Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. military forces in the Middle East and South Asia, got asked a modified version of this question by NPR’s Steve Inskeep this morning: “Can you win so long as there are safe havens outside of Afghanistan for the people you’re fighting?” Petraeus responded:

Depends how large the safe havens and sanctuaries are, obviously. And again, the objective is to see those whittled down on either side of the border. Again, there has to be a continued level of pressure and progress in that regard.

It’s a shame that Inskeep moved on to a different line of questioning. Because this sounds very much like Petraeus acknowledging that the U.S. cannot and will not kill every last al-Qaeda operative. What it can do, along with its Pakistani partners — and can’t do without them — is degrade al-Qaeda-central’s safe haven and harass it militarily when possible, so that it can’t export the extremism that senior officials continue to see emanating from the region. There’s a word for that: containment.

“Containment” in the post-9/11 age has acquired an unfortunate pejorative connotation. The Bush administration contrasted “containment” with “victory,” and repeatedly said that it was impossible to contain stateless terrorist networks. In doing so, George W. Bush ended up overtaxing American power without ever articulating how “victory” could be achieved; accordingly, it never was. But al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has proven over the past eight years that it does seek to hold territory, operating from somewhere. Reducing its ability to branch out from that place effectively limits the threat it poses, and gives U.S. and allied forces a place to respond if the cordon proves to be porous.

But is this actually how the Obama administration conceives of how the endgame is achieved — which is to say, an endgame that looks more like long-term vigilance and partnership with Afghanistan and Pakistan? When I posed that question in March to Denis McDonough, one of the most influential of Obama’s advisers, that seemed to be his answer. But the actual answer still remains unarticulated — by President Obama, by his critics, and by the entire constellation of U.S. foreign-policy analysts. And if containment is the answer, does the U.S. transition to Afghan security forces beginning in 2011 mean subcontracting out the military edge of containment to the Afghans?

1. Will Obama give an exit strategy, an endpoint — if not necessarily a date — for when the mission is accomplished?

Answer: No. Saying you’ll “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda is about the furthest thing from an endpoint as could be. What does it mean?

2. Will Obama say how we’ll know if his strategy is working or failing, and if so, how will he report it to Congress?

Answer: There was a lot of talk of benchmarks for Af-Pak strategy in the speech, where none before have existed. Check out Matthew Yglesias for more on that. And while this is more a promise than a plan, here’s what Obama said:

Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable. We’ll consistently assess our efforts to train Afghan security forces and our progress in combating insurgents. We will measure the growth of Afghanistan’s economy, and its illicit narcotics production. And we will review whether we are using the right tools and tactics to make progress towards accomplishing our goals.

I’m unsure about what reporting requirements Congress will add, but maybe that’s in the Pakistan bills he mentioned.

3. Will Obama make an argument for why the mission is in the national interest, and worth the sacrifice?

Answer: Most definitely. Simply put, preventing future attacks on the U.S. requires an increased commitment in Af-Pak. There’s sort of too much to summarize easily, but here’s a good excerpt:

Al Qaeda and its allies — the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks — are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban — or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

4. Will Obama talk about what meaningful pressure he’ll put the Pakistani government to increase its counterinsurgency capability so the United States doesn’t invade western Pakistan, but will allow it to eliminate the safe havens for jihadists in the Pakistani tribal areas?

Answer: It’s a judgment call. He made a point of saying the aid he’s giving is “not a blank check.” And there were a few sentences about U.S. expectations of the Pakistanis:

Pakistan must demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders. And we will insist that action be taken — one way or another — when we have intelligence about high-level terrorist targets.

Still, nothing in that or in other sections of the speech placed an affirmative burden on Pakistan when it comes to bolstered aid. Maybe that’ll be in the forthcoming bills.

Her response was to say that the cooperation received from Pakistan’s leader Pervez Musharraf “wasn’t consistent” — but it’s important to remember that given the prospect of “political instability” in a nuclear-armed country,” there was a serious question about “how far and how hard do you push them, and potentially wind up with something worse.”

Townsend hastened to add, “I don’t say that as a defense. I say it to put it in context.”

She praises Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the new Pakistani Army chief of staff, for attempting, as head of the Pakistani intelligence service, to push his agency harder against Al Qaeda.

“But I think that if there’s another attack in the U.S., there will be a great deal of fingerpointing,” she adds, “…and think it is fair to say that that will have to be, if attack emanates from tribal areas — as I think [it will] — it will be fair game to say, ‘Did this administration do enough to push the Pakistanis hard enough?’”