Karzai Bets on Vilifying US

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March 12, 2013

Karzai Bets on Vilifying U.S. to Shed His Image as

a LackeyByALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, AfghanistanThe longest shadow in Afghan politics is cast by a trafficpost that used to stand in Ariana Square outside the presidential palace:the

Taliban hanged Najibullah, the last president of the Communist government,

from it shortly after they marched into Kabul in 1996.

That history, and the reality that every modern Afghan leader has been ousted

or executed, has surely not escaped PresidentHamid Karzaias he faces what is

expected to be his final year in office, and with the American military pullout

well under way.

Seeking a nobler ending than his predecessors after his long tenure in thepalace, Mr. Karzai is taking a gamble:intensifying his vilification of his American

alliesat a critical moment in their Afghan endgame, risking their support for him

in order to save himself politically.

Even as his government is negotiating the terms for a lasting American military

presence, in just the past two weeks he has ordered Special Operations forces

out of a critical province, railed against C.I.A. plots, rejected American terms for

handing over detainees and, most recently, even equated the United States

and the Taliban as complementary forces working to undermine the

government.

Interviews with tribal elders, business leaders, political analysts and diplomats

here paint an image of a leader who is desperately trying to shake his widely

held image as an American lackey by appealing to nationalist sentiments and

invoking Afghanistans sovereignty.

Many, however, believe that Mr. Karzai may not fully appreciate the risks he is

taking in betting that the United States will commit billions of dollars in military

and economic support for years to come despite growing differences with him,

the budgetary and economic challenges at home and battle fatigue after a

long war.

Karzai, very confident of the Americans need to stay indefinitely and with

much invested already, believes he has a lot of leverage and can push back as

much as he wants because hes gotten his own way in the past, said Saad

Mohseni, an Afghan businessman who is close to many in Mr. Karzais team and

runs the Moby Group, an international media company that includes Tolo,

Afghanistans most popular television network.
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The second thing is his legacy: with only 12 months to go, he has this task to

change the narrative. Rather than being the person who was installed through

the Bonn process, Mr. Mohseni said, referring to a 2001 conference that set up

a post-Taliban government, he wants to be remembered as the guy who

kicked out the foreigners in this case, the Americans.

American and other Western officials in Afghanistan have bent over backward

to reassure the Afghan publicand Mr. Karzaithat they will not abandon

them as the Russians did. That retreat, in the early 1990s, led to the collapse of

the government and the army and, ultimately, to civil war.

Indicators from the White House, though, have not been as sure. President

Obama has yet to decide how many troops might stay on after combat units

leave at the end of 2014. Many numbers have been floated, but nothing has

been determined.

At what point does dealing with him become such a political pain that people

in Washington, in Congress, say, Lets rethink the map on this a little bit, said

one Western official in Kabul. I dont think Karzai fully understands this

understands the advancement of U.S. feeling on this, said the official, who

spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the continuing

negotiations.

Many Afghan observers say that Mr. Karzai is trying to keep himself politically

potent during the last year of his term by playing to at least three Afghan

constituencies: his ethnic Pashtun base; ethnic Tajik and Hazara leaders in his

government; and, notably, the Taliban, who have rejected negotiations withhim.

In past speeches, Mr. Karzai has sometimes adopted a yearning tone as he has

expressed a desire to be the Afghan leader who could unite the countrys

factions, including bringing the Taliban in from the battlefield.

And in his recentbanning of American commandos from Wardak Province, a

Taliban stronghold, some Afghan observers see an attempt to reach out to the

insurgents by proving that he has the power to halt military action against them.

Others believe he is trying to tap into Afghans frustrations with giant foreign

military vehicles on their roads, heavily armed foreign soldiers on foot patrols in

their fields and night raids on their homes.

But since his words have had only limited effect on the Americans, they

increasingly ring hollow to many Afghans. At the same time, the reality on the

ground has changed: increasingly, the war is being foughtand in some cases
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abuses are being carried outby Afghan forces that are seen as acting in Mr.

Karzais name despitehaving been mostly trained by Americans.

That leaves Mr. Karzai casting about for new ways to prove that he is not, as the

Taliban insist, Americas chief puppet.

President Karzai would like to portray himself as a national hero, said Malek

Sitez, an adviser to theCivil Society and Human Rights Network of Afghanistan.

He is kind of taking an anti-foreigners policy, and many ordinary people in

Afghanistan like this. But he does not understand how he, and his government, is

totally dependent on the international community economically, and he doesnt

understand the impact of his speeches on the relationship.

Still, Mr. Sitez added, if Mr. Karzai cannot be remembered as a hero, he would

like to be remembered as a victim of a crowd of international strategies.

He doesnt want to be remembered as a defeated politician, Mr. Sitez said.So he wants to remind people that hes a nationalist he kicked out

foreigners.

Many here see an echo in the last chapter of Najibullahs rule, when, after the

Russians decided to withdraw, the president took an increasingly nationalist

stand and even told the Russians to go and just leave the financing for the

military. That is very much the message Mr. Karzai has sent to the Americans and

the world, Mr. Sitez said.

For Afghans at a more grass-roots level, there is little faith in either the Afghangovernment or the Americans.

Now Karzai is trying to deceive people that he sympathizes with the Afghan

people, and also he is trying to show the Taliban that now I am independent

from the Americans, said Hajji-Abdul Majeed Khan, a tribal elder from

Arghistan, a district in Kandahar Province where Mr. Karzai has had support.

I dont think that Karzai and Americans have disputes at all they both are

playing a double game to throw dust in peoples eyes and bring another stooge

government to Afghanistan, he added.

One elder in Khost Province, in southeastern Afghanistan, suggested that Mr.

Karzais negative comments were much more personal than universal. All

Afghans do not share his views and ideas, said the elder, Yusuf Entezar. Lets

not forget that for a long time there has been a lot of disagreement between

Karzai and the Americans on one hand. And he has failed to strengthen the rule
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of law, and now he is trying to find some accomplishments he can show to

people.

Many Afghans who hold government or tribal authority have also come to rely

on the development projects and security provided by American soldiers and

civilians.

This is political talk, said Hajji Agha Lalai, the head of the Kandahar provincial

council and one of the few allies of Mr. Karzais who was willing to speak to a

reporter about the presidents comments. These kind of remarks being made

by Karzai make people worry about the future of Afghanistan.

He added: People are still hopeful for a better future in Afghanistan, but we

need the world community, and we are a fragile country and vulnerable. So the

relationship that has been built with the world community should not be

broken.

Any American complaints at Mr. Karzais latest remarks, in which he all but

claimed collusion between the Taliban and the Americans, pale next to the

Talibans reaction.

They issued a searing response late Monday in which they dismissed Mr. Karzai

as an abject hypocrite, eating food and wearing clothes paid for with American

dollars.

Nationalism neither rescued Najibullah nor will it rescue Karzai; the Afghan

nation is one of the nations of the world that knows its puppets and its heroes,said the Taliban statement, which was written by a man identified as Qari Habib.

Hamid Karzai, at the end of his tenure, has resorted to the same hypocrisy as Dr.

Najibullah, the statement continued. We offer him free advice: Do not take this

road, because this road leads to Ariana Square.

Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan; Sangar Rahimi from Kabul; and

Farooq Jan Mangal from Khost, Afghanistan.