US President Barack Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice-President Joe Biden to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out al-Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said on Tuesday.

The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the President announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to evaluate Afghanistan and Pakistan, one official said.

The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Obama’s new commander, General Stanley A McChrystal. Aides said the President wants to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces McChrystal wants.

In looking at other options, aides said Obama may just be testing assumptions, and assuring liberals in his own party that he is not rushing into a further expansion of the war, before ultimately agreeing to the anticipated troop request from McChrystal. But the review suggests Obama is having second thoughts about how deeply to engage in an intractable eight-year conflict that is not going well.

Though Obama believes a stable Afghanistan is central to the security of the US, some advisers said he is wary of becoming trapped in an overseas quagmire. Some Pentagon officials worry that he is having what they called “buyer’s remorse” after ordering an extra 21,000 troops there within weeks of taking office before even settling on a strategy.

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