That was quite an official lovefest that President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai put on recently in an effort assure American and Afghanistan audiences that harmony reigns in spite of their recent contentious relationship.

In private White House meetings and public pledges of agreement and solidarity in pursuit of the war and eventual peace, both men went out of their way to convey that past frictions and recriminations were behind them.

But there seemed nonetheless a strained atmosphere and a sense of trying a bit too hard on both sides. Obama insisted publicly that many "perceived differences" between himself and Karzai "were simply overstated."

But the frustrated Afghan president, who earlier had openly threatened to throw in with the Taliban insurgents, also had questioned the U.S. commitment and chafed at Obama administration plans to deal more directly other local leaders in his country.

In a more positive display while he was here, Karzai pointedly visited Americans wounded in Afghanistan at Walter Reed military hospital and the graves at Arlington National Cemetery of American troops who died there, expressing the gratitude of the Afghan people for their sacrifice.

But hanging over the whole four-day visit remained questions of Karzai's willingness to deal with American concerns about his political stability and corruption in his regime, said to involve his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai.

In remarks at the United States Institute of Peace, the Afghan president said he had personally raised the matter of his brother with Obama, "to the satisfaction of both sides." But he said in any event that he could not fire him because he is the democratically elected head of the Kandahar provincial capital where Taliban influence remains strong.

While Obama has indicated he intends to adhere to his timetable of starting to withdraw American combat troops from Afghanistan by July of next year, Karzai talked of a very long continuing U.S presence thereafter.

According to the Washington Post, he told the peace institute the American commitment would last "beyond the military activity right now...into the future, long after we have retired, and perhaps into our grandsons' and great-grandsons' and great-granddaughters' generations."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who accompanied Karzai to the institute, reported that a new long-term agreement between their two governments will be negotiated by the end of this year, but that she would be watching "with our eyes open" an international conference to be held in Kabul in July to consider cooperation in shaping Afghanistan's future.

The Karzai visit was an all-court press designed to dispel mutual doubts about both governments' intentions as the troop pullout remains on the horizon. Karzai brought an unusual array of cabinet leaders with him for meetings with U.S. counterparts and key military and congressional leaders.

In all this, the question of American involvement in nation-building, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, continues to drive U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Obama's timetables for the withdrawal of American combat troops--starting the end of this July from Iraq and a year later from Afghanistan--clearly will not end that broad objective.

In the presidential campaign of 2000, Republican nominee George W. Bush in debate with Democratic nominee Al Gore voiced his strong opposition to such nation-building. But upon election, Bush plunged into it in Iraq, and it has remained a centerpiece of American policy there and in Afghanistan, and a nagging headache in both places under both American presidents.

Obama's obvious hope is that a sharp diminution if not an end to American casualties and deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan will permit a toleration among Americans at home for a continuation of the less lethal propping up of the two trouble-plagued countries.

Unless the internal political divisions in both of them can somehow be rectified, however, American public opinion will not endlessly accept the role, especially with domestic challenges mounting at home. The imperative of fighting terrorism will remain, but Obama has no mandate to pursue the Bush objective of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East through nation-building beyond America's resources and interests.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

The Great Gamble

At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes

 

 

(C) 2010 Jules Witcover