US President Barack Obama’s strategy for overcoming his most serious foreign policy challenge to date — terrorism and insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan — has finally taken on both shape and direction. The recently-released white paper by a White House-commissioned interagency policy group and Obama’s own speech on the subject last Friday provide the first indications of what this US administration’s objectives are going to be in the region, as well as a cursory roadmap on how the United States should go about achieving its goals.

From an Indian standpoint, there are several reasons to be satisfied with the result of the strategy review and Obama’s own remarks. First, for Obama and his advisors, the region’s problems are centred squarely on Pakistan, which, while but a recognition of reality, mark the first time they have been so framed by the American leadership.  “Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the US homeland from its safe-haven in Pakistan,” Obama said in his speech. He also called Pakistan’s northwest border region “an international security challenge of the highest order” and “the most dangerous place in the world,” one that was “almost certainly” home to al Qaeda’s leadership, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. This marks a fundamental change in official American rhetoric: Afghanistan has now become the frontline state for a war in Pakistan. It is no longer the other way around.

Secondly, the administration has proposed establishing a so-called “Contact Group” — which would include regional powers such as India, Russia and Iran — as one of the primary multilateral fora for discussing developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the other being the US-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral. There is little indication as yet as to how effective an instrument the Contact Group would be or, for that matter, what exact role it would assume. This recognition that regional actors will need to be brought on board to ameliorate the current situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is another welcome but long-overdue development.

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