Latest News

On Friday, opponents of the law were preparing for a demonstration on Sunday condemning legislators who had voted for the ban — organizers were calling it the "March Against Scoundrels" — and a top official at the governing party, United Russia, lashed out with unusual vitriol. Opposition "hysteria" over the adoption ban was useful, in a way, the official, Andrei Isayev, wrote on the party's Web site, because it created a vivid distinction between patriotic Russians and others whom he witheringly called "citizens of the world."

"All the enemies of Russian sovereignty have revealed themselves as ardent supporters of American adoption," wrote Mr. Isayev, who sits on the party's general council, adding that on Sunday, "the latter will go out to march for the right of unrestricted export of Russian children to America."

"Let's look attentively and remember the faces of the organizers and active participants of this march," he wrote, calling Sunday's event a "March of Child Sellers." "Our task in the coming years is to drive them to the farthest edge of political and public life, to the middle of nowhere."

President Vladimir V. Putin approved the adoption ban last month, in retaliation for a new American law aimed at punishing human rights abuses in Russia. In 2011, about 1,000 Russian children were adopted by Americans, more than residents of any other foreign country, but still a tiny number given the nearly 120,000 children in Russia who are eligible for adoption.

Anger over the ban may not be enough to reinvigorate a protest movement in Russia that has flagged recently, when it became clear the rewards would be meager and the punishments harsh. But the reaction is deepening a rift that began to open last year, after Mr. Putin decided to address himself to a conservative, loyal electorate in the hinterlands, turning away from the prosperous urbanites who were drawn to antigovernment rallies.

"The country is really dividing," said Lev D. Gudkov, director of the Levada Center, a Moscow-based polling agency. Two-thirds of Russia's population, he said, lives in villages and small towns where people get their information from television, which often reports that American parents are never punished for abusing children adopted from Russia. Polling by the Public Opinion Fund in late December showed that 56 percent of respondents approved of the ban.

The rest are city dwellers who increasingly graze the Internet for news, and are less and less dependent on the government. That group lurched back to life after its long winter holiday and mobilized against the ban. The newspaper Novaya Gazeta has gathered 130,000 signatures in favor of revoking the law; on Thursday it announced 100,000 signatures on a petition in favor of dissolving Parliament.

All week, prominent entertainers have been promoting Sunday's march by posting video clips online in which they explain — often emotionally — why they are opposed to banning adoption by Americans.

"It's a horrible story.," said Liya Akhedzhakova, an actress beloved for Soviet-era comedies. "The most defenseless, unwanted children who are not quite healthy when they are born — they are not needed by anyone."

Tatyana Dogileva, another actress, practically spat out her words about politicians. "They play their cruel, dirty games, and this is their business. But why do they get children involved in it?"

She went on to address Alina Kabayeva, a gymnast who now sits in Parliament and who years ago was rumored to be Mr. Putin's mistress. "Alina, why did you vote for this law?" Ms. Dogileva said. "Aren't you sorry for these children, these specific children? They will die there, Alina."

Yevgeny S. Gontmakher, a social scientist, said Mr. Putin had made a gamble not unlike the one he made by arresting the oil tycoon Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky in 2004: Russian elites might disapprove, but they would get used to it, and a vast part of the electorate would not care much.

But he said the Kremlin would eventually suffer for the ban.

"In the long-term perspective, it is of course a loss, because there is 25 or 30 percent of society that has formed the opinion, because of these orphans, that politics has become immoral," Mr. Gontmakher said. "It's clear that a certain break has taken place inside these people. They may not say so during a public opinion poll, because there are elements of fear. But for these people the government has lost the last remains of its moral authority."

On Friday, nine days later, he resigned, citing a 1996 case in which he was charged with an "attempted lewd act upon" a 15-year-old girl, whom he later married. In a statement, Mr. Dare, 48, said he believed that "media attention to my family's personal life will harm the organization and musicians I cherish, as well as needlessly embarrass my wife."

Stephen Sichak, the orchestra's co-chairman, said it knew about the charge when Mr. Dare was hired but that inquiries into the case from "friends of the symphony," not reporters, began coming in. "Concerns about the public perception of this subject matter" emerged, Mr. Sichak said. "The situation has become a distraction and is keeping us from being able to do what we do best," making music, so the board accepted Mr. Dare's resignation.

The development came as a New York Times investigation into Mr. Dare's background raised questions about aspects of his résumé and business accomplishments. Former associates have suggested that he exaggerated the extent of his business dealings, and evidence to support some of his claims — like his having testified frequently before Congress — could not immediately be found.

Mr. Dare declined to answer questions during a conference call with New Jersey Symphony officials but said that he would consider e-mailed queries. He did not respond to an e-mail sent late Friday afternoon

Mr. Dare pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 60 days in jail in the criminal case. He was placed on probation for three years and was registered as a sex offender in California, where the incident occurred, according to court documents. In his statement Mr. Dare called his actions "attempted misbehavior," said the charges were "completely dismissed, and the case was set aside." The court documents show that the case was dismissed in 1999 and his probation cut short by a year.

According to reports at the time in The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif., Mr. Dare had been a fifth-grade teacher at Loma Linda Academy before opening an alternative school in 1992 called Brightwater Academy. The victim — now his wife — had been a student there. Her mother came home one day to find Mr. Dare naked in the house with her daughter and called the police. Mr. Dare then lived in Grand Terrace, in San Bernardino County, west of Los Angeles.

The prosecutor, Arthur Harrison, said in a telephone interview that the girl did not cooperate with police.

"As soon as she turned 18, he up and married her," said Mr. Harrison, now a state judge. "It was clearly a willing victim, but clearly under age as well."

Mr. Dare said he had told New Jersey Symphony officials early on about his encounter with the law.

Mr. Sichak, the co-chairman, confirmed that and said a "thorough background check was completed." Orchestra officials reviewed court documents. "We were satisfied with what we saw," he added. He declined to disclose Mr. Dare's salary, but the previous chief executive earned about $200,000 a year.

Mr. Sichak said reference calls were also made to former business associates.

"We attempted to understand his capabilities, his management style, what he was good at, what areas he could improve in," Mr. Sichak said. "We did not assess nor, frankly, base our decision on business results and the accuracy thereof."

Mr. Dare described his career this way in a television interview on NJTV: "I spent most of my career — the last say, 15, almost 20 years — building large companies."

His major business venture was as founder of Pacific Rim Partners Inc., which acted as a go-between between Japanese and American businesses. It was founded in 2008 and ceased most operations after the March 2011 earthquake in Japan.

The average query and response consumed 13 seconds, hardly enough time for enlightenment. Eighteen of the 23 answers were more succinct than the questions, including the last one.

"You don't like to reveal a whole lot, which you might have in common with your coach," a reporter began. "Why is that?"

"The more that you reveal, the less of an advantage you have," Kaepernick said. With that, he walked away.

Presuming Jim Harbaugh was not hidden behind Kaepernick like a ventriloquist with a hand up his jersey, the coach must have been pleased with his student's performance. It was straight from Harbaugh's public relations playbook.

Kaepernick is Harbaugh's quarterback, molded in Harbaugh's stony persona. He was drafted for the purpose of eventually leading Harbaugh's team and was promoted in November to carry Harbaugh's immediate championship aspirations.

So the attention in these playoffs is on Kaepernick. But it is the man behind him, working the controls, who has the most at stake.

Harbaugh is perched at a peculiar turning point in his coaching career. He is popular in the Bay Area because he has won, not because he is liked, relying on victories instead of personality to build good will. Now, due to the late-season swap to Kaepernick, and the rising expectations caused by his own success, Harbaugh's popularity promises to be tested like never before.

"Two things sustain you as a coach," said the former quarterback Trent Dilfer, an ESPN analyst who lives in the Bay Area. "Winning, No. 1. Likability, No. 2. Very few coaches have both. Jim does not have the consciousness of the public perception of him to have sustainability unless he wins. That's just a fact. He has to win."

So far, Harbaugh has won plenty. After four seasons of resurrecting Stanford into a powerhouse, in part behind quarterback Andrew Luck, Harbaugh moved triumphantly to the nearby 49ers in 2011.

His wealth of confidence and dash of intensity lifted San Francisco's enviable roster to a 13-3 record. The 49ers came within one game of last year's Super Bowl, losing to the Giants, 20-17, in overtime last January.

For the first time, he faces the full weight of expectation. The 49ers feel built for a championship. And Harbaugh, in his final tinkering, benched the rejuvenated and widely admired Alex Smith for the unleashed potential of Kaepernick.

"If it all blows up on Saturday, that will take a lot of that good will out of the bank," said Steve Young, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led San Francisco to its last Super Bowl, 18 years ago.

Before November, a key to the franchise's renewal was Harbaugh's rehabilitation of Smith. He was the first overall draft choice in 2005, tested and abandoned by a string of failing coaches. Harbaugh turned him into a trustworthy player of robotic efficiency.

On Oct. 29, Smith completed 18 of 19 passes for 232 yards and 3 touchdowns in a victory over the Cardinals. The 49ers were 6-2. Two days later, Smith and Harbaugh chauffeured cars in the San Francisco Giants' World Series victory parade. It was easy to imagine a Super Bowl parade come winter.

But Smith left the next game with a concussion, after throwing a touchdown pass through blurry vision. Kaepernick started the next game, against the Bears. His poise and pinpoint passing led the 49ers to a prime-time blowout victory.

Smith recovered. He had the league's highest passer rating. He had completed 25 of his previous 27 passes, for 304 yards and 4 touchdowns. He had led the 49ers to a 19-5 regular-season record under Harbaugh, including a season-opening 30-22 victory at Green Bay in September.

Harbaugh, somewhat clumsily over a couple of weeks, handed the job to Kaepernick.

"For the first time, fans have a little bit of pause about Harbaugh," said Brian Murphy, who co-hosts a morning sports radio show in San Francisco. "Because it's the first thing that isn't perfectly aligned with good feelings and wins."

The debate among fans has swirled since, funnel-like, all spilling into the story line of Saturday's game. Now people will know whether it was the right move.

"He went all in," Young said. "But that's Jim."

Harbaugh remains a bit of a mystery in San Francisco, stalking the sidelines in a black sweatshirt tucked into khaki pants. He can be hard to read behind his revolving kaleidoscope of expressions: perplexed, angry, smiling, wild-eyed, sometimes all at once.

He has a reputation, dating to his 14 years as an N.F.L. quarterback, for being a pugnacious sort. He once broke his hand punching the retired quarterback Jim Kelly because he did not like Kelly's critiques.

He is the rare coach to pick spats with opposing coaches, including a rare handshake controversy. Excited after a victory at Detroit in 2011, Harbaugh brusquely shook the hand of Lions Coach Jim Schwartz and slapped his back while jogging past. Schwartz, miffed, chased Harbaugh down. Players surrounded the coaches in a surreal scrum.

"I shook his hand too hard," Harbaugh said later, calling it a "slap-grab handshake." Without apologizing, he said, "That was on me."

When the Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride said this season that 49ers defensive lineman Justin Smith "gets away with murder" — part of an otherwise complimentary assessment — Harbaugh issued a statement. It demonstrated, among other things, a loyalty to his team and a flair for hyperbole.

"Kevin Gilbride's outrageous, irrational statement regarding Justin Smith's play is, first, an absurd analogy," Harbaugh said. "Second, it is an incendiary comment targeting one of the truly exemplary players in this league. It's obvious that the Giants coaching staff's sole purpose is to use their high visibility to both criticize and influence officiating."

In the locker room and on the practice field, Harbaugh is high energy. "Attack each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind" is an axiom he brandishes regularly, handed down from his father, Jack, a longtime football coach. (John Harbaugh, Jim's brother, coaches the Baltimore Ravens.)

But little of that is on display to the broader world. During news conferences and television interviews, Harbaugh looks like a man distracted, as if he were perpetually trying to remember if he left the coffee maker on at home. He has no aversion to awkward silences, and can rival Bill Belichick's ability for spoken minimalism.

On Monday, a reporter reminded Harbaugh that he said San Francisco's division was "arguably the best."

"Arguably," Harbaugh said.

The reporter asked if he wanted to bolster the argument, given the playoff victory of the rival Seahawks.

"Yeah, I'm willing to go further, a week later, to continue to argue that," Harbaugh said. "I think that's a fair argument."

So you think it is the toughest division?

"Arguably the toughest division," Harbaugh said.

The reporter, tugging hard on the verbal leash, asked what made it so tough.

"The strength of the teams," Harbaugh said.

Occasionally, a memorable line helps take the edge off Harbaugh's persona of quirky intensity. Earlier this season, Harbaugh described public concern over Alex Smith's confidence as "gobble gobble turkey."

And, coach, what is gobble gobble turkey?

"Just gobble gobble gobble turkey from jive turkey gobblers, you know," Harbaugh said with a smile.

On Wednesday, during a typically laborious news conference, Harbaugh said that the injured Justin Smith would play, "God willing and the creek don't rise."

Someone later asked Harbaugh if he was a fan of the entertainer Tennessee Ernie Ford.

"Who isn't?" Harbaugh said.

You just quoted him, Harbaugh was told. (Actually, Ford's catchphrase usually began, "The good Lord willing.")

"That was Tennessee Ernie Ford?" Harbaugh replied. "I thought that was Jack Harbaugh."

Performances like that, while hardly necessary to win football games, could go a long way toward endearing Harbaugh to the masses cheering him on. And maybe they will rub off on Kaepernick, his intriguingly talented, tight-lipped quarterback.

Or the two of them could just keep winning games.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure on Saturday night for 'the decision,' " Murphy, the radio host, said of the lingering quarterback controversy. "A lot is on No. 7. And a lot is on the guy in the black sweatshirt and khakis."

"In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt-limit extension only as part of unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promises and trigger a global economic crisis — without Congressional approval, if necessary," wrote Senators Harry Reid of Nevada, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Charles E. Schumer of New York and Patty Murray of Washington.

The letter signaled an escalation in the war of words over the federal debt ceiling, which could be breached in just weeks. Already, liberal intellectuals have been trying to rally support for measures to go around the Republican blockade, from declaring that the 14th Amendment gives the president unilateral authority to raise the debt ceiling to minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin that would be used to pay the nation's debts.

"All Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, have a stake in ensuring that our country meets its legal obligations," the Democratic leaders wrote. "Financial markets have long viewed securities backed by the full faith and credit of the United States as the most trustworthy in the world. This lowers borrowing costs for homes, cars, and college for all Americans and strengthens our economy. If we violate that trust for the first time in history, we will never fully regain it, and every American will suffer."

Mr. Obama has said he will not negotiate on raising the government's statutory borrowing limit, but without some extralegal maneuver, it is not clear how he can keep that promise. Speaker John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, has not backed down on his demand that any increase in the debt limit include cuts at least equal in scope, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, has also said the debt ceiling issue must be used to secure spending reductions. Other Republicans have suggested that a shutdown of some parts of the federal government may be necessary to focus public attention on the debt.

Conservative Republicans say that even without an increase in the debt ceiling, the administration could continue to pay the government's creditors by ensuring that incoming tax receipts go first to pay off debts. To do that, however, huge and immediate cuts in government spending would be necessary, and global financial markets would probably be rattled.

The Senate Democratic leaders did not suggest what "lawful steps" they had in mind. A Democratic aide said the senators would be inclined to have the president declare unilateral authority under the 14th amendment, which states, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

That, the aide said, would be more politically tenable than using the loophole of a trillion-dollar coin, minted under a legal provision that allows the Treasury to issue a platinum coin of any denomination.

On Dec. 17, 2011, surveillance footage showed the man, Jerome Isaac, who was wearing a gas canister and a surgical mask, cornering the woman, Deloris Gillespie, 73, in the elevator of Ms. Gillespie's apartment building in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Mr. Isaac doused Ms. Gillespie with accelerant, then tossed a Molotov cocktail into the elevator.

"This has to be one of the most horrific crimes I have ever seen," the judge, Justice Vincent Del Giudice, said. "I had to review that video of the horrible death of that woman suffering."

Justice Del Giudice added, "That is not something one can take from one's mind."

Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Mr. Isaac, 48, said nothing during the hearing. He tilted his head down and closed his eyes for much of it.

Mr. Isaac was sentenced to prison despite recent questions about his mental health.

He pleaded guilty to killing Ms. Gillespie in November. But at a hearing later that month, Justice Del Giudice, citing a probation report, described how Mr. Isaac had said that he heard voices and that the devil had told him what to do.

At that hearing, Mr. Isaac's lawyer, Howard Tanner, said he believed Mr. Isaac was competent. Yet Justice Del Giudice, who was scheduled to sentence Mr. Isaac, ordered a mental health examination instead.

Though Mr. Isaac was diagnosed with a mental illness during that examination, Mr. Tanner said on Friday that Mr. Isaac was fit to be sentenced. The exact nature of the illness was not disclosed.

"He is fully competent and has been throughout my representation," Mr. Tanner said, adding: "This is a profoundly sad case — one of the saddest cases of my career."

Ms. Gillespie's daughter, Sheila Gillespie-Hillsman, who lives in Gary, Ind., had attended the sentencing hearing in November but was not in court on Friday.

In a telephone interview, Ms. Gillespie-Hillsman said she was "fed up" with the criminal justice process.

"I wanted to see his face, and I wanted him to see my face," Ms. Gillespie-Hillsman said. But, she added, the prospect of another delay was too stressful.

In a written statement read to the court on Friday, Ms. Gillespie-Hillsman described the anger and sadness her mother's death had caused. Yet Ms. Gillespie's family believed Mr. Isaac's sentence was adequate.

"I'm satisfied because he shouldn't be out on the streets again," said the prosecutor, Mark Hale, who read Ms. Gillespie-Hillsman's statement. "Especially since the 50-year sentence is without the hope of parole."

Mr. Isaac had once worked for Ms. Gillespie, helping clean her cluttered fifth-floor apartment. But Ms. Gillespie believed Mr. Isaac was stealing from her, so she fired him.

Mr. Isaac later told the authorities that he was upset with Ms. Gillespie because she had not paid him for his work. Mr. Isaac believed Ms. Gillespie owed him $2,000.

Mr. Obama also made it clear that he contemplated leaving relatively few troops in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, saying that the mission will be focused on advising and supporting Afghan troops and targeting the remnants of Al Qaeda.

"That is a very limited mission, and it is not one that would require the same kind of footprint we've had over the last 10 years in Afghanistan," Mr. Obama said, standing next to Mr. Karzai at a joint news conference at the White House.

Mr. Karzai professed to be comfortable with that, saying it was up to the United States to decide the size of a residual force. "Numbers are not going to make a difference in the situation in Afghanistan," he said, noting that it was the nature of the broader relationship that mattered.

Addressing a major sticking point between the countries, Mr. Karzai said the United States had agreed to turn over control of the prisons that house terrorism suspects to Afghan control. That would happen, he said, "soon after" he returned to Kabul.

Mr. Obama said that in order to leave any troops behind, the United States would require guarantees of legal immunity for its soldiers – a demand that the administration failed to obtain from Iraq, leading Mr. Obama to withdraw all remaining American troops from that country in 2011.

Mr. Karzai, citing the agreement to transfer detention centers and the planned withdrawal of American troops from Afghan villages, said he would push for such legal immunity.

"With those issues resolved, as we did today, I can go to the Afghan people and argue for immunity for U.S. troops in Afghanistan in a way that Afghan sovereignty will not be compromised, in a way that Afghan law will not be compromised."

In a joint statement released before the news conference, Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai extolled the progress made by the Afghan security forces, noting that Afghan troops now take the lead in providing security in 80 percent of the country – a number that will rise to 90 percent by spring, when American and NATO troops are scheduled to move to a purely advisory role.

At that time, the statement said, American soldiers will pull out of patrols in villages, a measure that Mr. Karzai had sought.

Both leaders declined to be drawn into a discussion of the specific number of troops who would be involved in either the coming drawdown or in the residual force that would remain in Afghanistan after 2014. Mr. Obama said he would make decisions in the coming months based on the recommendations of his military commanders.

As the White House examines options for the size of a residual force, ranging from roughly 3,000 to 9,000 troops, Mr. Obama has directed his advisers to answer a basic question: Is such a force necessary to carry out the narrow counterterrorism objective and training mission the United States envisions for postwar Afghanistan?

Mr. Karzai came to Friday's meeting with far different expectations, according to Afghan officials.

Although he has been careful not to discuss specific troop numbers in public, Mr. Karzai appears to be counting on a substantial residual American force — perhaps as many as 15,000 troops, whose mission would be to advise Afghan security forces in their fight against the Taliban insurgency and carry out raids against Al Qaeda.

And he is hoping the United States will supply the Afghan Army with the latest military hardware, including tanks and fighter planes.

These very different expectations, analysts said, could reignite the tensions in a relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai that has been notoriously fraught over issues like corruption, civilian casualties and threats to Afghan sovereignty.

"There's been a steady rollback of our objectives of what's good enough in Afghanistan," said Vali Nasr, a former senior State Department official who worked on Afghanistan and Pakistan and is the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

"If you're Karzai, you're basically now facing the same calculation that Maliki did in Iraq," said Mr. Nasr, referring to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. " 'If you're not willing to stay in large numbers, why do I need you?' "

The possibilities for friction are compounded by cynicism on both sides: the sense in Washington that Mr. Karzai is a mercurial, unreliable partner, and the suspicion in Kabul that the Americans care about Afghanistan only when they need it for other purposes, like fighting Al Qaeda.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former commander in Afghanistan, warned in a recent interview that if the United States shrank too radically its advisory support for the Afghan military or curtailed its civilian programs, it might lose Afghan support for the counterterrorism operations it might want to continue there.

"If you don't have the support of the Afghan people," he said, "there's no reason for them to be supportive of this."

It is a measure of the potential disconnect between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Obama that Afghan officials involved in preparing his trip said the belief in the Afghan leader's inner circle was that Mr. Karzai was coming to the talks with the upper hand.

In Mr. Karzai's view, these officials and other people close to the president said, the United States needs a robust American presence in Afghanistan after 2014 to keep Al Qaeda off balance and Iran and Pakistan at bay. The Afghans "think they are indispensable; they think they have all the leverage," one Afghan official said.

The Afghans were readying complaints about the United States' continuing to detain Afghans at a prison next to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which was supposed to have been handed over to Afghan authorities in September.

Some of Mr. Karzai's advisers are aware of the tenuous support at the White House for the war effort. Fearful of a repeat of Iraq, where Mr. Obama ordered a total military withdrawal, they have prevailed on the Afghan president to soften his position on granting immunity to any American troops stationed in Afghanistan after 2014, which he has done in recent months.

The ideal outcome for Mr. Karzai, these officials said, would be an American and allied training force that would help the Afghan Army make the most of the billions in aid it is expecting to receive, and a robust counterterrorism force that could work with Afghan Special Forces to combat the remnants of Al Qaeda.

The White House's calculation looks very different. While cost was a consideration in Iraq, Mr. Obama is more sensitive now to the budget consequences of keeping troops in Afghanistan after his bruising fiscal showdown with Congress, and the prospect of huge mandatory cuts in the Pentagon's budget.

"You've got to step back and see the whole field from the point of view of taxpayer spending," said Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

To some extent, officials said, the administration's floating of a "zero option" for troops is a bargaining ploy, with both the Pentagon and with Mr. Karzai.

But resolving the differences between the United States and the Afghan government, if they are resolved, is likely to have a profound effect on the long-term commitment of other NATO members.

An allied official said that if the White House opted for a minimal troop presence, the rest of the NATO allies were expected to follow suit, especially since the war was even more unpopular among their publics. Many critics complain that Mr. Karzai has been slow to pursue corruption. But some analysts said the emerging American policy might deepen Mr. Karzai's insecurities.

"We will not be able to give Karzai any more spine to go after cronyism and nepotism," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on Afghanistan at the Brookings Institution.

The one issue on which both sides appear in sync is the peace process, according to the Afghan officials and people close to the Afghan leader. Like their American counterparts, Afghan officials want to see negotiations with the Taliban make progress and offer rosy public assessments of the diplomatic effort.

But privately, the Afghans are aware that there have been no meaningful engagements with the Taliban in nearly a year, and that until the insurgents prove willing to sit down, the peace process will make little headway.