WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama on Tuesday night announced that the Afghanistan war will not become a second Vietnam, and he pledged to start winding down the US presence there in 2011.

The president’s targeted audience was the American public, which has soured on the Afghanistan conflict and on Obama’s handling of it in recent months.

Facing what was arguably the most risky decision of his presidency, he upped the ante and appealed to a war-weary American public for support of his plan to add 30,000 more troops to the battle that has sputtered along for more than eight years.

The extra American soldiers, the president said, would escalate the war in Afghanistan — but would be on the ground only for a limited time to ensure the Afghan military gain training and competency.

If this appeared to be a contrasting massage, it is perhaps because Obama wanted to placate an increasingly polarized country that is of two minds about what to do in Afghanistan. For those who still support the war, he is sending more troops. For those against it, he is offering the assurance of the 2011 exit.

Obama showed considerable political courage by addressing that pessimism head-on. He explained why the US cannot walk away from the war and outlined an ambitious and high-risk strategy for driving back the Taleban and bolstering the Afghan government so American troops can eventually go home.

The president noted that he had opposed the war in Iraq form the start and he rejected comparisons between Afghanistan and Vietnam. “If I did not think that the security of the United States and the safety of the American people were at stake in Afghanistan, I would gladly order every single one of our troops home tomorrow,” he said at the US Military Academy at West Point New York.

For far too long, mostly, but not only, under President George W. Bush — Afghanistan policy has had little direction and no accountability. After eight years of fighting, more than 800 American lives lost and more than $200 billion taxpayer dollars spent, the Afghan government is barely legitimate and barely hanging on in the face of an increasingly powerful Taleban insurgency.

The immediate challenge is President Karzai himself, the onetime Western favorite who presides over what is seen as one of the most corrupt governments in the world. The graft permeating the Afghan government is so vast that ordinary Afghans have begun to call into question the very legitimacy of Karzai’s government — and for Americans, the wisdom of fighting and dying to support it.

Some analysts here believe that throughout his presidency President Bush sought to disguise the true cost of the Afghan and Iraq wars. So observers now say it was a relief to hear the president put a credible price tag on his escalation Tuesday night when he said it is likely to cost an additional $30 billion next year — and promised to work with Congress to pay for it.

Obama mainly focused his speech on Afghanistan, and left much unsaid about Pakistan.

But experts here say that, quietly, Obama has authorized an expansion of the war in Pakistan as well — if only he can get a weak, divided, suspicious Pakistani government to agree to the terms. Its president, Asif Ali Zardari, and his weak government, is often at odds with his own nation’s powerful military and intelligence establishment. Obama’s new strategy will probably depend on whether he can strengthen the shaky partnership between Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan, and unite them against the extremist groups on both sides of the border.

“I am painfully clear that this is politically unpopular,” Obama told reporters about his decision before the speech. “Not only is this not popular, but it’s least popular in my own party. But that’s not how I make decisions.” The muted response from key Democratic congressional leaders and the skepticism from Republicans about an exit strategy signaled that the president faces a stiff fight to sell his policy — both on Capitol Hill and to the American people.