FOR years, Hamid Karzai’s political foes have casti gated him as “the American puppet.” Now, as Afghans prepare to vote in the second round of their presidential election next week, many see Karzai as the man that the Obama administration wants to bring down.
Kabul is full of rumors that Washington is working hard to ensure a “convincing victory” for Karzai’s rival, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah Zamariani, the former foreign minister.
“The Obama administration always saw Karzai as a Bush leftover and was looking for an opportunity to jettison him,” says a French diplomat in Kabul. “Vice President Joseph Biden is especially active in that direction.”
The new US administration has not tried to hide its coolness, not to say hostility. It refused to arrange a state visit for Karzai, allowing him to come to Washington only on a working visit in tandem with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
On visits to Kabul, administration officials, including Biden and special emissary Richard Holbrooke, made it clear that the “special relationship” forged under President George W. Bush has ended.
Then came Washington’s thinly disguised pressure to cancel the results of the first round of the election, which Karzai insists he won. The consensus in Kabul is that Karzai accepted a runoff under “intense pressure” from Washington.
This week, Karzai found himself facing a new campaign of denigration he believes is orchestrated by Washington.
This came in the form of allegations by unnamed “CIA officials” that Karzai’s brother, Ahmad Wali, has been on the agency’s payroll for eight years. The reports, beamed into Afghanistan by the Persian- and Pashtun-language services of the Voice of America, also claim that Ahmad Wali Karzai plays a “central role” in Afghanistan’s illicit drug trade.
The younger Karzai denies the charges. “I have never taken money from any organization,” he said in a phone interview from Kandahar. “If anyone has evidence, let them bring it out for all to see.”
Some US officials more than hint that President Obama would not send more troops until “the Karzai clan is sent packing.”
“If we are going to conduct a population-centric strategy [when] we are perceived as backing thugs, then we are just undermining ourselves,” says Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the US military intelligence chief in Afghanistan.
All this is in contrast with the way the Bush administration treated Karzai. In those “good old days,” Karzai could phone Bush whenever he wanted and was always greeted as a patriot and a valuable ally.
Some in the Obama administration think that Karzai misinterpreted the US position and used America as “his tribe” in a power struggle that had little to do with US strategic interests.
In this analysis, Karzai is far from being an American puppet; rather, he used the US support to impose his clan’s domination. When NATO tried to appoint a special coordinator, Karzai vetoed the scheme, with support from the Bush administration.
There’s no doubt that Karzai did use US support to consolidate his hold on power. It’s also true that he has grown distant, haughty and, as some suggest, arrogant. Few would contest the charge that corruption and nepotism afflict his administration.
Sensing the Obama administration’s hostility, Karzai has tried to secure support from other foreign powers, notably Iran and India. The men he has chosen as vice-presidential running mates are known as favorites of Tehran and New Delhi. He has also made it clear that he agreed to a runoff under US pressure, publicly regretting “a plot to discredit the first election managed by the Afghans.”
Whatever the runoff’s results, Washington’s anti-Karzai campaign could weaken the Afghan presidency. If Karzai wins, he’d start his second term amid doubts about US commitment to the Afghan project. Even if the Obama administration decides to work with Karzai, his entourage will no longer trust the Americans.
Some compare Obama’s moves to bring down the Karzai clan to President John Kennedy’s engineering of the downfall of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam in 1963.
“We have learned much from the recent American moves,” says a Karzai adviser. “The Americans always destroy their friends in the hope of wooing their enemies.”
If Zamariani wins, chances of enlisting Pakistan’s support for a unified anti-Taliban strategy could vanish. The Tajik “favorite son” might also find it impossible to court the disaffected Pashtuns. His only advantage is his ability to combine US backing with support from Iran and India.
The ideal solution is a government of national unity that includes both Karzai and Zamariani, with the backing of the Loya Jirgah, the traditional constituent assembly.
The Loya Jirgah could approve constitutional amendments, turning Afghanistan into a parliamentary democracy rather than a presidential system, to allow power sharing among the country’s 18 ethnic and religious communities.
That scheme, however, can’t succeed without strong, sincere and long-term commitment by America and NATO. And such a commitment can’t come out of such Kennedy-style petty politics as cutting down Karzai to “prove” that Bush was wrong even on Afghanistan.