After Israel, US Now Making UP With Afghanistan As Well: What's The Difference?

Gee, this sounds familiar:

The Obama administration, after 16 months of treating President Hamid Karzai with what some U.S. officials called "tough love," will welcome the Afghan leader Monday with all the trappings of a head of state, in what officials said is the start of a new, more pragmatic approach.

The shift, backed by the Pentagon and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, follows concerns that repeated public criticism of Mr. Karzai, particularly of his commitment to anticorruption efforts, was backfiring, leading the mercurial leader to lash out and undermining U.S. public support for the war

...U.S. officials said the transition from last month's bitter tenor to next week's red carpet is intentional. "The main objective of the trip is to repair the damage" caused by the war of words, says a U.S. official familiar with planning for the visit..

Apparently, Karzai will get to fly to Washington on a US Air Force jet that is normally reserved for senior American officials, and he was also offered the use of Blair House, the historic mansion across from the White House.

So it's not just Israel that Obama has tried to pressure.
And it's not just Israel that is the sudden beneficiary of White House largess.

So what explains the White House's exaggerated tough love towards Afghanistan and Israel?

In Afghanistan and Israel: Mere Incompetence?, Jennifer Rubin writes:

There are two possibilities in these scenarios: total incompetence and mendacity. In the case of Afghanistan, the administration more or less has gotten the policy right; it’s the execution that has been clumsy. In the case of Israel, however, the administration’s obvious animus toward Bibi and its infatuation with the Palestinian narrative suggest that the latter is at play. Their charm offensive is meant to suggest that the problem has been a lack of tact with American Jewry and a failure to make clear how really, madly, honestly, truly the administration is devoted to Israel. But unlike its policy on Afghanistan, in the case of Israel, the administration is wedded to disastrous policies (e.g., distancing ourselves from Israel, obsessing on a stalemated “peace process,” irresoluteness toward Iran, indifference on Muslim human-rights abusers). Until all of that changes or until there is a new Oval Office occupant, Israel remains imperiled.

Currently the focus is on this coming summer. Pajamas Media TV features a former US General who warns of chemical attacks against Israel from Hezbollah, whose offensive could include chemically armed SCUD missiles with a 450 km range, preemptive strikes on air fields, and a wave of tunnel attacks that cross from Lebanon into Israel.

This is not going to be a carbon copy of the last war with Hezbollah, and it will not conclude with another phony UN truce overseen by UNIFIL.

Technorati Tag: Israel and Lebanon