WASHINGTON - April 1 -  Last week President Barack Obama announced that the US has a "clear and focused goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."

The US has been involved with Afghanistan since 1979, but this is the first time that it is outlining a strategic plan. Originally the US had no regard for Afghanistan's future, but was more concerned with engaging the Russians in a war.

"The fact is that every war, however small, if you want it to end, has to end in a political settlement," said Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers' foreign editor. "And if the United States is involved in stoking the war, it should stick around and make sure that it achieves a settlement."

Afghanistan has been used as a military ground for initially attacking the Russians, and more recently, the al-Qaeda people, and not for any strategic planning for the Afghani people's welfare.

"That's the problem, that in general people treat Afghanistan as a platform for attacking other problems, and they forget that there's 24 million people there, that it's a real country, real people," Gutman said. "It's landlocked, it's poor, but it's in the heart of Asia and it's surrounded by countries that are not an awful lot more stable than it is"

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Obama's Afghan Plan