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WASHINGTON: It comes to every US president — and now looms relentlessly for Barack Obama: the moment when he must shoulder the lonely duty of his office and take a fateful decision on national security.

After weeks of in-depth meetings and drawing counsel from top advisers, Obama will eventually have to make up his mind on whether to send thousands more troops into the cauldron of Afghanistan.

“It’s really coming down to him,” said Julian Zelizer of Princeton University, author of a forthcoming book on US foreign policy. “This is a lesson that presidents always learn when dealing with military affairs.”

Obama has launched an exhaustive and collective review of Afghan policy within his national security council. But the constitutional authority vested in the president means the buck stops sooner or later with the commander-in-chief. “It is not a collective decision. Abraham Lincoln said there was only one vote that counted in his cabinet,” said David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace. “There is only one vote that counts at the national security council,” added Rothkopf, author of a history of the president’s top foreign policy body.

Signs are mounting that Obama may be nearing a critical point in his deliberations. He said last week he would complete the process in “the coming weeks.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN: “We’ve done a thorough job of analysis, and now we’re moving into the decision phase.” Obama’s stakes may match or even exceed those faced by other recent presidents, like Lyndon Johnson who agonised over the Vietnam War, or Bill Clinton who worried whether to intervene in Bosnia.

Soaring expectations at home and abroad may be on the line in a decision many observers feel could drain the reforming momentum from Obama’s presidency should it go wrong. Obama’s own audacity, in refusing to temper high hopes and raising the stakes by likening himself to political greats like ex-president Lincoln and even his recent Nobel Prize may also stoke the pressure.

Not to mention the burden of the lives of any of more than 60,000 US troops at war, the tens of thousands who may follow, and unknown numbers of Afghans. Critics accuse Obama of undue delay — but the long wait may reflect the fact the president has few palatable options in the eight-year war.

Obama has conducted five extended briefings with top military, political, diplomatic and intelligence aides and has another this week. Official photos from the secure White House Situation Room reveal intense sessions, with Obama in deep conversation with national security aides.“I think the president has been extremely skillful in probing and asking all the hard questions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN. Broadly, Obama, who has already ruled out withdrawing troops, has three options — unless he can conjure another that few analysts have considered