After remaining in power for 12 long years, President Hamid Karzai, towards the fag-end of his rule, is making his last-ditch stand against the superpower that brought him to power.
The United States of America hand -picked him out of relative obscurity in December 2001, when the Taliban regime had collapsed as a result of the American invasion of Afghanistan and made him the war-ravaged country’s president at the first Bonn Conference in Germany. The Americans had few choices then as Abdul Haq, the other favourite candidate for the job had just been killed by Taliban fighters in Logar province following his failed attempt to lead an uprising, and there wasn’t any credible challenger to Karzai, who spoke fluent English and wasn’t tainted by any scandal concerning corruption or human rights abuses. More important though was his pedigree: he was the son of a former member of parliament, Abdul Ahad Karzai belonging to the old Kandahar ruling clan of Popalzais from the Durrani Pashtun tribe.
Karzai was lucky to have survived an attempt by the Taliban to hunt him down in the central Urozgan province in those dangerous times. Loyal Durrani tribesmen came to his rescue and protected him while the Americans airlifted him to safety in a helicopter. Karzai didn’t have much experience when he assumed the difficult job of Afghanistan’s president, except for a brief stint as deputy foreign minister during the chaotic Afghan mujahideen rule after the fall of Dr Najibullah’s communist government in April 1992 and running mujahideen leader Professor Sebghatullah Mojadeddi’s office earlier in Peshawar. Prior to that, he managed an Afghan food restaurant owned by his family in the US.
However, he learned on the job and became increasingly assertive. The vast powers entrusted to Afghanistan’s president in the country’s new constitution enabled him to make and break political alliances at will and use patronage and ethnic and regional rivalries to keep warlords and tribal chiefs by his side. The parliament tried to challenge him and some of his ministers were ousted from the cabinet, but Karzai’s presidential authority ensured that he was left untouched.
His latest, and probably last, battle before the April 5, 2014 presidential election isn’t against his numerous Afghan rivals. This time he is pitted against the US, his frequent benefactor, which won’t have to do much to win over his Afghan opponents, most of whom benefited during the Karzai rule before drifting apart due to personal reasons, rather than any issue of principles or ideology. It is an unequal battle between an Afghan president, who is on his way out and doesn’t enjoy much popular support, and the US, which has the financial and military resources to keep the government in Kabul in power.
Nobody could have imagined some months ago that Karzai would put his foot down at the eleventh hour and refuse to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US. He had already signed the strategic partnership agreement with the US in 2011 and the BSA was being negotiated for a year since late 2012. The US had agreed to Karzai’s proposal to convene the traditional Loya Jirga to discuss the BSA and was hoping that the deal would be signed before the end of 2013. The 2,500 delegates at the Loya Jirga were mostly handpicked by the Karzai administration and included parliamentarians, tribal elders, members of the intelligentsia, clerics and women activists. As expected, the Loya Jirga endorsed the BSA after being exhorted by none other than Karzai to do so. However, the Loya Jirga, rather unexpectedly, advised the Afghan president to sign the security agreement before the end of the year. It was at this stage that Karzai, apparently as an after thought, declined to sign it until his conditions, both old and new, were met by the US. He also wanted the new president to be elected in the April 2014 polls to sign the security agreement.
Karzai listed a number of conditions, including the most crucial one for an end to US airstrikes and searching of homes in Afghan villages as he advocated action against militants’ sanctuaries outside Afghanistan’s border, which meant Pakistan. He also wanted more US efforts to promote the peace process involving Taliban. This also involved Pakistan because Karzai believed the US could put enough pressure on Islamabad to persuade it to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. Another Karzai condition, which wasn’t stressed enough, was the release of all Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay detention centre. It was primarily linked with the reconciliation process because all these prisoners are Taliban and their release could be termed as a major confidence-building measure to get the Taliban leadership to agree to peace and power-sharing talks with Kabul. It was interesting to know that most of these points were also advocated by the Loya Jirga, though unlike Karzai it didn’t make the signing of the BSA conditional to the acceptance of these demands.
The US termed these conditions unrealistic and insisted on early signing of the BSA under the terms already agreed to in the year-long negotiations. After insisting that the BSA must be signed by Karzai before the end of 2013 to enable the US government to plan for the post-2014 deployment of the residual troops, totalling around 10,000 according to most accounts, and secure the required funds from Congress, the Obama administration later relented and agreed to extend the deadline to February, when Nato is scheduled to hold an important meeting. Subsequently, some US officials hinted that they could even wait until April, when the presidential election would have taken place. This meant narrowing of the differences, at least on the timing of signing the security agreement, between Karzai and the US.
Karzai is under pressure from all sides to sign the security agreement. There is unrelenting pressure by the US, which has on occasions been undiplomatic in its dealings with him and has warned that it would cut off most of its aid to Afghanistan if the security agreement isn’t signed and it is forced to apply the “zero option” by withdrawing all its forces. The US also unsuccessfully tried to bypass him by proposing that Defence Minister General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi or another minister could sign the BSA if Karzai didn’t want to do so. Karzai had, in the past, bluntly accused US officials of undermining his position by accusing his late brother Ahmad Wali Karzai of involvement in drug-trafficking and raising questions about the fairness of the 2009 presidential election, accusing his government of fraud.
At home, the Loya Jirga felt offended when Karzai didn’t pay heed to its recommendation to sign the BSA. The Afghan elite and all 11 presidential candidates want the BSA to be signed. It seems Karzai would eventually have to swallow his pride and sign the BSA or risk putting the embattled Afghan government and its largely untried security forces at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Taliban once the Nato forces leave by December 31, 2014. There were reports that Karzai was concerned about his legacy and didn’t want to be equated in history with former king Shah Shuja, who got the British forces to invade Afghanistan to install him in power, and Communist president Babrak Karmal who, in the words of his critics, came riding a Soviet tank to capture power and facilitate the Red Army takeover of the country in December 1979.
The Afghan president knows the risks he is taking by refusing to sign the BSA. He has spoken about the grave consequences for the country in case the military assistance by the US is halted because, in his view, signing the BSA was necessary for strengthening security and stability in Afghanistan. However, he has rejected the observation that not signing the BSA would lead to factional fighting or that Afghanistan would fail to survive as a nation. As if provoking the US, he argued that the Afghans had fought and defeated invaders and preserved their independence. In another provocation to the US, he visited Iran and agreed with newly-elected President Hasan Rouhani to negotiate and sign a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. This would certainly have upset the Americans because he was trying to get close to Iran at a time when he was refusing to sign the security agreement with the US. Karzai has also been trying to increase defence cooperation with India so that it could somehow fill the vacuum in Afghanistan once the US-led Nato forces are gone. However, such a move risks further alienating Pakistan, which is wary of the growing Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Abdullah_Zalmai_Ashraf_Qayyum01-14It wasn’t surprising that both the Taliban and former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami backed Karzai for not signing the BSA. It was rare for the Taliban to appreciate Karzai and they encouraged him not to sign the security agreement in keeping with the glorious Afghan history of resisting foreign military presence in their homeland. Hekmatyar went a step further and offered to declare a ceasefire, stand by the Afghan security forces and take part in the elections. However, by the end of 2013 it appeared that Karzai’s resolve was weakening as he was quoted as saying that raids on suspected houses could be carried out provided Afghan forces accompanied the US troops and formal permission from a court was obtained. It seemed he wanted the US to positively respond to at least some of his demands as part of a face-saving deal, instead of categorically rejecting everything he wanted.
It is possible he is seeking a future role for himself as an elder statesman following the election of a new president. He has already acquired a home adjacent to the presidential palace, Arg, in Kabul and got it renovated so that he could live in a secure place close to the seat of power. After having announced his neutrality, he could discreetly back his elder brother Qayyum Karzai or his former foreign minister Dr Zalmai Rassoul in the election for president to continue his legacy, even though both are trailing far behind the front-runners, former foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Dr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, in the recent public opinion surveys. It won’t be surprising if Karzai in the end shifts his support to Dr Ahmadzai, a fellow Pashtun who would be friendlier to him than Dr Abdullah, who lost to him in the bitterly fought 2009 Presidential election and turned from loyalist to bitter foe.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Afghanistan: Karzai’s Closing Act
After remaining in power for 12 long years, President Hamid Karzai, towards the fag-end of his rule, is making his last-ditch stand against the superpower that brought him to power.
The United States of America hand -picked him out of relative obscurity in December 2001, when the Taliban regime had collapsed as a result of the American invasion of Afghanistan and made him the war-ravaged country’s president at the first Bonn Conference in Germany. The Americans had few choices then as Abdul Haq, the other favourite candidate for the job had just been killed by Taliban fighters in Logar province following his failed attempt to lead an uprising, and there wasn’t any credible challenger to Karzai, who spoke fluent English and wasn’t tainted by any scandal concerning corruption or human rights abuses. More important though was his pedigree: he was the son of a former member of parliament, Abdul Ahad Karzai belonging to the old Kandahar ruling clan of Popalzais from the Durrani Pashtun tribe.
Karzai was lucky to have survived an attempt by the Taliban to hunt him down in the central Urozgan province in those dangerous times. Loyal Durrani tribesmen came to his rescue and protected him while the Americans airlifted him to safety in a helicopter. Karzai didn’t have much experience when he assumed the difficult job of Afghanistan’s president, except for a brief stint as deputy foreign minister during the chaotic Afghan mujahideen rule after the fall of Dr Najibullah’s communist government in April 1992 and running mujahideen leader Professor Sebghatullah Mojadeddi’s office earlier in Peshawar. Prior to that, he managed an Afghan food restaurant owned by his family in the US.
However, he learned on the job and became increasingly assertive. The vast powers entrusted to Afghanistan’s president in the country’s new constitution enabled him to make and break political alliances at will and use patronage and ethnic and regional rivalries to keep warlords and tribal chiefs by his side. The parliament tried to challenge him and some of his ministers were ousted from the cabinet, but Karzai’s presidential authority ensured that he was left untouched.
His latest, and probably last, battle before the April 5, 2014 presidential election isn’t against his numerous Afghan rivals. This time he is pitted against the US, his frequent benefactor, which won’t have to do much to win over his Afghan opponents, most of whom benefited during the Karzai rule before drifting apart due to personal reasons, rather than any issue of principles or ideology. It is an unequal battle between an Afghan president, who is on his way out and doesn’t enjoy much popular support, and the US, which has the financial and military resources to keep the government in Kabul in power.
Nobody could have imagined some months ago that Karzai would put his foot down at the eleventh hour and refuse to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the US. He had already signed the strategic partnership agreement with the US in 2011 and the BSA was being negotiated for a year since late 2012. The US had agreed to Karzai’s proposal to convene the traditional Loya Jirga to discuss the BSA and was hoping that the deal would be signed before the end of 2013. The 2,500 delegates at the Loya Jirga were mostly handpicked by the Karzai administration and included parliamentarians, tribal elders, members of the intelligentsia, clerics and women activists. As expected, the Loya Jirga endorsed the BSA after being exhorted by none other than Karzai to do so. However, the Loya Jirga, rather unexpectedly, advised the Afghan president to sign the security agreement before the end of the year. It was at this stage that Karzai, apparently as an after thought, declined to sign it until his conditions, both old and new, were met by the US. He also wanted the new president to be elected in the April 2014 polls to sign the security agreement.
Karzai listed a number of conditions, including the most crucial one for an end to US airstrikes and searching of homes in Afghan villages as he advocated action against militants’ sanctuaries outside Afghanistan’s border, which meant Pakistan. He also wanted more US efforts to promote the peace process involving Taliban. This also involved Pakistan because Karzai believed the US could put enough pressure on Islamabad to persuade it to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. Another Karzai condition, which wasn’t stressed enough, was the release of all Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay detention centre. It was primarily linked with the reconciliation process because all these prisoners are Taliban and their release could be termed as a major confidence-building measure to get the Taliban leadership to agree to peace and power-sharing talks with Kabul. It was interesting to know that most of these points were also advocated by the Loya Jirga, though unlike Karzai it didn’t make the signing of the BSA conditional to the acceptance of these demands.
The US termed these conditions unrealistic and insisted on early signing of the BSA under the terms already agreed to in the year-long negotiations. After insisting that the BSA must be signed by Karzai before the end of 2013 to enable the US government to plan for the post-2014 deployment of the residual troops, totalling around 10,000 according to most accounts, and secure the required funds from Congress, the Obama administration later relented and agreed to extend the deadline to February, when Nato is scheduled to hold an important meeting. Subsequently, some US officials hinted that they could even wait until April, when the presidential election would have taken place. This meant narrowing of the differences, at least on the timing of signing the security agreement, between Karzai and the US.
Karzai is under pressure from all sides to sign the security agreement. There is unrelenting pressure by the US, which has on occasions been undiplomatic in its dealings with him and has warned that it would cut off most of its aid to Afghanistan if the security agreement isn’t signed and it is forced to apply the “zero option” by withdrawing all its forces. The US also unsuccessfully tried to bypass him by proposing that Defence Minister General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi or another minister could sign the BSA if Karzai didn’t want to do so. Karzai had, in the past, bluntly accused US officials of undermining his position by accusing his late brother Ahmad Wali Karzai of involvement in drug-trafficking and raising questions about the fairness of the 2009 presidential election, accusing his government of fraud.
At home, the Loya Jirga felt offended when Karzai didn’t pay heed to its recommendation to sign the BSA. The Afghan elite and all 11 presidential candidates want the BSA to be signed. It seems Karzai would eventually have to swallow his pride and sign the BSA or risk putting the embattled Afghan government and its largely untried security forces at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Taliban once the Nato forces leave by December 31, 2014. There were reports that Karzai was concerned about his legacy and didn’t want to be equated in history with former king Shah Shuja, who got the British forces to invade Afghanistan to install him in power, and Communist president Babrak Karmal who, in the words of his critics, came riding a Soviet tank to capture power and facilitate the Red Army takeover of the country in December 1979.
The Afghan president knows the risks he is taking by refusing to sign the BSA. He has spoken about the grave consequences for the country in case the military assistance by the US is halted because, in his view, signing the BSA was necessary for strengthening security and stability in Afghanistan. However, he has rejected the observation that not signing the BSA would lead to factional fighting or that Afghanistan would fail to survive as a nation. As if provoking the US, he argued that the Afghans had fought and defeated invaders and preserved their independence. In another provocation to the US, he visited Iran and agreed with newly-elected President Hasan Rouhani to negotiate and sign a treaty of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. This would certainly have upset the Americans because he was trying to get close to Iran at a time when he was refusing to sign the security agreement with the US. Karzai has also been trying to increase defence cooperation with India so that it could somehow fill the vacuum in Afghanistan once the US-led Nato forces are gone. However, such a move risks further alienating Pakistan, which is wary of the growing Indian influence in Afghanistan.
Abdullah_Zalmai_Ashraf_Qayyum01-14It wasn’t surprising that both the Taliban and former mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i-Islami backed Karzai for not signing the BSA. It was rare for the Taliban to appreciate Karzai and they encouraged him not to sign the security agreement in keeping with the glorious Afghan history of resisting foreign military presence in their homeland. Hekmatyar went a step further and offered to declare a ceasefire, stand by the Afghan security forces and take part in the elections. However, by the end of 2013 it appeared that Karzai’s resolve was weakening as he was quoted as saying that raids on suspected houses could be carried out provided Afghan forces accompanied the US troops and formal permission from a court was obtained. It seemed he wanted the US to positively respond to at least some of his demands as part of a face-saving deal, instead of categorically rejecting everything he wanted.
It is possible he is seeking a future role for himself as an elder statesman following the election of a new president. He has already acquired a home adjacent to the presidential palace, Arg, in Kabul and got it renovated so that he could live in a secure place close to the seat of power. After having announced his neutrality, he could discreetly back his elder brother Qayyum Karzai or his former foreign minister Dr Zalmai Rassoul in the election for president to continue his legacy, even though both are trailing far behind the front-runners, former foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Dr Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, in the recent public opinion surveys. It won’t be surprising if Karzai in the end shifts his support to Dr Ahmadzai, a fellow Pashtun who would be friendlier to him than Dr Abdullah, who lost to him in the bitterly fought 2009 Presidential election and turned from loyalist to bitter foe.
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