Apparently Mr Obama views interactions between heads of state to be roughly akin to the asymmetrical relation which he had with students during his (short) time as a professor. You know how those go: "Me talk. You listen. This will be on the test."
Within days of the American president's rapid departure it became very evident that Karzai was not thrilled by hearing a lecture on the merits of good government, the need to establish a meritocracy in the Afghan administrative structure, and the absolute imperative of removing corruption as a daily feature of Afghan life. Leaving aside such minor considerations as the massive irrelevance of the concept "meritocracy" to any segment of Afghan political life, the proud, highly nationalistic, and prickly Karzai must have been personally offended by the tone of Mr Obama's exercise in hectoring.
Judging by domestic appearances Mr Obama is aloof, given to the patronizing, the condescending, radiates a feeling of smug superiority, and shows little, if any, capacity to connect man-to-man on a basis of shared respect and concomitant equality. In short, he exhibits all the clinical symptoms of liberal academic-itis.
For all his faults, George W. Bush was not subject to this occupational disease of the professorate and other components of the hoi oligoi. Bush could and did connect effectively on a gut level with Karzai as he did many other political figures around the world. Equal in importance, Bush talked with Karzai regularly and frequently.
In sharp contrast, Obama has eschewed the telephone. His detached, distant style has dictated either the hurling of Jovian thunderbolts from the Olympus of the Oval or, in this case, a midnight raid. The style reinforced the content to torque Karzai well beyond his limits.
The Afghan was probably genuinely surprised by the waves of outrage in Washington and elsewhere in the West provoked by his blast to the Afghan parliament regarding the subject of just who controls the Afghan elections and to what purpose this control is applied. His comments were delivered in the context of Afghan culture and its political expressions which both allow and encourage a strongly personal style as well as a degree of fiddling with the electoral process by the guy-in-charge.
Karzai responded quickly and properly to the negativity raging in and around the White House by calling Secretary of State Clinton. He said all the right yadda-yadda as did she. Diplomatic forms were followed with all due regard allowing both sides to back away from the controversy of the day.
Of course having to bend a knee to the American (female) Secretary of State did nothing to lower the Karzai anger threshold. That resulted in his second, stronger blast against not only the UN and the West generally, but against the US specifically. In essence Karzai told the seventy or so invited parliamentarians that money and troops did not and could not buy either the US or the West operational dominance over Afghanistan.
Karzai's position is not only justifiable, it is right on.
He knows (as does the Obama administration) that we and others are spending money and troops in his country for our reasons, to achieve our goals. He knows, as does the Obama administration, that once we have accomplished our goals, we will leave the place. Karzai knows well that there is no desire on the part of the US or other countries to have an unending presence in Afghanistan.
The necessarily time limited nature of our presence in Afghanistan, which has been made quite explicit by Mr Obama, marks the limit of our capacity to influence Afghan politics, social structure, or cultural imperatives. All of the hype about "nation building" in no way alters the fact that our goal is simply to assure Taliban is militarily neutralized and no future Afghan government will be so ill-advised as to offer "Islamic hospitality"to an Islamist jihadist group such as al-Qaeda.
Once that has been achieved, or, in the alternative, we lose political will to continue the combat, we won't be able to get our troops on the aircraft fast enough. That option is not available to Karzai and others in his government and military. They will have to stay after having cut the best possible deal with Taliban and other insurgents.
Insofar as foreigners are seen or can be plausibly represented as "interfering" with internal Afghan affairs including but not limited to the conduct of elections, it makes Karzai's tasks of staying in power and cutting a good deal with the insurgents all the more difficult. To survive let alone negotiate with Taliban and the others from a position of credible strength, it is essential that Karzai's government be seen as authentically Afghan. This implies not only the necessity of barring foreigners from having the majority say over elections but appearing to be in control of the operations and activities of foreign military forces.
Karzai's successful survival as well as his capacities at both hostilities termination and the far harder task of conflict resolution require that he be seen (and see himself) as being accorded equality of status by the American president. Bush was able to do this, apparently without effort, while Obama is not.
Other, lesser, Americans including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, and General McChrystal have been able to show all the correct signs of deference to the Afghan president and Afghan cultural practices. Foreign leaders, can we say, "Ahmedinejad," have been able to do so as well.
Mr Obama is not. As a result his foray into personal diplomacy was both a failure and counterproductive. This puts it on a par with his repeated efforts at Wilsonian style public diplomacy.
It is quite possible that Bush/Cheney and the neocon ninnies recognized that regardless of all the verbiage regarding "nation-building" Afghanistan was never going to become a model Western pluralistic society with free, transparent democratic institutions, separation of faith and state, an independent judiciary, a corruption free paragon of free enterprise virtue. It is self-evident that Mr Obama and many of his "team" do not have a similar, firm grip on reality.
Mr Obama quite obviously subscribes to the specious notion that if we hector enough, lecture enough, chide enough, mentor enough, threaten enough, send enough "experts," spend enough money, Afghanistan will suddenly transform itself into the Perfect Twenty-First Century Republic. There is no way, not on this planet, not in this reality.
As a good member of the progressive hoi oligoi, President Obama (and many others) believes wholeheartedly that those of greater eduction, a more multi-cultural perspective, and a commitment to both lofty values and the sweet, soft power of reason can and must uplift, improve the hairy knuckle-dragging barbarian masses among which is listed Hamid Karzai. All that is needed is to patiently keep trying should the great unwashed not understand and appreciate all that is being done on their behalf.
Well, bucko, the Geek will believe that when he sees the video of Obama sitting cross-legged on an Afghan rug, looking comfortable and totally at ease as he says, "Hey, Hamid, how's it hanging?"
No comments:
Post a Comment