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel's security, I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbours. I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous."
Obama and the Palestinians have demanded that Israel halt settlement construction.
The Israeli government yesterday said it would go ahead with plans to build 900 homes in Gilo, a Jewish neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim for their future capital.
Sarah Palin
Obama said that he will probably not read Going Rogue, the book by Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential candidate. Declining to predict whether Palin will run for president in 2012, he said she has proved to be a popular figure with a large following in the Republican party. In an interview promoting her book, Palin rated Obama's performance as president as a four out of 10. Obama dismissed the criticism, saying he and the former Republican vice presidential candidate had different political philosophies.
Apart from discussing foreign policy, Obama followed in the footsteps of past US presidents by visiting the Great Wall of China, which he described as "magical".
"It reminds you of the sweep of history and our time here on Earth is not that long. We better make the best of it," Obama said, walking down a ramp, his hands in his pockets. Dressed in a winter jacket against a biting wind at the Great Wall, Obama led a knot of people for a half-hour jaunt up the crenelated wall toward a watchtower, a restored section originally built 500 years ago.