Fran O'Sullivan: Clinton's icing on the cake

Hillary Clinton's mojo was back in spades yesterday as she firmly spelled out she wanted New Zealanders to know the United States remains committed to Afghanistan.

"We are committed in great numbers but we value deeply the contributions of New Zealand."

In Washington the fundamental question of whether President Barack Obama will commit more troops to Afghanistan, in line with the wishes of his top generals, dominates the wall-to-wall television news coverage.

Many Americans are spooked that Afghanistan is turning into a Vietnam-style quagmire and want the troops extricated.

The War on Terrorism - which Obama has since called the "war of necessity" - is no longer seen as compelling to a nation beset by more immediate domestic concerns such as the rising jobless and mortgagee sales.

Clinton herself displayed considerable cool as she magisterially replied to her interlocutors during a one-hour television special this week - setting out the complex issues but stopping well short of outlining where she thinks Obama will come down.

For instance, underwriting another "surge" with the 40,000 extra troops General Stan McChrystal wants, or a lesser commitment numerically, combined with smart strategies to deal with problems surrounding the ability of the Karzai Government to govern.

It is a decision all New Zealanders have an interest in. But unfortunately it is not a topic which has sparked substantive debate in our country.

It should. Particularly as the 70 SAS special forces that Prime Minister John Key committed to Afghanistan after receiving a personal telephone call from Obama this year have already been deployed.

There is a fundamental question why New Zealanders should feel confident of the wisdom of this decision given the Obama Administration has still not made up its own mind on the extent of America's future commitment.

Clinton directly acknowledged the confidence issue when I put a question to her during a press briefing at the State Department in Washington DC yesterday.

She reiterated that the US was committed to Afghanistan and characterised the review currently under way in the American capital as "taking a very hard scrub" to make sure the US was on the right track.

She was clearly fired up when she told me: "We just want to be sure that when we send a young man or woman from New Zealand or the United States, we are sending them to Afghanistan with the maximum capacity to be successful - it is a vision that we share."

Much is still up in the air. But by the time Clinton makes her expected visit to New Zealand early next year, Obama will have made his decision and the Secretary of State will have to front Kiwis on its consequences.

Given Clinton's directness in responding to my questions, I have no doubt she will stake out the position in a similarly compelling way when she visits our shores, probably in January.

While Afghanistan has clearly polarised the United States, it also poses substantial political risk for the Key Government.

An exchange of letters between Obama and Key cover several issues vital to the bilateral defence relationship. The letters remain confidential.

But joint-military training exercises will resume after a 25-year hiatus sparked by the ban on nuclear-capable ships visiting our shores imposed by David Lange's Labour Government. Intelligence sharing is also being stepped up.

The deepest irony is that the Obama Administration is now turning to New Zealand for advice on how to make the case on why the world should be rid of nuclear weapons - an issue that the two nations will discuss further.

In Washington during the Helen Clark regime's years, observers fixated obsessively on the small distinctions: Were we "very good friends" or was it "very, very good friends" - friends with a capital "F" or simply "f" ?

The diplomatic semaphore that has permeated New Zealand's relations with the US in recent years was necessary at the time, as both countries tried to rebuild a relationship which had become fractured at the very core level of trust.

Particularly given former US Secretary of State George Shultz's comment on the initial fracture: "We part company as friends, but we part company."

The State Department has gone to considerable trouble to get across the message that the bilateral relationship has been virtually normalised.

Clinton's comments are the icing on the cake.