Obama, Karzai, Zardari unite against Taliban ahead of final talks

US President Barack Obama meets with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, for final talks Thursday, a day after the three leaders announced they were united in their fight against Islamic extremists.Barack Obama has invested his young presidency's political capital in battling Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- but experts also see him keeping a greater distance from the troubled countries' leaders.Obama, in perhaps his most ambitious White House summit so far, met Wednesday with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai and hailed "unprecedented cooperation" to fight Islamic extremists."Let me be clear: The United States has made a lasting commitment to defeat Al-Qaeda, but also to support the democratically elected sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan," Obama said, flanked by the two leaders."That commitment will not waiver. And that support will be sustained," Obama said.But while few doubt that Obama favors democracy in the two nations, analysts believe he is also seeking to depersonalize his relationship with the two leaders.It marks a break from the deeply personal politics of his predecessor George W. Bush, who was closely identified both with Karzai and Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf."The US reputation suffered from what seemed to be an overpersonalization and reliance on Musharraf, despite the fact that he had undermined Pakistan's democratic institutions," said Lisa Curtis, a South Asia expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank."I think so far the Obama administration has tried to keep a healthy distance between itself and both the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan," she said.Musharraf quit last year under threat of impeachment, paving the way for Zardari's civilian but weak government.Karzai -- first installed after a US-led military operation following the September 11, 2001 attacks -- is considered the front-runner in August elections, in which he has picked a controversial warlord accused of human rights abuses as a running mate.The Washington Post said Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to the region, has privately voiced hope that Karzai faces a challenge.