STRATEGIC TALKS: General David Petraeus, the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, meets with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on July 3 (XINHUA)

Missing the deadline

Since assuming office early last year, Obama has introduced dramatic changes to America's policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He first moved the focus of the U.S. antiterrorism campaign east to Afghanistan, as he set a timetable for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq. Meanwhile, he proposed a "new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan," which called for a surge in the number of troops in Afghanistan. After the new strategy proved ineffective, Obama decided to dispatch another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan while setting a deadline for withdrawal.

The president's decision to replace McChrystal with Petraeus just a year before the deadline is due showed all his new measures are failing to deliver.

Despite an increase of 51,000 troops in a year, the United States has failed to win any strategic victories in Afghanistan. The Marja campaign, for instance, since the beginning of this year, has not made the headway the United States expected. Some experts even claim the campaign has already failed.

While NATO and Afghan Government forces maintain security during daytime, the Taliban is active at night. Terrorists also threaten locals with force so they do not dare to support NATO forces. Against this backdrop, residents in Marja have grown increasingly discontented with the Afghan Government.

Given the standoff of the Marja campaign, tribal leaders in Kandahar categorically oppose launching an offensive in their region, fearing military operations may worsen security. Under this pressure, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has yet to give consent to the proposed offensive, which the U.S. believes will be of critical importance to the war in Afghanistan.

The Kandahar campaign was postponed several times before McChrystal stepped down. It now faces greater uncertainties with a new commander at the helm.

Apart from the military stalemate, reconstruction also tops Obama's list of concerns. Promoting economic and social reconstruction in Afghanistan and improving the governance of Afghan authorities are among the priorities of Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

To date, however, efforts in these areas have largely faltered because of the endemic corruption in the Karzai administration. The United States believes corruption has not only undermined the legitimacy of Karzai's government, but also helped boost Taliban influence. As a result, it has added to the difficulties of counterinsurgency operations while causing a severe waste of assistance funds.

The United States therefore has raised the stakes for Karzai's government to combat corruption. But given Afghanistan's social turmoil and absence of the rule of law, it is almost impossible to eliminate corruption. Moreover, the government in Kabul has always relied on influential regional leaders. The regime might not be able to function if powerful leaders suspected of corruption are banned from politics.

On top of these factors is dwindling international support. The Obama administration has tried to engage the international community in counterinsurgency and reconstruction programs in Afghanistan, only to be turned down by its few supporters.

Canada and the Netherlands have recently announced they would pull troops out of Afghanistan in the near future. Britain, a strong ally of the United States, also said it would withdraw its soldiers from some of the most dangerous regions in Afghanistan and place those areas under the control of the United States. Anxious for international support, the United States is playing up Afghanistan's huge reserves of mineral resources.

Under these circumstances, the United States is unlikely to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by July next year as scheduled. Obama may put off the deadline when reassessing U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan in December.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of American Studies of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations