Seventeen months ago, President Obama said that the 30,000 American troops deployed to Afghanistan for the “surge” would be home by this September, and he made good on that promise. He also said troop reductions would continue at a “steady pace” until the remaining 66,000 were out by the end of 2014.

A “steady pace” should mean withdrawing all combat forces on a schedule dictated only by the security of the troops. That should start now and should not take more than a year. We strongly supported the war in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but after more than a decade of fighting and a cost upward of $500 billion it is time for a safe and orderly departure. If there was ever a serious chance of building a stable and prosperous Afghanistan, it was lost when President George W. Bush abandoned that challenge to pursue his pointless war in Iraq.

It’s unclear how Mr. Obama defines “steady pace.” He said that his senior commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, would provide him with a formal recommendation on the pace of withdrawals after the November election. But the White House has still not asked General Allen for his assessment, nor has the Pentagon begun considering specific troop levels for 2013 and into 2014.

Michael R. Gordon of The Times reported this week that military commanders are pressing to keep most of the remaining 66,000 troops in Afghanistan until the end of the 2013 fighting season in the fall and then withdrawing them in the year after that. But this slow withdrawal would do nothing to ensure that the Taliban does not regain territory or that Afghanistan’s politics stabilize. And any hope of ridding the government of corruption seems less and less likely. What is certain is that the longer troops remain in the battlefield, the more that deaths and injuries will be sustained.