New Afghan strategy: Obama ‘surprises’ Afghanistan ahead of Gilani’s trip

US president under pressure to show progress in the increasingly unpopular nine-year-old war.

BAGRAM AIR BASE:

US President Barack Obama praised American troops for “important progress” against Taliban militants in Afghanistan, during an unannounced visit to a US airbase outside the capital on Friday.

A planned helicopter trip to Kabul to meet President Hamid Karzai was cancelled because of bad weather and instead the two leaders spoke only briefly by telephone.

Obama’s second visit to Afghanistan as president came as the White House prepared to release a review of the war strategy and a day before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s visit to Afghanistan.

The US president is under pressure to show progress in the increasingly unpopular nine-year-old war, and told nearly 4,000 troops gathered in a hangar to hear him that they were gaining ground against insurgents.

“Today we can be proud that there are fewer areas under Taliban control,” Obama said, in a speech filled with tributes to sacrifices of serving troops and their families back home. “We said we were going to break the Taliban’s momentum and that’s what you’re doing, you’re going on the offence, tired of playing defence,” he said to the crowd of mostly US troops.

White House officials emphasised the main purpose  of Obama’s journey was a visit with the troops around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, rather than a fact-finding mission ahead of the upcoming strategic review.

In addition to talking to Karzai, Obama got briefings from key advisers, including General David Petraeus, the top commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, and Karl Eikenberry, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Prime Minister Gilani, who is scheduled to fly into Afghanistan on Saturday (today), is likely to discuss the Afghan peace plan with President Karzai. There is also a possibility of trilateral talks between Presidents Obama and Karzai and Premier Gilani.

In the bilateral talks, Karzai and Gilani would discuss the post-troop pullout situation and a host of other issues.  A former diplomat told The Express Tribune that the possibility of a major breakthrough in Saturday’s talks could not be ruled out. A diplomatic source said India is also expected to join the US-sponsored talks between Pakistan and Afghanistan for a smooth transition.

“Washington has invited both Pakistan and India to be engaged in the Afghan transition,” US State Department spokesman said in Washington on November 19.

“The US would engage Pakistan and India in the transition process of Afghanistan where the US intends to transfer security to Afghan forces by 2014,” he added.

Gilani’s Kabul trip confirms that Islamabad has accepted the US strategy to be engaged in the Afghan transition process, irrespective of India’s presence in Afghanistan.

(With additional reporting by Qaiser Butt)

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2010.