Hamid Karzai visits Washington to warmer welcome than last meeting

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is in Washington today for a week of meetings with President Obama and other high-level U.S. officials. The tenor of this visit is vastly different from the last time the two leaders met when Obama flew to Kabul in late March to lecture Karzai on corruption in Afghanistan.

The Obama administration has offered Karzai a warm welcome this time and the Afghan leader will reportedly spend much of Wednesday with Barack Obama. Karzai’s administration says one of his top priorities is obtaining U.S. support to begin talks with some Afghan Taliban leaders. Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute, and a former State Department adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, joins us with his analysis.