FACTBOX: Different audiences for Obama's Afghan plan

(Reuters) - From West Point to the mountains of Afghanistan, from Iowa to Washington and across the world to Islamabad, President Barack Obama will be speaking to multiple audiences when he announces his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan on Tuesday.

For each one, his message will have to be calibrated.

If he can pull it off, his speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, will be one of the most impressive balancing acts of his presidency.

The risk is that each message will undermine the other, and Obama will fail to convince anyone at all.

LOVE DOES NOT MEAN FOREVER

The Russians lasted 10 years and the Americans will soon tire of the war too, the Taliban tells Afghans, to encourage supporters and spread fear among anyone who dares oppose them.

The Pakistani establishment felt betrayed when the United States abandoned Afghanistan in the early 1990s and many are already planning for the day Washington walks away again.

That, many analysts say, is a major reason Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, is reluctant to cut ties completely with the Afghan Taliban -- it sees them as a potential ally should the U.S. leave again.

The American people are growing increasingly tired of the war and are demanding light at the end of the tunnel.

Obama may try to bridge that divide by promising long-term development support to Afghanistan, accompanied by a gradual transition to Afghan control of security. Authority could be handed over to Afghans over a three- to five-year period, with U.S. forces out of the country by 2017-18, officials say.

It was a trick the Americans seemed to pull off in Iraq. The risk, though, is that Afghans and Pakistanis, once bitten, twice shy, only hear the word "exit" and little else.

TIME IS NOT ON U.S. SIDE

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, argued in August that NATO forces needed to turn the tide urgently. A failure to regain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum within 12 months, he wrote, risked an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.

Three months later, time is already running out. Obama is expected to significantly bolster U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. But military officials say troops can only be deployed to Afghanistan gradually in 2010, perhaps one brigade a quarter.

The build-up may not be complete until mid-2011. Every day's delay plays in the Taliban's favor.

Another problem is that the long delay in announcing a new strategy has only reinforced concerns among skeptics about Obama's stomach for the fight.

Among Obama's most important audiences will be his NATO allies, where opposition to the war is growing. In Britain, Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth said the wait for Obama's decision had created a "period of hiatus" that had made it harder to maintain public support for the mission.

The president, who is likely to ask NATO for 10,000 more troops, argues he needed time to make such a complex decision.

STRONG BUT NOT STUBBORN

In August, Obama called the conflict in Afghanistan a "war of necessity." In Congress, Republicans will pounce on any sign he is wavering in his commitment to that war to suggest he is weak and failing to protect national security.

At the same time, troops are costly, at up to $1 million a year for each one, when Obama is already being criticized for failing to rein in the budget deficit.

Many Democrats, looking nervously at next year's congressional elections, oppose sending any more troops. One of Obama's toughest audiences will be members of his own party.

MORE TROOPS MEANS LESS TROOPS

Obama may try to bridge the divide between different audiences by arguing that more troops now means less of them in the long term.

Only by turning the tide in the conflict and accelerating the training of Afghan security forces can the United States make a dignified and safe exit from the region, officials say.

WE ARE YOUR (HEAVILY ARMED) FRIENDS

Many Afghans still want U.S. troops to remain in the country, concerned a swift withdrawal would herald full-scale civil war or an eventual return to Taliban rule.

But increasing numbers of ordinary Afghans would like to see foreign soldiers gone, polls show. Sending more soldiers risks making the Americans seem even more like an occupying force.

McChrystal argues NATO needs to radically change the way it interacts with the population, and that successful counterinsurgency depends on the support of ordinary Afghans.

LIMITED GOALS FOR AMERICANS, REAL BENEFITS FOR AFGHANS?

At the root of many of the contradictions is that Obama seeks to define a limited, achievable set of goals.

No ambitious Bush-era talk of democracy, but a strategy focused on dismantling, disrupting and destroying al Qaeda -- a goal Americans can understand and perhaps support.

The problem is that this is not a very compelling message to Afghan ears, reinforcing the idea that the foreigners have no real stake in securing their country or their livelihoods.

TOUGH LOVE FOR KARZAI

Critics say Obama has so far struggled to maintain a coherent line on Afghan President Hamid Karzai, first alienating him with outspoken criticism of corruption and then trying to draw him back into the fold and feel more trusted.

The flip-flopping, they argue, only fuels Karzai's sense of insecurity and pushes him further into the arms of warlords who prop up his administration through patronage and intimidation.

Now, the talk is of tough love, of the need for Karzai to rein in corruption. But the arguments lack one key phrase -- "or else." Karzai knows the West needs him, critics say, making any threat sound hollow.

Obama will need all his oratorical powers to sound committed to Afghanistan but not to a corrupt government, to sound like he is staying for the long term but not forever, to show this "war of necessity" is winnable but not at any cost.

(Editing by Patricia Wilson and Peter Cooney)