At the White House this afternoon, Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai committed themselves to a “long-term partnership,” in Obama’s words, “that is not simply defined by our military presence.” Both expressed confidence in the ultimate success of a war in its More…
The New York Times has a good overview of the tone of this week’s Washington visit by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai: an end to nearly 18 months of very public pressure, doubts and the occasional insult, and the beginning of an embrace. Why?
“Two things are happening,” said Richard Fontaine,
Not a whole lot of news came out of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Amb. Karl Eikenberry’s White House news conference this afternoon. McChrystal patiently explained that the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban are “distinct but not completely unrelated.” Eikenberry used the adjective “successful” as often as humanly possible. McChrystal, the commander More…
I was on a plane returning from Guantanamo Bay on Friday while the White House held a conference call about Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington, which formally begins tomorrow at the State Department. Here’s how Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the White House’s Afghanistan-Pakistan coordinator, described the visit’s primary More…
Noah Shachtman got an interview with Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and asked about the likely prospective NATO-Afghan offensive in Kandahar. Specifically, Shachtman wanted to know how a U.S. military that’s emphasized the need for local buy-in from Kandaharis for the attack is More…
The Obama administration doesn’t want to fight with Afghan President Hamid Karzai anymore. Amb. Richard Holbrooke, the special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the U.S.’s relationship with the Afghan president is in “good shape.” That stuff about Karzai threatening to join the Taliban if he didn’t get to control More…
“The most important thing is to understand that before we do a military operation in Afghanistan, we really have got to get the consent of the people who are going to be affected by that operation,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told Pentagon reporters in March, previewing his efforts to secure More…
It’s a small gesture, but during a press briefing yesterday on coordinating NATO civilian-military planning with Afghan efforts, Amb. Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, made sure to single out the country’s increasingly volatile president for conspicuous praise:
This exchange aboard Air Force One with Gen. Jim Jones, the national security adviser, and Denis McDonough, the National Security Council’s chief of staff, settles a round of speculation as to whether the White House would cancel Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s planned visit to Washington out of displeasure with More…
More than halfway through a coy interview with Josh Rogin about whether or not Afghan President Hamid Karzai really walked back his inflammatory Thursday speech in a Friday phone call with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley has this to say about Karzai’s subsequent More…
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