Barack Obama rattled as Afghanistan's decision day approaches

The completion of a comprehensive strategy review by General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and other Nato forces in Afghanistan, has brought to boiling point a long-simmering stew of military, diplomatic and political conflicts over America's faltering mission in Kabul.

Cracks are appearing in administration ranks as Taliban attacks, civilian casualties, allegations of fraudulent elections and plummeting US public support raise questions about what Obama insists is a "necessary war".

Joseph Biden, the vice-president, has expressed public doubts about a new US military build-up in Afghanistan, mainly on the grounds that it might destabilise Pakistan, whose nuclear arsenal makes it a more pressing US concern.

Robert Gates, the Pentagon chief who has served both Obama and George W Bush, said last week the US effort in Kabul was "only now beginning". Yet earlier this year he said he was "very sceptical" about increasing troop levels beyond the 68,000 due to be deployed by the end of 2009.

On the liberal wing of the Democratic party, Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin has been horrified by suggestions of a new troop build-up and last week called for a "flexible timetable" to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan.

At the same time, Richard Holbrooke, the president's special envoy to the region, has argued that more troops are essential to prevent the Taliban from regaining a foothold and allowing Al-Qaeda to rebuild a haven. Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, has not commented on McChrystal's review but was publicly sup-portive of Obama's decision in February to send in more troops and has repeatedly emphasised the long battle ahead to root out extremism in the region. She is widely expected to endorse any request for a bigger force.

The rest of Washington's national security establishment is equally divided over both the coalition's military objectives and the dangers of a public backlash should the Pentagon fail to produce early victories after eight years of costly conflict. One poll last week showed that only 25% of Americans support increasing the number of troops. More than 40% now say they want to see troops coming home, up from 24% in February.

McChrystal's review declared the situation to be "serious" but did not contain a specific request for military reinforcements. He insisted success was "achievable" but it required "a revised implementation strategy, commitment and resolve and increased unity of effort".

A request for up to 40,000 more troops is nonetheless expected by the end of this month, when Obama will face a pivotal decision. Does he go all out with a military "surge" that might produce a measurable victory? Does he try to find a politically acceptable means of increasing combat forces - the so-called "trigger-pullers" - without too great a rise in overall numbers? Or does he order a halt to the carnage and blame it all on Bush?

For Bruce Riedel, a former presidential aide who led a panel of high-powered civilian strategists advising McChrystal, Obama must first answer two questions: "Can Afghanistan be stabilised with any amount of resources? Or is it just too little, too late?"

For Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist who also sat on McChrystal's panel, there may prove insuperable political barriers to any chance of military success. "There is very sharp pressure on General McChrystal...from the White House and National Security Council not to ask for specific additions in resources," he said.

What McChrystal and most of his advisers agree is that last month's elections have failed to provide the stable civilian platform that Afghanistan desperately needs. "Regardless of who wins, we will not have people capable of governing," said Cordesman, who visited last month. "[President Hamid] Karzai is corrupt and lacks capacity. Abdullah Abdullah [his nearest challenger] has governed precisely nothing by way of a large-scale structure. If we are going to win this war, we are going to have to create capabilities at provincial and district level that do not today exist."

Friday's attack by a US jet on two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban militants underscored a different problem. McChrystal, who visited the scene in the northern Kunduz province yesterday, has already curbed airstrikes to limit civilian casualties that outrage the population and severely impair US efforts to isolate the insurgents.

Yet up to 90 people were reported to have died when the tankers erupted in a giant fireball as dozens of civilians waited nearby to take advantage of a Taliban offer to help themselves to free fuel that had been on its way to Nato forces.

Reports said five people from a single family were among those killed; another man lost three sons. Not the least of the consequences of disasters of this nature is that it sours public opinion in allied countries, making it harder for sympathetic European governments to increase military and other support. There are about 40,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan from countries other than the United States.

McChrystal's report has not yet been made public, but leaked accounts suggest he is worried by Taliban successes in formerly stable parts of northern and western Afghanistan, far from the insurgents' previous strongholds along the Pakistan border. The general is also understood to be urging that more troops be devoted to vulnerable population centres.

His aim is to increase protection for civilians, expand training programmes for Afghan soldiers and police and gnaw at the Taliban's ability to strike - much as happened with the US military surge in Iraq.

Yet how far is Obama willing to go in pursuit of an enemy that has claimed the lives of 739 American troops since the invasion of 2001 and killed 51 in August alone, the highest monthly toll to date? The British toll stands at 212, including 22 in July.

The president has not been short of advice. George Will, a conservative columnist, raised eyebrows last week when he joined liberal Democrats in urging Obama to pull out of Afghanistan immediately and instead fight a long-range war.

"It can be done from offshore," Will wrote, "using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters."

Others pointed out that former President Bill Clinton attempted long-range policing of Afghanistan in the 1990s and the result was the emergence of Al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11, 2001. "The notion that you can conduct a purely counterterrorist kind of campaign, and do it from a distance, simply does not accord with reality," Gates warned.

It was also suggested that Obama might turn to what Pentagon officials have dubbed the "Goldilocks" option - choosing the porridge that is neither too hot nor too cold. A middle path between the status quo and an all-out surge might be based on a more modest, less visible build-up that would replace up to 14,000 soldiers deployed in clerical and other noncombat duties with frontline troops.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that noncombat units might be replaced by civilian contractors, boosting US firepower in the region while enabling Obama to side-step a public outcry. Yet that idea was undermined when a bizarre scandal erupted over contractors employed to guard the US embassy in Kabul. Instead of looking out for Taliban bombers, it was alleged, they were participating in drunken sex parties.

That left Obama with two serious options that may ultimately decide the popular verdict on his presidency. He can do nothing and hope that a recent reshuffle of senior military commanders in the region, and his decision to increase troop numbers to their current high levels, will produce sufficient stability for the US to be able to declare victory and leave. Or he can take a huge political risk and provide his military commanders with the thousands of new troops they are preparing to request.

McChrystal's advisers have speculated that he will call for the equivalent of up to eight more combat brigades with up to 5,000 soldiers in each.

McChrystal and Karl Eikenberry, the new US ambassador to Afghanistan, must be given "both the time to act and the resources and authority they feel they need", Cordesman argued.

"They can win only if they are allowed to manage both the civil and military sides of the conflict without constant micromanagement from Wash-ington or travelling envoys." Yet will Obama be willing to entrust the future of his presidency to a general and an ambassador? More to the point, will his chief advisers - notably Rahm Emanuel, his ferocious chief of staff - allow him to court military disaster at a time when his approval ratings are in freefall over his unpopular domestic agenda?

Whatever he does, critics on both sides agree, he has to explain to the American people what victory in Afghanistan will look like. Will it mean that Osama Bin Laden is dead? Must the Taliban be routed? Does it matter if the country's new president is honest?

Feingold warned last week that he and the American people "cannot tolerate more troops without some commitment about when this perceived occupation will end".

It can scarcely have been a consolation to Obama that the most prominent voices urging him on were the Republicans who started the war.

Outrage at death photo

A photograph of a dying US marine who was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during a Taliban ambush has outraged the Pentagon.

The picture, taken by an Associated Press (AP) photographer in Helmand province, was published in American newspapers on Friday. It shows Lance-Corporal Joshua Bernard, 21, lying on a muddy slope as two marines bend over him. He is bleeding from a severed leg and although the photograph was taken from a distance, his face is visible. He is clearly in shock and he died the same day.

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, said he had "begged" AP to withhold the picture to spare the feelings of the soldier's family. He accused Thomas Curley, the agency's chief executive, of a "lack of compassion and common sense". AP said the image told a story of sacrifice and bravery: "We felt . . . that people needed to see and be aware of it."