ShareThisAn editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Afghan government can be forgiven for feeling the United States might have forgotten about it, and its leaders may have mixed feelings about being recently rediscovered.
President Bush accorded Afghan President Hamid Karzai the image-building accolade of a two-day visit to Camp David and a joint press conference with Marine One in the background. The visit is also intended to reinforce Karzai's standing as a key U.S. ally in advance of a meeting between himself and senior tribal leaders and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have found a fresh use for Afghanistan as a campaign issue. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said "the president has dropped the ball on the real front in the war on terror -- Afghanistan." And a newly bellicose Barack Obama said he would beef up the U.S. presence there by 7,000 troops and might unilaterally send troops into Pakistan.
The question of Pakistan raised a point of contention between Bush and Karzai, who believes Musharraf has been sitting on his hands while Taliban forces conduct cross-border raids and al Qaeda bides its time waiting to return to its old sanctuary. Bush might privately share Karzai's concern, but Musharraf is an important if uncertain U.S. ally with a weakening grip on power.
Another area of disagreement is Iran. In an interview in advance of the meeting, Karzai described relations with Iran as "very, very good, very, very close" and Iran itself as "a helper and a solution."
This is decidedly not Bush's view, but when the president was asked he diplomatically replied that Karzai "knows best about what's taking place in his country, and, of course, I'm willing to listen. But from my perspective, the burden of proof is on the Iranian government to show that they're a positive force."
Karzai then departed to return to confronting the Taliban, opium, widespread corruption and the task of rebuilding a devastated nation. But the visit did serve to show that Afghanistan has not completely fallen off the Bush administration's list of priorities.
