After his 13 hour flight to Afghanistan, Obama was unable to meet Karzai face-to-face on his short visit because helicopters were grounded by winds and weather. Instead, Obama held a video conference with Karzai only hours after leaked cables suggested American diplomats considered him weak and paranoid.
The office of president of Afghanistan is nearly powerless, and therefore so is the man who holds it. President Obama has made no secret that he is out to get Karzai, and he has promised to pull American troops out of Afghanistan on a timing that guaranteed that the however-curruptly elected government of Afghanistan would not be able to survive attacks by the Taliban and tribal warlords individually and in concert. Is it any wonder that President Karzai appears paranoid and weak, or that the oh-so-perceptive State Department employees might comment to the home office that he is so?
Nor, given the things President Obama has said about and to President Karzai, is it any wonder the latter feels no overwhelming need to experience the former's waspishness in person. |
Ben Rhodes, a National Advisor, said the secret trip had been planned for more than a month so that Obama could meet troops in the war zone between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
| Good for him. Glad he went there and supported the troops. Exactly the right thing to do. |
"It's always tough to serve in harm's way but when you're away from loved ones in the holiday season it's particularly hard, and the president wanted the ability to come out and have some time with them," Rhodes said.
A progress report on the nine-year-long war is expected to be released within weeks, assessing the effect of additional troops sent since last December. Aides said the December assessment would not be a "policy review", but an update.
The White House played down any breach with Kabul caused by WikiLeaks revealing Washington's vexation at Afghan corruption and Kazai's capricious leadership.
| It's not like it's news to anyone involved, or anyone paying the slightest bit of attention. |
In one secret memo the American ambassador portrayed Karzai as "unfamiliar with the basics of nation building" and "overly self-conscious" that his time of rave reviews from the West was over. |