Karzai Is Out For Himself--What A Shock!

There is a piece in the NYT which is disquieting but not at all surprising. Quoting the recently resigned or fired director of Afghan intelligence as well as a passel of unnamed "senior" sources privy to Karzai's thoughts, words, and action, the paper concluded that the Afghan president has lost faith in the US/NATO capacity to defeat Taliban and is off to make a separate peace behind the collective backs of the West.

Despite the introduction of increased forces and the new approach of General Stanley McChrystal, the Afghan president has convinced himself that the Westerners will lose to the Pakistan supported Afghan Taliban. The real deal is, of course, that Karzai is still hacked off from the accusations of vote fraud in last year's election and the high-handed hectoring he received from both President Obama in person and from assorted US civilian personnel.

Karzai is a highly impossible person with whom to deal. He is personally parsimonious with honesty. His relatives are even more afflicted with this feature. Karzai has a most prickly sense of honor and is more easily dissed than the most thin skinned homey in the hood. On top of that, he is tribal to the max, distrustful of other tribals in the extreme, and fiercely xenophobic. All this means Karzai is a good Afghan politician.

It is possible that the dark mutterings of a separate peace are being made and marketed with premeditation as a way of scaring more bucks from the US. And, one must never be ready to overlook the strong tendency of both the NYT and the WaPo to scent American defeat in either Iraq or Afghanistan whenever possible. Yet, there are good reasons for Karzai to cut a deal with Taliban in addition to simply staying alive and in power.

It is in his best interests as well as those of his relatives and tribe to cut the best possible deal with Taliban before the Westerners do more "damage" to the traditional order of affairs in Afghanistan. The slow motion, low friendly casualty approach to Marja and, yet to come, Kandahar does threaten the continuation of Afghan business as usual. It threatens the highly profitable opium trade. It threatens the tight web of corruption and favoritism which cements tribes and creates alliances between tribes.

Worse, as the Americans, British, and others expand their influence, it emboldens the local government types to bitch and moan with great justice regarding the yawning deficiencies in Karzai's central regime. The locals, the elders of the villages, districts, and provinces want to practice self-organization. Karzai and the rest of his Kabul crowd want centralization uber alles.

As long as Taliban controlled Helmand and other disputed territories, the locals had to keep their mouths closed. Now, with American and other foreign troops present and pushing Taliban hard as well as developing the notion of an Afghan national force, the locals are free to talk and the foreign correspondents are there to hear and record. Mr Karzai is not a happy camper with this sort of development.

At the same time we in the West have to keep in mind that Afghanistan under Karzai is not much more "liberal" and not a whit more "pluralistic" or "secular" than it was under the Taliban. The notion that the US or the ISAF or the UN could create a simulacrum of a modern, Western nation state was an exercise in self-delusion which boggles the imagination.

Afghanistan is and will remain a reactionary bastion of tribalism coupled with Islam--a religion which is little noted for its advanced, progressive, and expansive ideology. The place will remain mired in corruption, favoritism, feuds, and the other features of Afghan culture which assure it is not a candidate to join the League of Civilized States at any time soon.

What matters to the national and security interests of the US and others of the ISAF is that the government of Afghanistan--present and future--understand that any future harboring of bad actors such as al-Qaeda and Taliban will bring future boots on the ground. The Bush/Cheney crew had their chance to squash the jihadists and blew it. Now, McChrystal has a much harder task in doing the same--and very little time to do it.

Karzai's attitude does nothing to make McChrystal's job easier. But, provided the troops on the ground are allowed to get on with the job which, from all basic indicators, they are doing well, there is a very good chance that al-Qaeda and Taliban will be militarily defeated on the ground of Afghanistan. Of course, this means they will regroup across the border in Pakistan as well as bide time to do a deal with Karzai which will bring them back to Afghanistan.

As long as the Islamist goons of Taliban focus their free exercise of religion on such matters as keeping women in garbage bags and cutting the heads off of thought criminals along with the odd lopping off of thieves' hands, no worries, mate. Whatever happens in Afghanistan no matter how Medieval and barbaric, stays in Afghanistan. Only when the primitives of Islam decide to leave their stone huts and mountain fastnesses in order to hurt the Great Satan, do we need to be concerned.

Should the primitives of Islam once more seek to hurt Americans or others of a civilized country, then we will have to go back and do what should have been done by the rhetorically muscular but reality challenged Bush/Cheney/Rumfeld mob--go in, break things, and kill people until the survivors rue war for generations to come.

That's right, boyo, treat primitives like primitives. It may be unfashionable to think about let alone write about, but history shows time after (literally) bloody time that the concept has one thing going for it--it works.