Daily incidents take a constant toll of U.S. lives, and accelerated indigenization of security has brought fresh risks by placing weapons in unreliable hands. The set piece battle in Helmand was intended to swing the balance but seems bogged down, so that the major strike aimed at Kandahar has had to be postponed.

The McChrystal affair exposed divisions at the top and support for the war effort is waning. These are perilous times for the Administration, with a steady decline in the President's popularity. The economy may be the most significant cause for the decline but the Afghan war has contributed.

Strong voices in Congress, previously supportive, now favor, even demand, an early end, and feel that continued commitment to the war on the present scale is not commensurate with U.S. interests. Allies in the ISAF have commenced winding down their commitment.

In these circumstances, there is all the greater need for a clear and convincing understanding on future strategy between Washington and the local leadership, and this may have helped drive Clinton to Kabul to confer with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Karzai's Shortcomings

The Afghan leader, who has survived many political vicissitudes, currently does not enjoy high regard in Washington, where he is considered uncertain in his ability to handle the Taliban, and ambiguous in matters like democracy, rule of law, and control of corruption. The regional overspill of the struggle also demands attention.

In its early days, the Obama Administration tried to drum up support in South Asia with the proposition that for the first time the main players — Afghanistan, Pakistan, India — had a common foe, the Taliban, and could come together to oppose it.

This is true enough, but not all the regional countries see it this way: even in the midst of the crisis, Pakistan would not be budged from the perception that its real foe was India, and it has been more concerned to keep India at a distance from Afghanistan rather than treat it as a partner in a common cause.

Indeed, Afghanistan has become a fresh arena of contention rather than an area for India and Pakistan to cooperate with each other. Nor do Afghanistan and Pakistan see eye-to-eye on a number of issues, even though they have drawn closer in recent months.

Thus there was much for Clinton to do. One positive outcome of her visit was an Afghan-Pakistan transit agreement, one of whose features is that Afghan goods will be permitted to move across Pakistan to the Indian border. This promises to restore arrangements from the early post-Independence years when Afghan fruits came overland to India where they were greatly prized.

In those days, the season would begin with a mad rush of trucks along the Grand Trunk Road, each racing to be first, bringing loads of fresh Afghan fruits from the Wagah border to Delhi. Now Delhiwallas can hope to see a revival of their love affair with the grapes, melons and pomegranates of Afghanistan. The scope of the agreement concluded during Clinton's visit may be modest but it offers immediate benefits to both producers and consumers of Afghanistan's most characteristic products.

On the conduct of the war, however, differences between the parties are not to be concealed. The most prominent right now is the question of coming to an arrangement with some of the insurgents who are believed to have given up violence, and re-integrating them into the structure of government. Pakistan is taking an active role in promoting this strategy as a way of hastening the end of the war, and feels itself capable of bringing back into the fold significant groups of insurgents with which it has maintained its ties.

Clinton's visit drew renewed attention to this idea but many U.S. observers remain skeptical: to draw a distinction between different Taliban groups appears doubtful to them, as does Pakistan's ability to bring back those to which they retain links.

But in Afghanistan itself Karzai is taking further steps in this direction. Efforts to divide the Taliban and co-opt some of them may look like an adroit political maneuver but it is not yet certain what it could portend. Thus these developments trouble many in the U.S.A and generate uncertainty about the terms on which a settlement might be made.

Kayani's Extension

In the course of her tour, Clinton went to Islamabad. The most important development there, which took place after she had departed from the region, was the three-year extension granted to General Kayani as the chief of the army.

Though the Secretary of State was not present when it was announced, it can be assumed that this important decision had the blessings of Washington. The General has been warmly received in the U.S.A during his recent visits and accorded the honors due to a leading ally.

To an extent, this is understandable, for the role of Pakistan's army is critical in the last phase of the Afghan war now under way, and General Kayani has been responsive to U.S. needs.

Without military cooperation from Pakistan, which has continued to be provided despite periodic outcries from civilian authorities, it would not have been possible to maintain activities like the drone attacks on the insurgents, these being currently perhaps the most important weapons in the U.S. armory.

Outside Pakistan, and especially in India, the extension of the General's tenure has only revived fears about the roots of democracy in Pakistan, the entrenched position of the army, and the prospects for peace and cooperation in South Asia.

The civilian government in nominal command, when it first came to power, had emphasized the need to turn a fresh page and move towards reconciliation and greatly expanded economic cooperation between India and Pakistan.

But progressively that message has become weaker, perhaps on account of the waning of civilian authority. It is now clearer than ever that the main source of power is with the military, not the civilian leadership, and hopes for improved ties are flickering.

For a number of reasons, India has not appeared to have a strong voice in the key discussions on Afghanistan that claim attention within the region and in Washington. Clinton omitted New Delhi from her itinerary, which was of a piece with the Administration's careful separation of “AfPak” from India, but it also suggested that New Delhi's preoccupations are not fully echoed in Washington or in Kabul.

Yet India's interests in these regional developments are ineluctable and ways of advancing them need to be found. It is not an easy task but a necessary one.