"..... But amid all its to-ing and fro-ing about Karzai, the administration has yet to sort out just what it wants to do in partnership with him.
Sorting this out must start with sober recognition of an essential truth: America's war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan was not, is not and will never be Karzai's war.
Americans are not entitled to feel affronted when Karzai does not meet our expectations of him as a "wartime ally" — whether in combating opium cultivation and trafficking, pursuing "good governance," advancing women's rights or building a genuinely national Afghan army and national security apparatus. None is a high priority for him.
From my experience working on Afghan issues for the Bush administration in Washington and the United Nations, 2001-3 — I can testify that Karzai was chosen as Afghanistan's first post-Taliban president for two key reasons.
First, the United States and its international partners decided it was useful to have an ethnic Pashtun in the presidency. Otherwise, significant parts of the Pashtun population — Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, with 42 percent of the population — might revolt against a new political structure. As a non-Taliban Pashtun from an important tribe, Karzai met this criterion.
Second, the new Afghan president needed to be a focal point for national reconciliation, developing carefully negotiated power-sharing arrangements among Afghanistan's ethnic, sectarian and tribal groups.
Karzai was — and is — a conciliatory figure, with assets that could be valuable for post-conflict stabilization. Though Pashtun, he could work constructively with non-Pashtun groups, including some of Afghanistan's most powerful warlords
While Karzai supported the U.S. military campaign in 2001, he had not been an ardent Taliban foe. In fact, Karzai initially backed the Taliban after they came to power, because he believed they might be able to bring some order to Afghanistan's profound lawlessness
For Karzai, ending the fighting among ethnic, sectarian and tribal groups that has plagued Afghanistan for decades clearly trumps Washington's high priority wish list — like "good governance" and "capacity building." By 2003, Karzai seemed to realize that stopping Afghanistan's civil war could only be possible with power-sharing on a national scale — including with the Taliban.
At the same time, U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan led to an increasingly severe backlash against a perceived occupation — for which Karzai was seen as the primary "lackey." U.S. military operations have generated unacceptably high civilian casualties.
Under these circumstances, neither Karzai nor Washington has been able to achieve much of what each wants most. Meanwhile, the Taliban has reasserted its influence and gained control over large portions of territory.
Senior U.S. commanders acknowledge there is no purely military solution in Afghanistan. The idea of building an Afghan "national" army to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda is internally contradictory, to the point of being delusional.
No Afghan army with even a minimally proportionate Pashtun representation could ever treat the Taliban as its enemy. If Washington withdraws military forces over the next few years, the Obama administration needs what Karzai can offer — national reconciliation through negotiated power-sharing arrangements.
To this end, Washington should work with Karzai to bring the Taliban together with other Afghan factions, while also keeping the most strongly anti-Taliban elements at the table. This means a serious diplomatic strategy to win cooperation from Afghan factions — most important external backers.
Washington should support Karzai's efforts to reach out to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states with ties to the Taliban. Similarly, Washington should be supporting Karzai's efforts to persuade Iran to accept the Taliban's inclusion in a political settlement, while also using Afghan groups, to which Tehran has ties, as a check on the Taliban's power and reach.
To stabilize Afghanistan, Obama must make hard choices. "Middle ground" policies that all the administration's major players can tolerate will not prove workable in Afghanistan.
To succeed, Obama must learn to embrace what Karzai has to offer.
No comments:
Post a Comment