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President Barack Obama’s most difficult and challenging national security issue is to reverse the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The war in Afghanistan will likely define Obama’s foreign policy and consume large amounts of presidential time and political energy. The stakes are enormous for Obama: the future of NATO, the risk of another 9/11, the danger of nuclear war in south Asia, and the cost of sustaining and succeeding in an increasingly unpopular war.

President Obama inherited a disaster in Afghanistan and it is getting worse. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have a growing sanctuary in the borderlands between the two countries. Al-Qaeda remains a deadly threat both directly and indirectly to the US. It has forged strong working relationships to the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and to other terror groups like Lashkar-e Tayyiba, which attacked Mumbai one year ago.
In Afghanistan the Taliban and al-Qaeda have the strategic momentum after years of American neglect and they are winning the war. Some 140 out of 364 districts are Taliban dominated. Mullah Omar’s Taliban have staged a remarkable military comeback from virtual destruction in 2002 thanks to the diversion of the Iraqi war. The disastrous Afghan presidential election just concluded has eroded faith in our Afghan ally, President Hamid Karzai, among Afghans, our NATO allies, and the American people.

Pakistan is the strategic prize but also the most dangerous country in the world today. It has the world’s fastest growing nuclear arsenal, a weak civilian government and a complex relationship with the terror syndicate inside its borders. Asif Zardari’s government is not likely to last and his likely successor, Nawaz Sharif, has failed twice before as prime minister. The real power broker, the army and its intelligence service ISI, remain fixated on India.

Political violence in Pakistan, much of it spilling over from Afghanistan, is worse than ever in the country’s 60 year history. The worst case – a jihadist coup – would be a global game changer and a direct threat to Israel - a Sunni patron state of terror with a nuclear deterrent far more powerful than Iran. That is neither imminent nor inevitable but it is a growing possibility.

Obama’s approach treats the two as interconnected issues. It tries to stabilize the situation by both disrupting and dismantling the al-Qaeda sanctuary and the larger terror syndicate. Aid to Pakistan has been tripled already, CIA drone strikes accelerated and diplomacy expanded to bring in other key stakeholders like China, India, the Gulf states, Russia, and the EU.

It seeks to build up an Afghan army and police to allow the gradual turnover of the containment of the Taliban from the foreign forces (ISAF) and leave behind an Afghanistan that is not a base for terror. It seeks to persuade Pakistan that the existential threat to its future is the jihadist Frankenstein within and to take steps to defeat it.

Now the president is deciding how many more troops to send to Afghanistan. CENTCOM has asked for 30-40,000. The President’s Democratic Party and his own cabinet are deeply divided on how to respond and polls show support for the war dwindling.

The Afghan war and its spillover into Pakistan will inevitably absorb more and more presidential time and political capital. Obama has rightly ruled out retreat, and whatever troop level he decides on he will have to sell the war at home. Wars consume presidencies. America’s other priorities including Iran and Middle East peace will have to compete for attention and resources.

America’s enemies will also see Obama’s war as a potential vulnerability. Iran may try to meddle in troubled Afghan waters if it concludes tensions with Washington are rising and its potential to cause mischief in western Afghanistan is enormous.

For Israelis an understanding of the stakes in south Asia is critical to understanding the Obama presidency. For now Israel is not a direct participant but events in Afghanistan and Pakistan will shape the White House and the region.

Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow for political transitions in the Middle East and South Asia at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in the Brookings Institution. He served 30 years in the CIA, including in Tel Aviv, and was an adviser to four presidents in the White House. He is the author of The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future and co-author of Which Path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran.