It has become conventional wisdom that President George Bush needs a foreign policy success if he is to win re-election in the United States. Since success is not likely in Iraq, runs the argument, it has to be Afghanistan, the president’s other main overseas adventure.
This ‘wisdom’ almost certainly overstates the impact of ‘abroad’ on American voters. Even so, Washington has been keen to fulfil the commitment it made at Bonn in December 2001, shortly after Afghanistan’s Taliban government was driven out of Kabul, to restore constitutional government to the country after 23 long years of war.
