Opposite of a Slow News Day: "Biden makes unannounced visit to Afghanistan"

[Clio the Leo]

"Biden makes unannounced visit to Afghanistan"
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 10, 2011; 10:37 AM

KABUL - Vice President Biden flew into Kabul on Monday night for a round of high-level meetings as the Obama administration seeks assurance that its Afghanistan strategy is taking hold.

Biden's unannounced visit brings him to the Afghan capital at a time of uncertainty in the war. Military commanders claim progress against the Taliban in the areas where they've concentrated U.S. troops, particularly in the southern Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. And President Obama last month called the war effort "on track."

But the insurgency remains potent in wide swaths of the country. The Afghan government has strongly opposed parts of the U.S. military strategy and not yet addressed its own problems with corruption. Insurgent leaders, meanwhile, operate safely from sanctuaries in Pakistan.

U.S. military officials are waiting until spring, when the Taliban fighting season typically resumes, before drawing firmer conclusions about how much they've disrupted the insurgency and whether the Afghan government has stepped into the gap.

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Biden has been a regular visitor to Afghanistan over the years. As senator, he was the first elected American official to arrive in Kabul after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and was a strong ally of Karzai's.

But in the past couple of years, Biden's relations with Karzai have grown shakier. Biden has been skeptical of Karzai's reliability and his willingness to address the corruption in his government. The two men had a combative dinner in Kabul in February 2008 while Biden was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And just before Obama's inauguration, Biden delivered the message to Karzai that he would not have the same type of chummy relationship with Obama that he had with President Bush.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011002389.html