Obama to meet Afghan and Pakistan leaders

By David Alexander

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama presents his strategy for defeating al Qaeda to the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday amid growing U.S. concern it is losing the war and neither is a reliable ally.

The White House meetings with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are likely to be cagey affairs -- both visitors have been heavily criticized by Obama's administration and are also wary of each other.

Equally, Obama's new strategy for defeating al Qaeda and Taliban militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan has not been universally welcomed in either country.

Wednesday is Obama's first face-to-face meeting with the two men to discuss his new regional strategy and is a chance to air his concerns about corruption and poor governance.

One of the biggest challenges will be to convince Pakistan to take the threat of Islamist militancy seriously and prevent the Taliban using its soil to attack Afghanistan, a major bone of contention between Islamabad and Kabul.

"Pakistanis have a fundamental doctrinal disjuncture with what's happening because they are ... geared to dealing with India while they are facing marauders from the west," said Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism with the Bush administration.

As they seek reliable allies in the region, U.S. officials can sometimes give conflicting signals, at times praising cooperation with Pakistan's military and at others accusing it and its powerful spy agency of helping al Qaeda.

"Some have raised concern that elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence services may be sympathetic to militant groups, leading to caution on our part," Obama's undersecretary of defence for policy, Michele Flournoy, told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee in written testimony last week.