WASHINGTON: US Senator John McCain appealed Friday to President Barack Obama to stay engaged in Afghanistan, warning that a hasty troop withdrawal would jeopardize warming ties with India.

The senior Republican senator from Arizona pledged support for India across the US political divide in an address delivered just as Obama flew off for a trip meant to breathe new life into the relationship.

But McCain, whose Republican Party made strong gains in congressional elections Tuesday, warned Obama against pulling out of Afghanistan “before positive conditions can be shaped and sustained on the ground.”

The consequences would “certainly be terrible for us, but they will even be worse for India, which will have a terrorist safe haven on its periphery,”McCain said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“I can think of few more immediate ways to damage the US-India relationship, and to convince India that the United States is both a declining power and an unreliable partner, than for us to pull out of Afghanistan before achieving our goals,” McCain said.

Obama has tripled US forces in Afghanistan since defeating McCain for the White House, pledging to root out the Taliban whose extremist regime was ousted by US-led forces following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

But Obama also in December set a goal of starting to withdraw troops in mid-2011 depending on conditions on the ground.

Obama advisers have stressed that the United States will remain committed to Afghanistan but said that the timeline is needed to pressure President Hamid Karzai to take more responsibility for security.

Opinion polls show weakening US support for the war, with some of Obama's Democratic supporters calling for the United States to devote resources back at home after spending more than one trillion dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But McCain said that an early withdrawal from Afghanistan would drive Pakistan to step up cooperation with Afghanistan's Taliban to “hedge its bets.”

McCain had sharp words over India's historic rival, deploring that “some in Pakistan's army and intelligence service continue to support these terrorist groups as tools of regional influence.

“Nothing the United States has done since September 11, 2001 has changed the basic strategic calculus of the Pakistani army: when compelled, it is willing to fight terrorist groups that threaten Pakistan, but not related groups that threaten Afghanistan, India and increasingly America as well,”McCain said.

But McCain asked India to understand US cooperation with Pakistan, saying “the US and India have a natural partner in the overwhelming majority of Pakistani society.”

"We cut off assistance and walked away from Pakistan once, and the problem got worse, not better," he said.

The US Congress last year approved a 7.5 billion-dollar aid package aimed at building Pakistan's economy and democratic institutions to curb the appeal of extremists.

While India has supported civilian assistance, it has quietly been uneasy about a two billion-dollar military package for Pakistan which the Obama administration recently asked Congress to approve.

India enjoys strong support among prominent Republicans and Democrats, a far cry from the uneasy relationship during the Cold War.

However, Representative Michele Bachmann, a leader of the right-wing Tea Party movement that has gained prominence within the Republican Party, criticized the cost of Obama's trip to India and three other Asian nations.

“We have never seen a trip at this level before, of this level of excess,” the Minnesota congresswoman told CNN.

“I think it's not a good signal to send to the American people, when the American people are, quite frankly, struggling right now with high job losses,”she said. -AFP