Does the US have an Afghanistan policy?

President Obama from his West Point speech on Afghanistan, December 1, 2009:

Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban – a ruthless, repressive and radical movement…

Gradually, the Taliban has begun to control additional swaths of territory in Afghanistan, while engaging in increasingly brazen and devastating attacks of terrorism against the Pakistani people…

Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive. And that’s why, shortly after taking office, I approved a longstanding request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan and the extremist safe havens in Pakistan…

We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government…

…we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban’s momentum…

This is pretty clear. The Taliban is a threat and Obama made clear the US is going to fight them. I thus found Dexter Filkins’s article in yesterday’s New York Times quite surprising:

For weeks, reports have swirled around the capital of back-channel discussions between the Afghan government and the [Taliban] leadership council known as the Quetta Shura, so called for its supposed base in Quetta, Pakistan…

“We have been passing a lot of messages,” said Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador who now lives in Kabul. He is one of the principal conduits for getting notes to the Taliban leadership…

The only way to peace, the Afghan and American officials believe, is through a political settlement – that is, some arrangement for sharing power – that all sides can live with.

Now, to be clear, I am neither for nor against negotiating with the Taliban. What amazes me is that less than two months after Obama made his West Point speech on Afghanistan following months of careful and extensive deliberation on it, the administration seems to have changed its mind. This makes me wonder whether it has any policy at all.