Army Specialist Steven Sachs, of Salem, Ore., photographs a suspicious man at a checkpoint near the village of Kolk, Afghanistan earlier this month.

MCT / Chuck Liddy

WASHINGTON — While voicing qualified support Sunday for President Obama’s expected plan to send up to 35,000 more troops to Afghanistan, Sen. Jack Reed parried a Republican call to delay action on the health-care overhaul to focus on paying for the war.

The Rhode Island Democrat said on CNN television’s Sunday news program that shifting operations to the Afghans is the key to Mr. Obama’s long-awaited new strategy. “If that can be done, I would support the president,” said Reed.

Reed, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, could play an important role in persuading skeptical congressional Democrats to support a war plan that may be unpopular with the American public. He has been invited to be at West Point, his alma mater, when Mr. Obama unveils his new Afghanistan strategy on Tuesday.

Reed appeared on CNN with Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, who also indicated his support for Mr. Obama’s plan, while warning that the president must appeal to several audiences that do not share the same interests.

Lugar made what he called the “audacious suggestion” that Congress put off until next year its debate on Mr. Obama’s top legislative priority — the retooling of the nation’s medical system — “and talk now about the essentials: the war and money.”

Reed said “absolutely not” to Lugar’s idea. “We have to go ahead and conclude this debate,” he said, calling the health-care overhaul “essential to our economic future.” The Senate is scheduled to resume its health-care debate Monday, with a goal of passing the sweeping measure by Christmas. Talks about melding the bill with the House version would follow in January.

Reed hinted, nevertheless, that Mr. Obama faces a difficult and complicated job in selling his war strategy. He said Mr. Obama “has to make a speech that shows that our efforts are pointed to our reduced presence in Afghanistan,” while stating “again and again how critical this is to our national security.” Reed said, “We still have to keep up the pressure” on al-Qaida, the group that staged the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and still maintains a presence in the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands.

Reed said Mr. Obama’s plan must be more than “just a reflexive response” to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for a buildup of the force that he commands in Afghanistan.

Neither Reed nor Lugar would flatly rule out the possibility of supporting a “war surtax” supported by some congressional Democrats.

Lugar cautioned against an emphasis on “benchmarks” of progress in the war that would be conditions of continuing American support for Afghanistan. “If we have that kind of speech, then we have a lack of confidence to begin with,” said Lugar.

“This has to be a confident speech in which the president recognizes that we’re at war, the American public recognizes that, our friends and foes around the world see the resolution.”

CNN’s John King, an alumnus of the University of Rhode Island, noted that only 35 percent of the public approves of how Mr. Obama is handling Afghanistan — down 20 percentage points since July in the latest USA Today-Gallup Poll. King asked whether Mr. Obama’s three-month deliberation over McChrystal’s request has cost him politically. Lugar and Reed both said that Mr. Obama’s focus on the job ahead is a more important matter — given the difficulty in sustaining public support for the war.

Reed was asked whether there would still be tens of thousands of troops still in Afghanistan in 5 or 10 years.

“We have to have a continuing, decreasing military presence in Afghanistan,” Reed replied. “I don’t think there is going to be an overnight withdrawal of American forces but unless we’re on a trajectory in which our troop levels come down, the ability of the American public to support it — and financially to support it — is questionable.”

jmulligan@belo-dc.com