Barack obama has promised to make Afghanistan his foreign-policy priority. But on the streets of Kabul his electoral triumph has been greeted with jaded pessimism. A typical view is that he will make little difference. The president, Hamid Karzai, however, may fear that from his point of view, things may actually get worse.rnAs a first earnest of a new American resolve perhaps 20,000 extra American soldiers are to arrive in Afghanistan next year: not quite an Iraq-style surge, but much more than a trickle. And the new administration is collecting champions of the Afghan problem. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a veteran of many visits to the region. The next secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has called Afghanistan and Pakistan the "forgotten front-line" in the war on terror, and has advocated the appointment of a special envoy to the two countries.
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