President Obama's middle-of-the-night visit to Dover Air Force Base to view the return of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan was a dignified recognition of their sacrifice. But it also was a reminder to him of the human stakes in his long deliberations on the course to take in the war triggered by the 9/11 terrorist attacks of eight years ago.

The viewing came under the policy that now permits it upon approval of the families of the deceased, after years of arrivals closed to public and press, hiding the tangible costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama's visit was unannounced in advance and he slipped back to Washington by helicopter as quietly as he had arrived.

The small sentimental journey also came as more terrorist attacks mounted in both countries and in Pakistan, where Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit was marred by a bombing in Peshawar that killed at least 100 people and wounded many more. And in Afghanistan, October became the deadliest month ever for American fatalities, now at 887 according to the Pentagon.

These statistics are an answer to former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that Obama has been "dithering" on deciding whether to send 40,000 or more U.S. combat forces to Afghanistan for Gen. Stanley McChrystal's plan to intensify his counter-insurgency strategy there.

That term is a fancy euphemism for the nation-building that George W. Bush in 2000 vowed never to undertake but did, and has been sustained, if reluctantly, in Iraq and Afghanistan under Obama so far.

The human cost of essentially staying the course set by Bush casts a heavy shadow over the Obama reassessment, and clearly warrants the extensive high-level review. It also includes the counter-proposal of Vice President Joe Biden and others for a counter-terrorism strategy calculated to bear a lower price in American lives in Afghanistan.

That approach would subordinate engaging the Taliban insurgents and focus more on terrorist cells and training facilities through use of unmanned drones and other high-tech, low-personnel weapons.

The latest word that Obama has asked for a province-by-province evaluation of the threat and security situations within Afghanistan suggests a quest for a more refined appraisal of U.S. troop needs. It also takes into consideration the uncertain status of the national leadership in the face of the approaching election runoff, the outcome of which could affect Obama's ultimate decision on future American force deployment.

His visit to Dover Air Force Base, bearing the military's chief reception facility for troops killed in the Middle East, was clearly a gesture signaling that he has not forgotten the human cost of the wars. But at the same time it was a reminder of his 2008 campaign pledge to end them and to detour the basically unilateral interventionist foreign policy of the Bush years.

In the new president's first nine months in office, he has learned that delivering on his campaign promise is a complicated matter both militarily and politically. He has not demonstrated the unvarnished reliance on his generals as Bush did, inviting greater civilian input to the debate over force levels, no doubt to the consternation of many brass hats in the Pentagon. At the same time politically, he is encountering a growing public disaffection with the two wars, even as Republican spokesmen such as Cheney and GOP congressional leaders hammer at him with the old refrain that Democrats are soft on national defense and national security.

The military and political realities have intruded on the emotion and compassion of the message Obama delivered to such acclaim on the campaign trail last year. His efforts so far to find a way out of the two wars have therefore delivered a much less clear-cut clarion call.

The temptation, and perhaps the imperative, of splitting the difference between the two approaches being advocated for Afghanistan are revealing him as much more a pragmatist than his soaring speeches of a year ago proclaimed. So his brief trip to Dover the other night was a low-key recognition that for all the high-level war gaming, a heavy price continues to be paid by the small segment of Americans doing the fighting.