President Obama begins two days of talks Wednesday with the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan to hastily overhaul a painstakingly developed security strategy that was unveiled only five weeks ago but is already badly outdated.
The three countries spent months developing the plan to combat an insurgency centered in eastern Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. But they are being forced to switch focus because of growing militant activity in Pakistan that is emerging as Obama's first major foreign policy crisis.
U.S. officials fear the militants could fracture Pakistan, destabilizing the region and even posing potential risks to control of Islamabad's nuclear arsenal.
Obama today will press Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to intensify his country's fight against the insurgency, step up economic development efforts and reach out to political rivals to broaden the fragile government's base of support.
Yet U.S. officials acknowledge that their influence on the government is limited, consisting mostly of the money and arms they can supply. One sign of America's limited influence is that the Pakistani who has the most control over the country's military effort, army Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, won't be at the meetings.
Afghanistan, in contrast, seems more manageable: "By comparison, it looks like Canada," one U.S. official said in an interview.
The talks convene as intensified fighting rages in Pakistan's Swat Valley, near Islamabad, the capital. Officials had hoped to achieve a cease-fire there by agreeing to Taliban control over much of the area. But Taliban militants last month attempted to advance closer to the capital, igniting the military confrontation.
Obama announced his new Afghanistan-Pakistan security plan in March, pledging extra combat forces and training units for Afghanistan and aid to Pakistan. But the Taliban advances and subsequent fighting in Pakistan have overtaken that strategy.
Obama today will meet separately with Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and then will meet with them together.
The two-day talks will also bring together senior military, intelligence and political officials in working groups in an effort to better coordinate their activities.
At the same time, administration officials are seeking regional support for the new efforts. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, visiting Riyadh, the Saudi capital, appealed for Saudi Arabia's help in backing Pakistani efforts to repel the militants.
Both Karzai and Zardari met with top lawmakers and policy analysts in Washington today.
The job of the three leaders is complicated by intense Pakistani opposition to U.S. airstrikes by unmanned aircraft there and by rising Afghan frustration over civilian casualties.
In one acknowledgment of the anti-American sentiments, U.S. and Pakistani leaders will lay out plans at the talks to train Pakistani troops elsewhere in the region, discreetly out of sight.
The summit comes at a time of unusual friction in U.S.-Pakistani relations. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last month that the Zardari government had "basically abdicated" to militants.
She and other U.S. officials have spoken openly about concerns over the security of Pakistan's estimated 60 to 100 nuclear weapons, a subject that previous U.S. administrations avoided in public.
Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, said the two countries were in agreement on the way forward, and predicted that in the talks "past recriminations about who is to blame will be replaced by plans for who will do what." Pakistani officials have complained that despite U.S. commitments, little new economic and military aid has been sent.
The Defense Department has proposed $400 million for military aid, and the State Department is pushing for $497 million for economic, law enforcement and humanitarian assistance. In addition, Obama's regional strategy proposed $1.5 billion a year for five years as part of a bill that also sets conditions for the aid.
Pakistanis dislike the conditions, saying they represent meddling and pose both political and operational problems.
Similarly, Pakistanis have objected to U.S. overtures to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a move the Obama administration has said is no different than contacts with opposition leaders in other countries but that Pakistanis fear is meant to undermine Zardari's government.
The security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is a particular concern of Obama's, officials said.
"The security of nuclear weapons in Pakistan, and the security of nuclear weapons throughout the world, is something that the president thinks is of the highest priority," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
However, Zardari said in a CNN interview that the nuclear weapons were "definitely safe" and that there was no risk the militants would take them over.
"It doesn't work like that," he said. "We have a 700,000-[man] army." Private analysts say Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is dispersed widely throughout the country but includes several top-secret facilities near the country's capital.
"Right now the security is pretty good -- and it's as good or bad as the Pakistani army," said Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia program for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. "If down the road you see the Pakistani government become more shaky . . . that could be impaired."
To help counter the militants, U.S. officials would like Pakistan to draw from the force it has massed on its border with rival India.
Administration officials said Obama would avoid lobbying Zardari directly on shifting forces from the Indian border, or on other specific steps. But other U.S. officials have not avoided being blunt in their recommendations.
"We need to put the most heavy possible pressure on our friends in Pakistan to join us in the fight against the Taliban and its allies," Richard C. Holbrooke, Obama's representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said in testimony before a House committee Tuesday.
Like talks between Obama and Zardari, U.S. discussions with Karzai could be strained. U.S. officials have criticized his leadership and what many say is his tolerance of corruption.
Karzai's relationship with the administration has been notably cooler than the cordial bond he enjoyed with former President Bush. Heading into his election campaign, the Afghan leader has sought to distance himself from elements of the Western-led military effort.
Karzai has criticized Western forces over civilian casualties, but has also been critical of the effectiveness of development aid, asserting that Afghans had hoped they would be much better off by now, nearly eight years after the fall of the Taliban.
On the eve of his departure for Washington, Karzai named an ex-warlord as one of his two vice presidential running mates. The choice of Mohammad Qasim Fahim caused dismay among Western diplomats.
In an address Tuesday to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, Karzai urged policymakers to be careful in the use of military force.
"In the longer term, the war on terrorism will succeed only if it is also addressed in a political manner," Karzai said. "It's not a military question at all. It's more a political question now."
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