By Matt Spetalnick and Adam Entous

WASHINGTON, US - US President Barack Obama and his war council weighed final options for a new Afghanistanstrategy on Wednesday, as a proposed 30,000-plus troop increase gained favour among top advisers, officials said.

Facing increasing public skepticism over the eight-year-old war, the White House said after the meeting that Obama had yet to make up his mind on the ideas his national security team presented. His press secretary has insisted a decision is still weeks away.

Officials privately have described proposals that would call for deeper U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan to confront a resurgent Taliban and its al Qaeda allies. The options differ in the number of extra troops to be sent.

Obama held the 2-1/2-hour review, the eighth in a series of such meetings, as a new opinion poll showed a growing number of Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is not going well and disapprove of his handling of the situation.

Record combat deaths have eroded U.S. public support and sending more troops could become a political liability for Obama ahead of congressional elections next year.

Among the four strategy options Obama is considering, administration officials said there was growing support among his top advisers - including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen - for deploying 30,000 or more additional troops.

At the low end of the spectrum, one plan would add 20,000-plus troops. Another would fully embrace a request by
General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for the 40,000 extra troops he says are needed to avert failure, the officials said.

It remains unclear where Obama stands. The president will continue to consider his decision during a nine-day trip to Asia starting on Thursday.

Republican critics have accused Obama of dithering but he says he is taking the time to get it right. Some of his fellow Democrats oppose any escalation of the war.

WARNING TO KARZAI GOVERNMENT

After Wednesday's meeting, a senior White House official said Obama and his team discussed how long it would take to implement each proposal but the president "has not made a decision about the options presented."

The administration signaled, however, that Obama was mindful of the U.S. public's doubts about Afghan President
Hamid Karzai, who was returned to power despite a fraud-tainted election and has been widely blamed for tolerating corruption.

"The president believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended," the official said.

"After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time to ensure a successful transition to our Afghan partner."

At a ceremony honoring war veterans at Arlington National Cemetery, Obama made no direct mention of Afghanistan - which his aides once called the "good war" in contrast to the Iraq war launched by his predecessor George W. Bush in 2003.

Obama walked in the rain among the graves of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and later paid tribute to the U.S. military's sacrifices.

The occasion carried extra poignancy coming hours before Obama convened his national security team on Afghan troop levels. There are now nearly 68,000 U.S. troops and 40,000 allied forces in Afghanistan.

Public approval of Obama's handling of Afghanistan has dropped from 49 percent in July to 36 percent in November, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

The Pew Research Center survey showed 57 percent now say the military effort in Afghanistan is going either not too well or not well at all, up from 45 percent in January. --REUTERS