(Getty Photo -- from Time.com)

America’s war in Afghanistan, now slogging into its 11th year of active operations, may be coming to an end sooner than the US government and military officials have publicly stated. If comments from Barack Obama’s secretary of defense are to be believed, US troops may be leaving in significant numbers by the middle of next year.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reports in Brussels earlier this week that the United States and its international allies operating under NATO have discussed plans to withdraw most troops from the country by the end of 2013 and shift focus away from a combat role. The situation in Afghanistan is widely known to be deteriorating sharply regarding both security and political stability, but Panetta’s comments are the first to acknowledge an earlier timetable for an end to most combat operations in the country.

2013 was pegged by Panetta as a “critical” year for the mission in Afghanistan that would find both American and international forces ending their “formal combat role.”  It’s a significant departure from previous estimates by both military and administration officials of when US forces would end combat operations.

Panetta called 2013 a critical year for the Afghanistan mission that has dragged on for more than a decade with little sign that the Taliban will be decisively defeated. He noted that NATO and the Afghan government intend to begin a final phase of handing off sections of the country to Afghan security control in mid-2013.

“Hopefully by the mid to latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role,” he said. He added that this “doesn’t mean we’re not going to be combat-ready,” but rather that the U.S. and other international forces will no longer be in “the formal combat role we’re in now.”

Panetta said the administration wants to make sure that the Afghan forces, after foreign troops depart, are “sufficient and sustainable,” but noted that will require continuing financial support not only from the United States but also from allies and many other countries.

“One of the things we’ll be discussing (in Brussels) is what the size of that (Afghan) force should be, but a lot of that will be dependent on the funds that are going to be put on the table in order to sustain that force,” he said. “That’s one of the things, frankly, I’m going to be pushing at this (meeting).”

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said the U.S. believes Afghanistan will not need as big a force as is now being built. NATO has set a target of 352,000 Afghan soldiers and police. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Pentagon, said the U.S. thinks a smaller force would be adequate, but he would not be more specific.

It could be said that outside circumstances have forced the US government’s hand on many accounts in tooling a new strategy for involvement in Afghanistan. Both domestic and international support for the war is eroding sharply, forcing the Obama administration to shift tactics away from what had been an aggressive war policy.

Building on a campaign promise to commit a renewed focus to the Afghan war, President Obama initiated a surge of American troops that ballooned the number of US forces in Afghanistan to record levels.

With little long-term military success, the surge strategy dramatically escalated the scope of US involvement in the country and spiked costs to the current price tag of $2 billion every week, and at least $400 billion since the war began.

The goals of ousting the Taliban regime and ridding Afghanistan of most of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 hijackings were accomplished in short order. Nevertheless, American troops not only remained in Afghanistan but increased in number, ultimately reaching 100,000 under President Obama. The mission also expanded. U.S. soldiers fought not just the few terrorists they encountered but also the many Taliban who moved into and out of Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan. What began as a narrow, modest war of necessity evolved into a broad, ambitious war of choice.

It was a costly evolution. The Afghan war has claimed nearly 1,800 American lives and caused an additional 14,000 casualties. Direct costs are in the range of $400 billion and are increasing at the rate of $2 billion every week. It is only a matter of time before Afghanistan overtakes Vietnam as the longest war in modern American history.

But since the peak of the surge has passed, hope for Afghanistan has only gotten dimmer. Civilian casualties and hostility from the populace has left the Taliban poised to regain control of Afghanistan when foreign troops exit. A classified memo compiled by US officials and leaked to the British press predicts that, with Pakistan’s help, the Taliban will almost instantly return to power.

The Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control ofAfghanistan after Nato-led forces withdraw from the country, according to reports citing a classifed assessment by US forces.

The Times described the report as secret and “highly classified”, saying it was put together last month by the US military at Bagram air base in Afghanistan for top Nato officers. The BBC also carried a report on the leaked document.

“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the report was quoted as saying. “Once Isaf (Nato-led forces) is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.”

The document stated that Pakistan’s security agency was helping the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces – a charge long denied by Islamabad.

And the appetite among the international community to sustain a presence of tens of thousands of NATO troops has waned. After a string of casualties among its NATO-led troops and economic pressure at home, France has been the latest country to question the mission and pledge to withdraw all of its troops early.

Whether Panetta’s promise of a 2013 disengagement by US and NATO combat forces can be believed or will mean anything is subject to much debate. President Obama celebrated the “end” of the war in Iraq and the withdrawal of American combat troops from that country with great fanfare last year.

But Iraq is still home to tens of thousands of US diplomatic officials and armed private security contractors, ready to use force when necessary. Recent reports confirmed that US drones, both armed and unarmed, are routinely flying over Iraq in conjunction with US operations.

Political pressures were largely seen as forcing the President’s hand on Iraq, and they may ultimately factor in to an eventual decision on the future of the Afghan war.

Entering an election year in which Obama is facing a tough road to another term in the White House, the continued occupation and war in Afghanistan is a political millstone around his neck. Recent polls place opposition to the war at a record 63 percent, with almost as many Americans comparing the Afghanistan conflict to Vietnam.

But even with public support for the war basically gone and discussion of a potential withdrawal in 2013, the White House has backed away from Panetta’s comments and insisted that the remarks were taken out of context. The White House press secretary said that a “transition” away from combat “could happen” in 2013, but that there have been no formal decisions made.

And CIA director David Petraues, the famous commander of the Iraqi “surge” and a proponent of a sustained war in Afghanistan, complained that there was nothing new in Panetta’s “over-analyzed” comments.

On Thursday, Obama administration  officials said Panetta’s comments were in line with the agreement reached at the NATO Lisbon Summit that the alliance would transfer security responsibility to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Panetta was referring to “an assessment of what could happen within the context of the stated policy of NATO, which is to transfer the security lead to the Afghan security forces by 2014, and within that frame, within that timeline, the transition will take place.”

Carney said “that it could happen that the transition to Afghan security lead could be moved up to 2013. But he was not making an announcement about a decision that had been made, simply about the consultations that would be taking place in Brussels and from Brussels forward to Chicago.”

In May, Chicago will host a summit for NATO heads of state.

CIA Director David Petraeus, the former top NATO commander, told Congress that Panetta’s comments had been “over-analyzed.”

Making “bunny ears” with his hands, Petraeus told the House Intelligence Committee “that the, quote, ‘announcement,’ the  conversation that Secretary Panetta had with some press on his plane  was more than a bit over-analyzed, shall we say.”

Petraeus said that in order for NATO to reach the security transition by the end of 2014,  a wave of security transitions began in mid 2011.

“What Secretary Panetta was discussing was indeed this progressive transition,” said Petraeus. “If you’re going to have it completed totally by the end of 2014, obviously somewhere in 2013 you have had  to initiate that in all of the different locations so that you can  complete the remaining tasks.  And that was what he was talking about. ”