Karzai's alienation, symptom of Washington's learning disability
By Jan Assakzai
The recent spate of outburst by Afghan President Karzai against the West, blaming foreigners for last year’s election fraud, accusing Western troops of meddling in his country’s internal affairs and even threatening to join the Taliban, has caused a clamour in western media to the extend that some commentators labelled him as "crazy".
But such over reaction disguises underlying tension between Karzai and the West:
the obvious reason is yawning trust deficit. Karzai does not trust some of the US Diplomats like US Ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, who dubbed Karzai as "inadequate strategic partner" recently, and Washington's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. Karzai is very sceptic of Mr Holbrooke suspecting him being under a Pakistani spell. Mr Holbrooke's recent remarks in Kabul that "Pakistan's ISI can play a role in negotiations and I support that role", (BBC World Service), may have contributed to Mr Karzai's assessment.
One the other hand, Mr Hobrooke believes that Karzai is corrupt and leads an administration that is part of the problem in the US' grand scheme of things in Afghanistan. He also susbscribes to commonly-held view that aid is being wasted by Karzai-led regime through corruption and poor governance.
But let us put the corruption and aid ineffectiveness of the Kabul regime in perspective:
It is true that Afghanistan being a third world country without having assertive watch dog institution, faces corruption, and can not be ignored. However, corruption is not a sufficient reason to demonise him. The World Banks says, besides corruption and poor governance, other challenges like "devastation resulted from several years of protracted conflict, insurgency, insecurity, lack of rule of law, lack of capacity and resources in the government and underdevelopment" are obstacles in effectiveness of aid in Afghanistan
(Improving effectiveness of Aid in Afghanistan:Revised Draft, 30 May 2008).
Whilst how much aid is meant for Afghans and how much is distributed through Karzai's government, the true picture is this: the billions of dollars much talked about, are not actually spend on Afghans rather they are spent on US and NATO forces. If UK based aid agency, the OXform, is to be believed, "the US spends $100m a day on security but the overall aid budget for all donors combined is less than $7m a day". (Oxform 19 August 2009). Hence the US ball park figure for a month will be £3 billion for its security related activities, as against the overall aid of $210 million for the same period meant for Afghanistan's reconstruction. Even 80 per cent of relatively meagre aid is distributed by donors, NGOs and RPT teams bypassing Karzai's government, (the United Nations secretary general's report tabled in the Security Council in New York ). One wonders how can the Karzai's government ensure effective governance when donors are actually running parallel administration, undermining overall government leadership led by him .
In contrast to Karzai-led administration , another example, ie, Pakistan , betrays the moral high ground of Washington on corruption. Pakistan's military Dictator General Pervez Musharaf received nearly $17 billion dollars since 2001(Financial Times) while another Dictator Gen Zia-ul- Haq was blessed with billions of dollars crossing $25 billions figure. Washington never asked for any accountability of this black hole, thanks to US strategic interests linked with the dictators in Pakistan.
Karzai, however, has raised a serious issue between him and American administration. He suspects that under the garb of corruption issue, the west want to hide its failure to deliver on its promises made to Afghan people: reconstruction and a government with capacity to stand on its feet. He is scared that over the next two years, US forces will be exiting Afghanistan probably leaving Afghans to the proxy wars of its neighbouring countries. To his defence, Karzai is a statesman who has got a gigantic but complex task of managing oftenly conflicting interests of regional and international players including Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and China. He is not a novice to the world of diplomacy and fully understands the diplomatic, military, strategic, and economic might of the US. Karzai needs empathy instead, as he is facing a huge challenge to realign the priorities of Afghan people with that of the US and its allies.
Karzai is a not an extremist, yet he has the ability to build coalitions representing diverse shade of opinions withing Afghan society. He is a leader that has nearly 70 percent popular support from his people as shown in the last presidential election. To his credit, Karzai is arguably the only leader in Afghanistan who converses with people easily and hence a vote winner-a pre-requisite attribute of a leader in democracy and thus is a rallying point for majority of Afghans, compared to some of the exiled-suite-wearing Afghan aspirants who speak Greek when it comes to understanding the ordinary masses.
For its part the Obama administration needs to go beyond the obvious and dig deeper as to why a strategic ally of the west got alienated in the first place. Opting for Media bashing of Karzai will be contrived nothing more than "arrogance"-a typical attitude of mighty powers who do not want to learn. Despite Karzai's frosty relations with Washington, the fact should not be lost that Afghans still need the help of international community particularly Washington, to get rid of international terrorism and have a relatively stable Afghanistan, while the US's strategic goal to deny Al-Qaeda-led terrorism, a safe haven in Afghanistan, is at the heart of its Afghan mission. If such aspirations are to be fulfilled, Washington needs to recognise Karzai as a Lynch pin in the whole process and accordingly treat him with respect.
janassakzai200@gmail.com
The recent spate of outburst by Afghan President Karzai against the West, blaming foreigners for last year’s election fraud, accusing Western troops of meddling in his country’s internal affairs and even threatening to join the Taliban, has caused a clamour in western media to the extend that some commentators labelled him as "crazy".
But such over reaction disguises underlying tension between Karzai and the West:
the obvious reason is yawning trust deficit. Karzai does not trust some of the US Diplomats like US Ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, who dubbed Karzai as "inadequate strategic partner" recently, and Washington's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. Karzai is very sceptic of Mr Holbrooke suspecting him being under a Pakistani spell. Mr Holbrooke's recent remarks in Kabul that "Pakistan's ISI can play a role in negotiations and I support that role", (BBC World Service), may have contributed to Mr Karzai's assessment.
One the other hand, Mr Hobrooke believes that Karzai is corrupt and leads an administration that is part of the problem in the US' grand scheme of things in Afghanistan. He also susbscribes to commonly-held view that aid is being wasted by Karzai-led regime through corruption and poor governance.
But let us put the corruption and aid ineffectiveness of the Kabul regime in perspective:
It is true that Afghanistan being a third world country without having assertive watch dog institution, faces corruption, and can not be ignored. However, corruption is not a sufficient reason to demonise him. The World Banks says, besides corruption and poor governance, other challenges like "devastation resulted from several years of protracted conflict, insurgency, insecurity, lack of rule of law, lack of capacity and resources in the government and underdevelopment" are obstacles in effectiveness of aid in Afghanistan
(Improving effectiveness of Aid in Afghanistan:Revised Draft, 30 May 2008).
Whilst how much aid is meant for Afghans and how much is distributed through Karzai's government, the true picture is this: the billions of dollars much talked about, are not actually spend on Afghans rather they are spent on US and NATO forces. If UK based aid agency, the OXform, is to be believed, "the US spends $100m a day on security but the overall aid budget for all donors combined is less than $7m a day". (Oxform 19 August 2009). Hence the US ball park figure for a month will be £3 billion for its security related activities, as against the overall aid of $210 million for the same period meant for Afghanistan's reconstruction. Even 80 per cent of relatively meagre aid is distributed by donors, NGOs and RPT teams bypassing Karzai's government, (the United Nations secretary general's report tabled in the Security Council in New York ). One wonders how can the Karzai's government ensure effective governance when donors are actually running parallel administration, undermining overall government leadership led by him .
In contrast to Karzai-led administration , another example, ie, Pakistan , betrays the moral high ground of Washington on corruption. Pakistan's military Dictator General Pervez Musharaf received nearly $17 billion dollars since 2001(Financial Times) while another Dictator Gen Zia-ul- Haq was blessed with billions of dollars crossing $25 billions figure. Washington never asked for any accountability of this black hole, thanks to US strategic interests linked with the dictators in Pakistan.
Karzai, however, has raised a serious issue between him and American administration. He suspects that under the garb of corruption issue, the west want to hide its failure to deliver on its promises made to Afghan people: reconstruction and a government with capacity to stand on its feet. He is scared that over the next two years, US forces will be exiting Afghanistan probably leaving Afghans to the proxy wars of its neighbouring countries. To his defence, Karzai is a statesman who has got a gigantic but complex task of managing oftenly conflicting interests of regional and international players including Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and China. He is not a novice to the world of diplomacy and fully understands the diplomatic, military, strategic, and economic might of the US. Karzai needs empathy instead, as he is facing a huge challenge to realign the priorities of Afghan people with that of the US and its allies.
Karzai is a not an extremist, yet he has the ability to build coalitions representing diverse shade of opinions withing Afghan society. He is a leader that has nearly 70 percent popular support from his people as shown in the last presidential election. To his credit, Karzai is arguably the only leader in Afghanistan who converses with people easily and hence a vote winner-a pre-requisite attribute of a leader in democracy and thus is a rallying point for majority of Afghans, compared to some of the exiled-suite-wearing Afghan aspirants who speak Greek when it comes to understanding the ordinary masses.
For its part the Obama administration needs to go beyond the obvious and dig deeper as to why a strategic ally of the west got alienated in the first place. Opting for Media bashing of Karzai will be contrived nothing more than "arrogance"-a typical attitude of mighty powers who do not want to learn. Despite Karzai's frosty relations with Washington, the fact should not be lost that Afghans still need the help of international community particularly Washington, to get rid of international terrorism and have a relatively stable Afghanistan, while the US's strategic goal to deny Al-Qaeda-led terrorism, a safe haven in Afghanistan, is at the heart of its Afghan mission. If such aspirations are to be fulfilled, Washington needs to recognise Karzai as a Lynch pin in the whole process and accordingly treat him with respect.
janassakzai200@gmail.com
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