Obama vows to stand by Kabul even after 2014

28 member states pledge to cede command of the war within four years.

LISBON: US President Barack Obama and his Nato allies opened a pivotal summit on Friday, vowing to cede command of the Afghan war to Kabul by 2014 and erect an anti-missile shield over Europe.

However, ahead of the summit, US President Barack Obama vowed that Nato will stand by Afghanistan even after handing over security to local forces by 2014.

As another Nato soldier fell to an Afghan bomb attack, taking the toll for this year to 654, leaders began two days of talks in Lisbon planning to start bringing home troops and prepare a defence against any new foes. “Today and tomorrow, we will take decisions which will frame the future of our alliance,” Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the leaders of the 28 Nato member states in his opening remarks.

“I look forward to working with our ...  partners as we move towards a new phase, transition to Afghan responsibility, which begins in 2011, with Afghan forces taking the lead on security across Afghanistan by 2014,” Obama said.

“So this summit is an important opportunity for us to align on approach and vision in Afghanistan,” he added at a joint appearance with the summit’s host Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva.

More than 2,200 allied troops have been killed in a nine-year-old war, launched by the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks to root out Al-Qaeda leaders and overthrow their Taliban protectors. And, in a sign that fighting may be about to get even fiercer, US Marines are about to deploy powerful M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks to the front line for the first time in the lengthy conflict.

In an op-ed for several European newspapers, Obama said Washington would start to reduce its troop numbers in Afghanistan in July next year, but pledged that “as Afghans stand up and take the lead, they will not stand alone.”

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for Afghanistan’s fledgling government forces to be allowed to take charge of the campaign by 2014, allowing the bulk of the 150,000-strong US-led force to return home.

Karzai slammed Nato night-time raids on Afghan homes in an interview just a week ahead of the summit. Nato and US officials sought to downplay any rift as a reflection of Afghan war weariness.

“I think he’s expressing an authentic degree of frustration, an authentic concern that the Afghan people is less tolerant than it was back in 2002 and 2003 of the presence of international forces,” a Nato official said. “Therefore in that sense we are against the clock ... to bring this campaign to a successful conclusion,” the official said.

But the war is also deeply unpopular with European voters, stiffening leaders’ resolve to move beyond Afghanistan and create a leaner command structure.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2010.