Obama Ditches Bush Administration Policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan

The Obama administration is concerned it has only a short window of opportunity - possibly as short as a year - to turn around Afghanistan and Pakistan before US public support begins to erode, according to diplomatic and military officials.

Barack Obama was due to brief key members of Congress today in advance of the unveiling of his new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan tomorrow.

The main thrust of the new policy is to shift the balance from predominantly military operations to giving greater emphasis to civilian initiatives - development as well as diplomatic - and to scale back on the Bush administration's more lofty ambitions for Afghanistan.

An official with knowledge of the review said today Obama's planners believe they have about 12 months to show measurable progress in Afghanistan before American public support for the new strategy begins to wane and the policy turns into a Democratic-Republican political issue. They fear the war may become an election issue as the mid-term Congressional elections in November next year draw near, and that Congress may be increasingly reluctant to fund the strategy.

The planners are also said to be working on the broad assumption that the administration's overall strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan has a working life of three to a maximum of five years. Obama, in an television interview on Sunday, spoke for the first time about an "exit strategy" but did not attach a time frame. Democrats do not want a messy, ongoing war could overshadow the president's expected re-election bid in 2012.

The importance of public support for the strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US is seen as a crucial factor that may determine the ultimate success or failure of the strategy. Continuing or expanded US cross-border drone attacks on targets in Pakistan are seen in some quarters as damaging to public support in the region. The US is not expected to launch more cross-border ground raids, such as that mounted in Pakistan's tribal areas last year, as part of the new strategy.

The main thrust of Obama's new Afghanistan and Pakistan policy, the result of a review he ordered on taking office in January, is to set out an achievable objective: making sure that two countries are not safe havens for terrorists wanting to mount attacks on Americans.

The Bush administration's more ambitious aim of creating a US-style model democracy in Central Asia is increasingly regarded as unachievable, at least in the short term.The US is to step up the military offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaida in both Afghanistan and the tribal areas of northern Pakistan.

Obama has ordered 17,000 more US troops to reinforce the 38,000 already there. But the military approach will be combined with more civilian and other projects aimed at winning hearts and minds. The number of US civilians in Afghanistan is to be increased from 450 to 900.An official engaged in the review said: "Sending more troops is not the answer. You can send as many as you like, but unless you focus on other things, it will not work."Relations between the Obama administration and Pakistan are being strained by CIA-operated Predator missile attacks inside Pakistan against suspect Taliban and al-Qaida operatives.

A Pakistan foreign office spokesman, Abdul Basit, today called on the US to rethink its use of drones, indicating that they were counterproductive. He was speaking after a drone killed four in the north Waziristan region, only hours after another strike killed seven in south Waziristan.

The US intends to try to improve relations with Pakistan by providing more military and civilian aid. It will also seek to create closer bonds between the US and Pakistan military and intelligence services, with staff exchanges, joint exercises, training and provision of better equipment. A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, described the new approach as "holistic".

Part of Obama's new approach to Afghanistan is to involve its neighbours, including Iran. Tehran announced it is planning to attend a summit in the Hague on March 31 to discuss Afghanistan at which the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, will also be present.

The US state department today welcomed Iranian participation but cautioned against expecting the first face-to-face meeting between Clinton and the Iranians to develop into a more significant or wider dialog.

"No substantive meetings are planned with Iranian officials at this time," the state department spokesman Gordon Duguid said."This conference is about reaching a regional consensus about Afghanistan. It is not a conference about UA-Iranian relations," he said.