IN my last article I had mentioned the virtual absence of Afghanistan and the ongoing war from the campaign rhetoric of the two major American political parties as they move into the last few weeks of the presidential election race.

Afghanistan, the longest war in which the United States has participated, has taken more than 2,000 lives and brought home thousands of amputees and many more suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. In treasure it has cost more than half a trillion dollars.

Even though these losses are small compared to those suffered in Korea and Vietnam, the expectation was that they would have been a greater cause for concern than was evident in the early part of the election campaign.

It was expected that even if this was not to be a hot campaign issue it would at least secure some mention as delegates assembled in Florida for the Republican national convention to formally nominate Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as the presidential and vice presidential candidates for the November elections.

This expectation was belied. Beyond a laudatory reference to Obama’s sanctioning of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, there was no reference to the ongoing war or even to Afghanistan in Romney’s acceptance speech. Even Condoleezza Rice, as the foreign policy expert who started her speech with a reference to the trauma of 9/11, made no mention of Afghanistan. Iraq was referred to only in passing as the country in which a fledgling democracy was under threat but with no acknowledgement of America’s heavy cost in blood and treasure and more importantly in loss of prestige and credibility.

Senator McCain, who in 2008 was the Republican party candidate for the presidency and is an acknowledged Republican expert on security issues, confined himself to repeating his oft stated position that “by committing to withdraw from Afghanistan before peace can be achieved and sustained, the president has discouraged our friends and emboldened our enemies, which is why our commanders … have said it puts our mission at much greater risk.”

Before the convention Romney and his running mate had spoken of Afghanistan only when forced to do so by media questions. Romney, in a recent interview for Time magazine, was quoted as saying that he supported the 2014 deadline for withdrawal but unlike President Obama would not have announced the date publicly. His running mate, who earlier took a stiffer stance, has more recently said that “We should be thinking of troop security and safety first and foremost and not some political timetable, which I fear is how the president has made some of these decisions. We want to make sure that Afghanistan does not become a safe haven for terrorists to plot future attacks against us.” He added that “at the same time, I think the timeline with Afghanistan on a 2014 date is a good, reasonable timeline.”

One can reason that the Republican candidates wish to stay away from Afghanistan because talking about it would require an acknowledgement of the egregious blunders of the Bush administration in that country including the outsourcing of military operations in Tora Bora to local warlords, which allowed the beleaguered Al Qaeda forces to escape; excluding the Pakhtuns from the Bonn conference; the rejection of the alleged offer from the Taliban in 2002 to lay down arms in return for a blanket amnesty; Rumsfeld’s insistence on a lean military operation with no nation building; and the diversion of attention and resources to Iraq in 2003.

This, however, is not the full explanation. The Republicans have had no hesitation in castigating the Obama administration for the current economic crisis or the awe-inspiring budget deficits of the last four years even though they know full well that these were owed to the mess that Obama inherited from the Bush era of tax cuts for the rich, burgeoning defence expenditures and lack of supervision of financial institutions.

The true explanation to my mind is that the Republicans recognise that the majority of Americans are opposed to continued military involvement in Afghanistan. Many argue that after bin Laden’s death Al Qaeda is not the potent force it once was and that the threat of a repeat of 9/11 can best be guarded against by better homeland security and by drone attacks on franchisees of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Somalia and other trouble spots.

Senator McCain, in an article published just before the convention, had argued after criticising President Obama’s withdrawal plan that “a Republican administration must immediately assess the military impact of these withdrawals and be prepared to follow the best advice of our commanders on the ground … Republicans know that Americans are war-weary. But our commander-in-chief has an obligation to lead public opinion, not just to follow it — and that starts with explaining to the American people why we cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan.” The fact that this is not what he said at the convention suggests that this is not what Romney would do if he were to win the election.

In the meanwhile, insider attacks have continued in Afghanistan. The Americans have suspended some parts of scheduled training programmes while a re-vetting of Afghan recruits gets under way. Karzai’s political difficulties appear to be increasing and little has been achieved by way of structural reform. To the Americans in Afghanistan even a graceful exit, leave alone a continued military involvement, must appear more and more problematic.

By the time this article appears the national convention of the Democrats will be under way. The focus will be on domestic issues but one can expect that there will be a spirited defence of Obama’s plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan and his successful termination of military engagement in Iraq. There will certainly be an emphasis on continuing counterterrorism operations, but it is less than certain that there will be much mention of retaining a residual presence in Afghanistan after 2014 as part of this effort.

Whatever emerges from the Democratic convention, the stance on Afghanistan of the Republican party, generally perceived as the ‘war party’, shows how far the direction of political winds in Washington has changed. A prudent Pakistani leadership should now formulate its policies on Afghanistan and on the urgent need for reconciliation while recognising this reality.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.