President Obama's recent visit to Kabul was in tune with local traditions of hospitality: the guest arrived late and unannounced. But unlike his first visit, in 2008, Obama's departure this time did not leave behind a silence filled with hope. Instead, rumours began to circulate in a vain attempt to make sense of this unexpected nocturnal visit. The notion that President Karzai had been kept in the dark about the visit until a mere hour before Obama's arrival was particularly embarrassing, and was immediately dismissed by the government spokesman who reassured the public that they had three full days to prepare for Obama.
Be that as it may, the exact words exchanged at the meeting were not made public, leaving local media outlets with little choice but to interpret the visit in the absence of confirmed facts. A striking interpretation that emerged in the media and blogosphere linked Obama's visit to President Karzai's new, provocative foreign policy, which was on full display during his recent trips to Tehran and Beijing, – Washington's key rivals in the region. Karzai's visit to China resulted in the signing of three major trade and economic deals, putting Sino-Afghan relations on solid ground. His Nowruz visit to Tehran had little economic impact, but was loaded with the symbolic meaning of a shared culture and history, linking Kabul to Tehran.
Karzai's intention to forge new regional alliances in preference to relying solely on US patronage could not have been made more clear, but this change of heart is in part also a result of Washington's own policy. After all, in its eagerness to distance itself from Bush's legacy of "US leniency" in Afghanistan, the Obama administration repeatedly humiliated President Karzai, treating him like a disobedient schoolboy rather than the leader of a country. In theory, such pressure should have resulted in a more efficient, corruption-free administration in Kabul. In reality, the move has driven the Afghan leader straight into the arms of US's rivals in the region. President Karzai's critics in the media have labelled his new, provocative foreign policy "an act of adventurism, reeking of political immaturity," but the fact remains that by contrast to the US, regional powers such as India, China, and even Iran, are capable of delivering more efficient and less-costly reconstruction work in Afghanistan. More importantly, they can do so without the patronising democracy and reform sermons that recently accompanied US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Obama's visit may have been triggered by Washington's realisation that Kabul is in danger of slipping away from the US orbit of influence, and instead entering the sphere of influence occupied by US rivals. If this is true, then, the realisation is quite likely to have occurred too late. In the words of one newspaper, "there is little doubt that these days, Karzai is no longer a politician who measures himself against the benchmark of US priorities. He has gained sufficient political self-confidence to allow him to choose his government's direction by himself."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/30/obama-belated-afghan-visit