Barack Obama's decision to approve the deployment of a further 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan - bringing the total number to 50,000 - is an indication of his determination to focus on this conflict and make it a foreign policy priority. It is a brave option - and a risky one - but nonetheless it is the right thing to do.
During last year's presidential campaign Obama often stressed that the US had focused too much on Iraq, at the expense of Afghanistan, which in his view presented more of a security threat than the war in Iraq.
The US President is right: the war in Afghanistan, which has not been going well, was not given enough importance by the previous US administration, and the situation has been deteriorating rapidly.
The Taliban have been making gains, both military and politically, the Afghan population is growing impatient at the limited number of improvements made in their lives, the Afghan government has lost control of vast areas of its territory, corruption is said to be rife and the UN estimates that the number of civilian deaths increased by 39 per cent last year.
Let us not delude ourselves - a victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would be absolutely disastrous for the entire region and would present a grave threat to global security, so defeat is simply not an option for the US and its allies.
We all remember what happened the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan - it became an Al-Qaeda terrorist state and reverted to the Middle Ages. An Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban would further destabilise Pakistan - a nuclear-armed country already threatened by the Taliban. Just imagine Pakistan ruled by the Taliban - it's too frightening to even think about.
Obama's appointment of Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan - the two states form a single area of conflict and any solution must be on a regional basis - is therefore a step in the right direction. Only last week Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari warned that the Taliban were a major threat to his country. "The Taliban do have a presence in huge amounts of land on our side. Yes, that is a fact," he told CBS news.
It is understood that the new US administration has grown somewhat impatient with the government in Kabul, and Obama said recently that Karzai's government was "very detached" from its people. It is also believed that the decline in relations began last year after a visit by Joe Biden, then Democratic vice-presidential candidate, who reportedly stormed out of a meeting with Karzai after he was not given any clear answers regarding the Afghan government's fight against corruption and drugs.
A few months later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a written statement to Congress during her confirmation hearing, called Afghanistan a "narco-state" which was "plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption".
A new comprehensive strategy for the US approach to Afghanistan is expected to be launched by Obama at the end of March, just before the Nato heads of government summit in France and Germany on April 3-4. At this summit the US President is expected to urge his allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, something US Defence Secretary Robert Gates already requested during last Thursday's Nato ministerial meeting in Poland.
The message from Washington is clear: The US will boost its contingent in Afghanistan but expects its Nato partners to do the same, and this is certainly reasonable.
Obama's new strategy in Afghanistan will be eagerly awaited. While the increase in troop deployments - both American and others - is an important component in the war against the Taliban, other reviews are expected. This war cannot be won by military means alone. One hopes, for example, that the US and its coalition forces will reconsider their reliance on air power, which is killing too many innocent civilians and boosting the Taliban propaganda machine.
This is going to be a long war which will only be won if the US and its allies win over public opinion in Afghanistan and genuine progress is made in the fight against corruption and the spreading of the rule of law. Reaching out to 'moderate' elements within the Taliban - if such people exist - to convince them to stop fighting and be part of the political process might also help matters.
Throughout this war there will be a number of challenges that will be faced. Last week, for example, in a bitter blow to Nato, the Kyrgyzstan parliament voted to close a key American base used by thousands of US soldiers every month on their way to and from Afghanistan. In another development, the US expressed concern over a deal Pakistani authorities reached with pro-Taliban militants in the Swat valley in north-western Pakistan.
The agreement allows the imposition of Sharia law in the region in return for an end to the Taliban insurgency there. Is peace and stability worth Sharia law? Probably not, but there are no easy answers.