Full disclosure: I worked for Scoblic for a bunch of years at the magazine, and while saying this now represents a conflict of interest, his arrival on the committee staff will be very welcome news for arms controllers and very unwelcome news for opponents. Should the committee chairman, John Kerry (D-Mass.), end up succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, it wouldn’t be surprising if Scoblic helped negotiate the next arms-reduction treaty after New START.

The White House has indicated that the full treaty will be completed and submitted to the Senate in early May.  I plan to begin hearings on the treaty in the coming weeks, and then report a proposed resolution of advice and consent to ratification out of the Foreign Relations Committee for approval by the full Senate as soon as possible.

Kerry also reprised his 2008 campaign role as pugilist:

Unfortunately, too many Republicans have treated this episode as a political opportunity. Led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, they have resorted to partisan denunciations that serve no legitimate purpose and have no place in the nation’s vital debate over how to fight terrorism. The hysteria of Mr. Cheney and some of his fellow Republicans is sadly reminiscent of the days when the previous administration substituted fear mongering for sound policy and led us into an unnecessary and tragic war in Iraq while starving a necessary conflict in Afghanistan.

President Obama was right to demand a full and immediate review of the intelligence failures that permitted the would-be bomber to board a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The president acted quickly and decisively while avoiding the sensationalism Americans too often witnessed over the last eight years. He should be applauded for forthrightly pinpointing the failure of our intelligence agencies to connect the dots available to them and demanding reforms that will reduce the chances of this sort of mistake occurring again. …

“Our overriding objective, of course, is ensuring al-Qaeda and other transnational extremists don’t reestablish a sanctuary in Afghanistan,” Gen. David Petraeus replied. “And the way to ensure that is to have a country that is not a failed state and allows that to happen.”

Mendendez was unpersuaded. “We will still be in the same national security paradigm” if Afghan President Hamid Karzai “fails.” So when does the strategy fail, he wants to know. Is this not circular? “That dictates we have a long-term obligation to Afghanistan, because we hope Karzai will do everything that’s right. … my view of that, therefore, is skepticism.” Is Karzai right that the United States will be paying for Afghan security until 2024?

“It’s not a light switch that takes place in a situation like this,” Petraeus said. He “couldn’t talk about the time frame.” But “certainly it is going to be years before they can handle the bulk of security tasks and allow the bulk of our troopers to redeploy.” So why not move faster, as he and McChrystal want?

Menendez: “At some point we need to get the price tag here.” Is the U.S. starting from scratch, development-wise, after already spending $13 billion in Afghanistan? Deputy Secretary Jack Lew disagreed that “there’s nothing to show” for the cost, including “very substantial access to health care … a lot of girls enrolled in schools … It’s fair to say there’s an awful lot of work ahead of us.” But “it’s not quite the same as starting from scratch,”  he said.

In Afghanistan, Lew reiterated the administration’s shift in development efforts to “increasing farmer productivity” and “rebuilding watersheds and other agriculture infrastructure” that will ultimately “draw insurgents off the battlefield.” But there will also be “rule of law” and “comprehensive communications” efforts, he said, going beyond support for the security and agricultural sectors that Lew’s colleagues have so far emphasized.

Lew also reiterates his State colleague Paul Jones’ announcement Monday that the civilian surge in Afghanistan will increase from the nearly 1,000 civilians who will be in place in Afghanistan by next month. “We will further increase our civilian staff in 2010 by another 20 to 30 percent,” Lew said, and will place them largely outside of Kabul. State’s recruiting and training will change, with a recent Indiana-based training exercise on how to work with the military “in real-life exercises” as one example.

In Pakistan, “energy and agriculture” will also get much U.S. assistance, through Pakistani institutions. Lew pledged to support civilian efforts in the Malakand district in the Northwest Frontier Province and to get international assistance as well. And matching the “sub-national” focus in Afghanistan, there probably won’t be the same sort of effort in Pakistan, but Lew still said “we’re reaching out to provincial and local officials” and political parties beyond those in power. The common thread? Meeting what the Pakistanis say they want, not what the U.S. first expects the Pakistanis to do.

Expect the hearing to focus on civilian efforts more than military ones. Kerry said he has three major questions about the Obama administration’s Afghanistan strategy: Are there reliable Afghan forces to partner with? Are there local Afghan leaders to work with on the ground? Is the civilian capacity in place to make the military gains sustainable? “Our success depends on a robust civilian effort to build on our military gains,” Kerry said. “There is no military solution, ultimately, so that needs to remain front and center.”

On Pakistan, what happens there “will do more to determine the outcome in Afghanistan and any increase in troops or shift in strategy,” Kerry continued. Interconnected extremist groups “do not stop at the Afghan border, so our strategy cannot stop there either.” As a result, as much as “we must convince its government to tackle all the extremist groups threatening” the region’s stability. “The Pakistani military should be congratulated” for its performance against the Pakistani Taliban, Kerry said. “Now we are looking to the Pakistani military to take on the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, and al-Qaeda strongholds.” Additional aid to the Pakistani military is possible, “but we need to know we’re building a lasting partnership.”

“All nations are threatened by extremism, whether in New York or Mumbai or Peshawar,” Kerry said, underscoring that Pakistan cannot pick and choose which terrorists operating from its soil to confront when those groups demonstrate collaboration or common interests.

Why’s that? The Senate committee wants to hear about Pakistan, not just Afghanistan, and how U.S. efforts regionally affect conditions in both — something that’s been missing in today’s two hearings. After all, the Obama administration’s strategy “has a broader perspective beyond just Afghanistan,” said committee spokesman Frederick Jones, and so “we made the decision to invite Gen. Petraeus to testify.”

A McChrystal aide confirmed that McChrystal will not be delivering any testimony tomorrow. “Gen. McChrystal was not extended an invitation to testify,” Jones said. “Gen. McChrystal will have testified on a number of occasions prior to our hearing.” In fairness, several senators this afternoon covered the same ground as representatives at the House hearing earlier this morning.

They wouldn’t. Gates, looking a bit displeased, said that the administration had been “clear that this is the beginning of a process” that was “based on the conditions on the ground.” President Obama “clearly sees July 2011 as an inflection point for drawing down with a view to transferring control” to the Afghan security forces over a “period of two to three years” although Gates was cut off before he could finish saying “years.” As far as I have seen and heard, that’s the first I’ve seen the administration address how long it envisions the transition period lasting. Clinton added that she thought it would take “five years” before the Afghans would be “responsible for their entire security.” But it wasn’t clear — at least not to me — whether she meant five years from 2011 or five years from now, the latter of which would be in line with Gates’ statement.

Menendez was very displeased. He said the dates set by the Obama administration, particularly the July 2011 transition date, “as solid as quicksand and at best aspirational.” It wouldn’t be responsible of him to tell his constituents that the war would be winding down any time soon, and pointedly warned Clinton, Gates and Mullen of the need to be “honest in our assessment.”

I considered that important enough to use it as my marquee quote. In other words, during that period, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan becomes one of diminishing insurgent capacity while strengthening Afghan capacity, instantiated in a variety of ways. The Obama administration believes that will require a U.S. troop presence of around 100,000 for the mission. Eighteen months, the president said.

After that period, the mission pivots. It doesn’t change, and it definitely doesn’t change overnight, but it pivots: Afghan capacity is supposed to be improved relative to the insurgency’s so that, in a graduated fashion, the Afghans begin to take the lead for Afghan security. That begins in July 2011.

Unless it doesn’t. While President Obama stressed eighteen months as the span of Phase One, Gates and Mullen had a different perspective: they said 18 to 24 months would be the time span to “turn this insurgency around,” in Mullen’s phrase. Then, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff continued, “that will in turn provide an opportunity to get at the kind of transition, in terms of security responsibility and thinning of our forces, if you will, to start that.”

To be very clear: Gates, Mullen and Clinton all endorsed, embraced and defended the July 2011 timetable. And the flexibility Obama outlined at West Point that the strategy contains is commensurate with an assessment that the U.S.-led momentum-breaking phase of the campaign can and probably will last beyond July 2011. But it’s significant that the Pentagon leaders added the caveat that the “extended surge” of 30,000 troops could well last for two years. No one should expect significant U.S. withdrawals of troops in July 2011, or even shortly thereafter.

There’s another round of testimony this morning with the three officials in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, followed by yet another in the House Armed Services Committee this afternoon. Let’s see if Gates, Clinton or Mullen clarifies the timeline any further.