Last Thursday, a clearly frustrated Karzai criticized the coalition's anti-terror campaign, deploring the deaths of hundreds of Afghans and appealing for more help for his government.
Karzai did not repeat that criticism with Rice by his side, and Rice gave little sign that she is worried about the direction of the fight against terror even while acknowledging the scope of the challenge.
"This is an international force that is determined to try to undermine the aspirations of free people and they are not going to win," Rice said.
"We have to realize we that we have a common enemy. We can all do more. We can all work harder we all need to constantly assess our strategy, look at our tactics, make certain that we are responding to their change in tactics, because this is a thinking enemy."
Outside Kabul, there is little evidence of improvements in infrastructure or daily life since the Taliban was ousted. This has allowed resistance to regain strength.
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