LeonHadar, aWashington-basedjournalist and globalaffairsanalyst, is the authorof Sandstorm: PolicyFailure in the Middle East (PalgraveMacmillan, 2005).
The meeting caps Mr Karzai's three-day trip to Washington that included talks with Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"There is a sense of resigned expectation on the island because no one really knows how Cuba is going to get out of this hole, " Eusebio Mujal-Leon, a Cuban-born professor now based in Washington, told Reuters news agency.