Karzai’s disillusionment

Even though it came late in the day, 11 years after the US-led Nato forces began their operation in Afghanistan and just two years before they were due to withdraw, President Hamid Karzai’s accusation that it was the US and Western presence that was causing insecurity in the country merits soul searching by Washington. For a head of state who has been installed by the Americans to make such grave charge is no small matter; it speaks volumes of his disillusionment. While giving an exclusive interview to NBC News on Thursday, President Karzai said that terrorism would not be defeated by attacking Afghan villages and homes, a reference to the raids which the Western forces, particularly the Americans, are accused of carrying out, resulting in the deaths of Afghan citizens. One wonders whether war weariness in the face of little success against rag-tag guerrilla units of the Taliban has induced these forces to resort to taking vengeful actions against the local ethnic Pashtuns, as they have been known to be doing. Implicit in Mr Karzai’s remark that the Taliban have regained control of the areas from which they had been ousted, is the belief that the Nato/Isaf troops have failed in their bid to put down the insurgency. Indeed, the push for persuading the once enemy, the Taliban, to the negotiating table bears out Mr Karzai’s view. President Karzai’s frustration also stems from the US failure to put into effect the understanding which, he says, he had reached with President Obama during the course of the signing of strategic partnership agreement with the US, that the Afghan prisoners held by the Americans would be handed over to the Kabul authorities. Giving vent to his sense of betrayal, he rued, “We signed the strategic partnership agreement with the expectation and the hope.....(that) the nature of United States’ activities in Afghanistan will change,” and that the custody of these prisoners would be given to the Afghans. He went on to make an interesting observation that he did not know whether there was anything called al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, virtually negating the logic of the war on terror to continue and keeping foreign presence any longer. Impartial observers of the scene have, therefore, been advocating that it is time for the foreign troops to leave Afghanistan, the more so if al-Qaeda does not exist, as President Karzai maintains, or has been reduced to insignificance, as the US argues. Adding force to the argument for immediate departure is the re-occupation by the Taliban of the areas which they had been forced to vacate earlier, underlining the futility of the entire military operation. The withdrawal of the foreign element in the country would make for the situation to settle, paving the way for peace to prevail. And the only viable option appears to be to let the people of Afghanistan to decide their own future. It is a moment of reflection for Washington.