President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet today with the Joint Chiefs of Staff amid reports that he is close to a decision on new U.S. strategies in Afghanistan.

Not surprisingly for a president who has made conciliation the watchword of his administration, Mr. Obama is expected to stake out the middle ground between positions espoused by Vice President Joe Biden and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

Mr. Biden has opposed further military build-up in Afghanistan, arguing that U.S. counter-terrorism efforts should be focused on Pakistan. Gen. McChrystal has argued that at least 40,000 more troops should be sent to Afghanistan for a broad counter-insurgency effort focused on major population centers.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that administration and military officials say Mr. Obama might send as many as four additional brigade combat teams — some 15,000 to 20,000 troops — to bolster the 62,000 U.S. troops already in country.

They would be deployed mostly in urban areas, creating "enclaves" that Afghans presumably would recognize as safe and successful. Special operations units would be deployed as needed in remote areas.

The strategy acknowledges that al-Qaida terrorists no longer are the problem in Afghanistan. The focus will move to marginalize Taliban insurgents by focusing on nation-building in urban areas.

To have any chance of success, this strategy must be accompanied by change in Afghanistan's corrupt central government. First, the Nov. 7 run-off presidential election must be far more legitimate than the disputed first round of voting Aug. 20. And second, whoever wins on Nov. 7 — the incumbent Hamid Karzai or challenger Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister — will have to clean house.

The likelihood of that happening with Mr. Karzai in charge seems remote. The Times reported Wednesday that his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been on the CIA payroll for eight years and is widely believed to be a major player in Afghanistan's booming opium trade. He even owns the compound outside Kandahar where U.S. special operations forces and CIA agents are based.

President Karzai repeatedly has refused to move his brother out of southern Afghanistan, where he acts as a mediator between the CIA and local insurgent groups. If you're going to establish a credible government that Afghanis can believe in, getting rid of the president's brother might seem a crucial first step.

One man Mr. Obama should talk to before sending more troops to this "graveyard of empires" is Matthew P. Hoh, who resigned last month as the State Department's senior civilian representative in Zabul Province, not far from Ahmed Wali Karzai's turf in Kandahar Province.

Ordinarily the resignation of a mid-level diplomat would not be cause for concern. But Mr. Hoh, a former Marine combat officer, was no ordinary diplomat. The story of how he became disaffected with U.S. policy, published Tuesday in The Washington Post, is troubling on many levels.

His letter of resignation should be read and absorbed by every American, but particularly the president.

"I find specious the reasons we ask for bloodshed and sacrifice from our young men and women in Afghanistan," Mr. Hoh wrote. ". . . .Our forces, devoted and faithful, have been committed to conflict in an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a cavalier, politically expedient and Pollyannaish misadventure."