White House Prepares for Intensive Talks With Afghanistan, Pakistan

The Obama White House is set to launch what it calls an unprecedented joint dialogue with Afghanistan and Pakistan designed to beat back the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies while at the same time boosting agriculture and urban economic development, limiting corruption and coordinating military and intelligence activities, amid fears Pakistan's nuclear arms might fall into terrorist hands."This has never happened before," said a senior administration official intimately involved in the diplomatic efforts undertaken as part of President Obama's multi-layered strategy in the region. "This is a sustained process where success in one nation needs to be followed by success in the other."Top administration officials briefed reporters in advance of Obama's meetings Wednesday at the White House with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. Obama will meet with each leader separately and then bring them together for a historic trilateral meeting meant to lower suspicions about each other's and the United States' motives in the region.For example, senior officials emphasized Obama supports Zardari and in no way sought to undercut his authority by authorizing comments weeks ago from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Zardari's government had failed to take a firmer stand against advancing Taliban fighters in Pakistan's northwest frontier zone."The Pakistani Government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," Clinton said April 22. "We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan."On Tuesday, the tone in the White House briefing was far more supportive of Zardari."Our goal is to help Pakistan to be a stable, secure, democratic country," the senior official said. "For the life of me, I don't understand why people would say we're distancing ourselves from Zardari when, quite the contrary, he has been invited here by the president in what is a very important part of a trilateral process; but there's also a bilateral part. Pakistan's importance to our national security is self-evident."The senior officials said there needed to be a "course correction" in the unfounded perceptions in the region that Obama was pulling back from Zardari. There were low-level fears in the White House that confusion over the issue could lead to a military uprising against Zardari's civilian government."Why people would think we'd invite him here to weaken him is kind of one of these weird things that happens sometimes," the officials said. "We don't want a military coup. We don't want a military takeover. Half of Pakistan's history has been run by the military. It doesn't do us any good. It doesn't do the Pakistanis any good."