President Karzai of Aghanistan is in Washington visiting President Obama this week and is being extended a very warm welcome. This marks a remarkable turnaround in American strategy towards a leader many saw as recalcitrant and unhelpful in the U.S. war against the Taliban and al-Qaida. The U.S. had taken to scolding, prodding and criticizing Karzai in an attempt to get him to address the serious issues facing Afghanistan. This report in The New York Times explains how Karzai has gone from the dog house to the White House:
This time, the Americans are pulling out all the stops for Mr. Karzai as part of a new charm offensive. Mrs. Clinton, one of the few people in the administration with a good rapport with him, has invited him for a stroll through the grounds of a private enclave in Georgetown. Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative to the region, was dispatched to Andrews Air Force Base at 7 a.m. on Monday to personally greet Mr. Karzai. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be Mr. Karzai’s host for a private dinner at the vice president’s mansion […] “Two things are happening,” said Richard Fontaine, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain. “One, there wasn’t much payoff from the earlier approach. And second, it’s sunk in, after the Afghan elections last year, that this is the guy who’s going to be here for four years and change, so we better get along with him because we don’t have an alternative.”
I wonder how this all plays out in practice? Either the U.S. comes off as a most fickle partner or Karzai sees through this attempt to woo him, and either way, I think the U.S. looks rather desperate. Perhaps it’s all a ploy, as the Times article hints, to identify, elevate and encourage a new political elite in Afghanistan (as Karzai is traveling with a large number of his ministers) and prepare for an eventual Plan B. Only in Washington can you be so earnestly celebrated as you are shown the door.
Photo Credit: The New York Times