In his reported instruction the President slapped the rumps of Jim Jones and a legion of more or less senior people in his administration all of whom go by the name "anonymous." Presumably Mr Obama is exempting his own exalted self from both commandment and implied disapprobation.
The WaPo treatment is valuable in that it properly reminds not only the Washington insiders but We the People that Karzai is the key player in Afghanistan. No matter how much our ambassador in Kabul may dislike Karzai, see him as a fountainhead of corrupt misgovernment, the fact remains that Karzai holds the broadest brief of legitimacy in the badly fractured Afghan nation.
Ambassador Eikenberry neither likes nor trusts Karzai and as a result keeps plumping for finding ways to evade the central government and work directly with local leaders. The gambit offered by Eikenberry has a superficial plausibility and appeal. Following it would seem to provide a way to deliver security and governance services more effectively to Afghans long alienated from Kabul by the atmosphere of pervasive corruption and inefficiency. The Eikenberry option would also provide a way by which local gripes as well as tensions between Kabul and the locals could be utilized to foster more effective resistance to Taliban and others of its ilk.
However, the Eikenberry Option must founder on the rock of US policy. We are committed to assisting the creation of a centrally directed simulacrum of a nation-state. This implies that we must put our energies on supporting the government in Kabul first and foremost while encouraging the local leaders to rally to the support of Kabul.
It might be noted that the US went through a similar experience in South Vietnam. The Johnson administration exhibited its disgust with the non-democratic, corrupt, and inefficient Saigon regime by seeking with some degree of success to elude the central government in order to work directly with district and provincial officials. The net result of this was a further weakening of the perceived legitimacy of the Saigon regime, the growth of inordinate provincialism, the lowering of efficiency generally--and a vast increase in the scale of corruption.
The ancient saying, "dance with the one you brought" applies in the Afghan situation. Karzai came to power courtesy of the US and its allies. He is--and has been for years--our man in Kabul. Unlike the assorted "our men in Saigon," Karzai is an able political leader with the necessary "street cred" among most (but far from all) Afghans.
He has downsides, downsides with which we have been well acquainted for a long, long time. He is overly loyal to tribal associates, for example. He is self-destructively loyal to family as his protective relationship of his flagrantly criminal half-brother in Kandahar has shown. He is powerfully emotional, mercurial, in no way given to the cool, detached political style currently popular in the US.
It is important to understand that all these "flaws" from our perspective are not necessarily viewed as such within Afghanistan. Tribal and family loyalty are both a sine qua non of proper ethics in Afghanistan. So also are powerful emotions, powerfully expressed. They are the necessary attribute of a true leader. The idea of a Mr King of Cool being an effective leader is a null referent in the emotionally robust Afghan culture.
Corruption exists in many shapes and forms. In Afghanistan as in many traditional societies, it exists in an open, direct way. It is, in effect, a legitimate cost of living, of doing business, of securing justice. Even Taliban which rode to power promising justice without a price tag and without tribal connections speedily reneged. Mullah Omar and his boys--including those on the Shariah courts--came quickly to rediscover that the Koran alone does not change deeply embedded cultural features.
Corruption is something you complain about to willing ears. It is not something to live and die for, to kill or be killed over. Afghans are realists. They would like to see the costs of life lowered--which is what an end to governmental and judicial corruption would mean--but they are not going to fight to the death over its continuation or extinction.
Looking ahead to mid-2011, we must all recall that President Obama has stated we will start reducing our troop commitment in Afghanistan at that time. Leaving aside the debatable merits of providing a date certain so early in the force augmentation game, suffice it to say that the existence of sufficient stability by that date depends in large measure on Karzai's political sense and strength.
Karzai, not Obama, not Hilary Clinton, not Ambassadors Eikenberry or Holbrooke, not even General McChrystal (the American Karzai most trusts) only Karzai has the political instincts relevant to Afghanistan. He has both the ability and the legitimacy to make a deal with Taliban and other insurgent groups. He has the capacity to peel away the softer layers of insurgent support and membership from the true hard core which needs to be killed.
Karzai does possess the capacity to sell Kabul to the local leaders (excepting those of long standing tribal antipathy to the Pushtun.) This implies he is best located politically to exploit effectively the fruits of stability planted by the US and other ISAF combat units. The "build" part of "clear, hold, and build" belongs first and foremost to Karzai and his government. Without him exercising all of his capacities in this area, the success of "clear" and "hold" will whither rapidly.
Realizing this and acting on the realization will not be easy for the Obama administration, Congress, or many of We the People. When the sound and fury ends, the resulting nation, polity, and state will not be similar in any essential respect with the ideal held in the West generally and the US in particular. The legacy of the Bush/Cheney "nation-building" enthusiasm with its neocon driven overselling of the idea that a few American lives and a few billion US dollars would purchase a liberal, secular, pluralistic Western style nation-state lingers on with continued bad results in our concept of the possible in Afghanistan.
President Obama deserves faint credit for belatedly realizing that he had shot himself in the foot with his "tough love" campaign. It can only be hoped that he applies the new "be nice" stricture to his own conduct of personal diplomacy with President Karzai. Mr Obama and his "team" should be a bit humble and recognize that they are not and never will be experts on the history, culture, and contemporary dynamics in Afghanistan.
Of course, humility comes hard to the elite of the United States. So, breath holding is not in order. Not yet.
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