As expected, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's weekend visit to Kabul helped him improve his foreign policy credentials. Somehow his statements on the United States' foreign military engagements, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, had earned him the accusation of being a novice and unexposed to the rigours of international politics.
His claim to his biracial roots and childhood stay in Indonesia as his foreign experience did fascinate people during the early days of his candidature but not for long as his Republican opponent, John McCain, zeroes in on the creeping inaccuracies in his assertions about the George Bush policies. Now that he has set out on a weeklong odyssey that takes him to Iraq, Jordan, Israel and Germany, besides Afghanistan - where American troops are located on various assignments, Barack Obama is likely to know first hand the difference between the ground realities as they obtain and their distant images.
Before he landed in Kabul, in the company of two other US senators, last Saturday, Obama was wild about Pakistan's 'not-doing-enough' perception, and had even advocated taking out the so-called high-value targets and training camps in the FATA and other tribal areas of Pakistan by sending in the US forces. But that seems to be changing in the wake of his meetings with American soldiers on ground, a glimpse of which was presented by the CBS News.
Asked if he was firm on his plea for direct military action by US troops inside Pakistan, Obama's reply was "I will push Pakistan very hard to make sure that we go after those training camps". But if the Pakistanis don't, he replied "Well, I think that we've got to work with them, so they will".
Some optimism in the Pakistani media about Barack Obama's 'changed' perception about Pakistan's role in the war on terror notwithstanding, one should not forget that positions taken and statements on evolving situations made by the candidates during election campaigns hardly remain intact. Once elections are over the bureaucratic reason to continue the policies, especially in relations with other countries, stand in the way of 'change" that candidates like Barack Obama espouse as the main plank of their candidature.
As a frontline state Pakistan is fighting international terrorism at great cost to its internal security. It has suffered more than Afghanistan and its coalition supporters put together in terms of military losses. Then there is this scourge of suicide-bombing and remote-controlled blasts. After all this if Pakistan is still being told to do more then the question arises are we being taken for granted, and why?
There are no two opinions about the fact that whatever Pakistan could militarily do to combat international terrorism it is being done. If something is lacking it is the weakness of the government to project Pakistan's contribution to this war by not being able to put up a strong case of its commitment at the international level.
That calls for a serious debate in the parliament on what Pakistan is doing as its part in this war as well as taking it up with full vigour at the diplomatic level. So far not much seems to have been done on both political and diplomatic levels in terms of putting across Pakistan's position in the war on terror. That was to some extent understandable as the Musharraf-led government was handicapped in doing so by virtue of its non-democratic position. But now that democracy has been fully restored there is no reason why the government should not be able to force the international community to recognise Pakistan's role and its contribution to the fight against terrorism.