US President Barack Obama's new special envoy to Afghanistan-Pakistan signals continuity as much as change, notes Graham Usher in Islamabad Within days of his inauguration United States President Barack Obama took two decisions that signalled his intent towards Afghanistan and Pakistan: two countries he says will top his foreign policy agenda. The first was the appointment of Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to the region. The second was to order twin rocket attacks on 23 January by US Predator drones in North and South Waziristan on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Twenty-two people were killed, mostly civilians. If a special envoy marked a change with the legacy of George W Bush, the attacks were a deadly continuity. Neither is good news for presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Zardari of Pakistan. Holbrooke faces huge challenges, which even his stints as US ambassador to the United Nations and Bosnia peace-broker may not be enough for. A corrupt and failed administration in Kabul; a frail civilian government in Islamabad that has yet to prise foreign policy from the grip of the army; and a suspicious India that fears Obama's new "regional" approach may cast a light on the conflict (and Delhi's abuses) in Kashmir. But Holbrooke's toughest task -- by his own admission -- will be the rooting out of Al-Qaeda and Taliban "safe havens" in North and South Waziristan, tributary of the greatest seepage of fighters into Afghanistan and where the "next 9/11" is likely being plotted, says the CIA. The change is that Obama has now empowered a single man to bring coherence to an American policy that has been ad hoc, uncoordinated and unfocussed. The continuity is that Holbrooke and Obama -- like Bush and Cheney -- when it comes to Afghanistan- Pakistan seem to favour the stick. The attacks on 23 January were the first under Obama's presidency. But they were the 38th inside Pakistan since August 2008. So far a handful of top Al-Qaeda commanders have been killed, says the CIA. But so have more than 100 tribesmen, women and children. The strikes cause outrage in Pakistan and, say the army, hinder policies to turn the tribes against the militants. The hope was that with Obama they would end. They won't. Obama has also signed off on a plan to increase US troops in Afghanistan by 30,000, doubling the American presence there. Karzai hopes these forces will be used against the "havens" in Pakistan rather than villages in Afghanistan, where more than 1,000 Afghan civilians have been killed by US and NATO forces in the last year. Pakistan surely hopes for the opposite. At the very least it will hope the "Afghan surge" serves as a prelude to negotiations with the Taliban and/or a scenario for withdrawal. Without that the fear in Pakistan -- and probably in Kabul -- is that any surge will crash like other waves in Afghanistan, with "more exposure of troops, more attacks and more casualties", says Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan.
