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In a sudden reversal, from the last few months when the Obama administration criticized Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government as corrupt and unreliable, Mr. Karzai and his ministers have been in Washington DC being feted by Obama and his cabinet in advance of the official start of the Kandahar Offensive. Just five weeks ago, the Obama administration cited Karzai’s lack of political and personal credibility in its efforts to bypass the embattled leader often referred to as “the mayor of Kabul.” After last year’s elections in Afghanistan, the Obama administration pressured Karzai to root out endemic corruption in his government. But Karzai responded by accusing the US, UK, and UN of committing fraud in those elections. He also called NATO troops an occupying army, and suggested that the people of Kandahar had veto power over the planned US/NATO offensive. Now, the administration is using an array of diplomatic back-flips to embrace the Afghan president: Richard C. Holbrooke, former UN envoy to Kabul, was dispatched to Andrews Air Force Base on Monday to greet Karzai upon his arrival, and Vice President Biden is hosting Karzai for a private dinner. The new “charm offensive” as the New York Times has called it, may be the Obama administration’s acknowledgment that it is “stuck” with Karzai. Some speculate that it is a new effort to convey to the skeptical American public that Mr. Karzai and his cabinet ministers are reliable partners for the upcoming offensive in Kandahar province, as the war’s popularity continues to wane. Although the operation in the Taliban stronghold has yet to officially begin, General Stanley McChrystal is on record as saying the battle “had already begun.” U.S. Special Operations units have begun “shaping the battlefield” by picking up and picking off suspected insurgent leaders.

GUEST: Phyllis Bennis, directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and is the author of numerous books, her latest being Ending the War in Afghanistan: A Primer