Rallying the troops

Although he arrived after dusk and left before dawn,Barack Obamas dash through Kabul Sunday night his first as US president points to a new purposefulness in Washingtons Afghan policy. Obamas trip to Kabul came at the end of a week in which he won a historic political battle at home on healthcare,announced a new nuclear arms control treaty with Moscow,and elevated relations with Pakistan to a higher footing. After months of political drift,the White House is on a roll and Obama has chosen to celebrate it by surrounding himself with American troops near Kabul.

Beyond the photo-op for the voters at home,Obama had bits of political business to be done in Kabul. One was to end the tentativeness that marked the administrations early decisions on Afghanistan. In his speech last December,Obama combined the announcement of a surge in American military presence with a promise to start withdrawing them from mid-2011. In his address to US soldiers near Kabul,he made no mention of a deadline for American troop reduction. Instead,he reaffirmed that the mission of the troops in Afghanistan to disrupt,defeat,dismantle and destroy the Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies is a vital interest of the US. He also declared that the US will not quit until the job was done. Success,Obama also insisted,was about winning on both sides of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As he promised a long-term partnership with Afghanistan,Obama directly pressed President Hamid Karzai to crack down on rampant corruption and start improving governance. Obama also cautioned Karzai against striking out on his own by opening talks with the Taliban leadership. The US,instead,wants to push the Taliban on the defensive before engaging them. Having made an impressive start in the Helmand offensive during the last few weeks,American troops are now getting ready to enter the Talibans lair in Kandahar. Having covered the anti-war left flank at home with the healthcare legislation,reminded Karzai that he has no choice but to work with Washington,and mobilised some support from the Pakistan army,Obama appears to have gained some grip,at least for now,over the dynamic situation in Afghanistan. On its part,New Delhi must recognise that the Afghan scenario is open-ended and craft a policy that is flexible and can make a difference to the long-term political outcomes in the north-western subcontinent.