President Barack Obama brieflty met with Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal today following a trip to Copenhagen to press for a Chicago Olympics bid, and the White House termed the meeting “productive,” claiming that Gen. McChrystal had endorsed Obama’s review process.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal

This was in stark contrast to comments made by the general over the past two weeks, in which he insisted that while debate was “warranted” it needed to be limited.

Gen. McChrystal has been laying out his ambitious war strategy, calling for the addition of 45,000 American troops to the conflict and ruling out any consideration of a more scaled back war effort that didn’t involve a massive long term military presence.

And long term it definitely will be. In a speech given yesterday, Gen. McChrystal laid out what he described as his “most optimistic” projection for the war effort, in which he hoped the Afghan military would be ready to begin taking over some responsibilities by 2013.

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