AFGHANISTAN - The American Role - The Coming Challenges - Part 4.

US President George W. Bush is looking for a foreign policy success to crown his re-election campaign and, at the moment, Afghanistan looks more plausible than Iraq. He should get strong allied support if the outcome of the planned September elections in Afghanistan is positive enough to create a new impetus behind reform: fundamental change that eventually should replaces the rule of the gun with the rule of law.

The chances of Bush getting re-elected on Nov. 2 will be boosted if, together with this outcome and stronger economic recovery for the Americans, US forces have captured Osama Bin Laden and other leaders of Al-Qaeda. So far, repeated "spring offensives" staged separately by US and Pakistani forces have failed to find Bin Laden, or Al-Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, within Afghanistan or on the Pakistani side of the rugged border region (see the Pakistan angle on following pages). But from the Bush perspective, it is the Iraq angle which is most worrying and which, strategically, will have negative implications for Afghanistan.