The Root of All our Problems
James Joyner assesses some of Hamid Karzai’s recent statements about the presence of “foreigners” in Afghanistan. Joyner ultimately argues this is just about Karzai bolstering his standing at home.
Is Hamid Karzai Crazy? | Atlantic Council
On April Fools Day, Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at “foreigners” who have been criticizing his corrupt, inept government, leveling bizarre charges that the rampant fraud in the recent elections was perpetrated by UN officials, the European Union, and other non-Afghans. It was, alas, no joke.
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While politically embarrassing, however, Karzai’s remarks were neither unprecedented nor, in perspective, surprising.
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Further, it’s smart politics for Karzai, who must be seen as his own man by his countrymen.
This assessment is probably right, but the implied U.S. response — that we ought to do just slough it off — is problematic, even if it closely mirrors conventional wisdom in U.S. strategic circles.
The reality is that our willingness to allow our “allies” to demonize the United States in order to placate their domestic audience is a significant reason for the current U.S. challenge with radical Islam. For over a generation — since at least the Iranian Revolution in 1979 — the United States has been willing to serve a “safety valve” for domestic discontent in the Muslim world. We have routinely assumed that the stability of our local allies served American strategic interests, and that a consequence allowing our local allies to redirect anger from themselves onto the United States was a good tradeoff.
In Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for instance, the governments have routinely blamed unpopular policies, whether vis-a-vis Israel or the basing of American troops, on U.S. pressure. It is not a surprise, as a result, that al Qaeda — a radical Islamist group focused on attacking the United States — has been able to recruit so heavily in those two countries. Egypt and Saudi Arabia remained stable, U.S. allies, but the cost has been the creation of an implacable trans-national enemy determined to strike at the United States homeland. On the whole, this is probably not a positive tradeoff from a U.S. perspective.
We may be continuing this strategic blunder in Afghanistan. We have become so convinced of the need for stability in Afghanistan, that we may now accept Karzai deliberately fomenting anti-American sentiment in order to bolster his domestic legitimacy. But the reality is that the United States would be better off with a weak Karzai forced to share power with a locally-focused Taliban, than we would the reverse — a strong Karzai, with the Taliban transformed into an internationally-oriented anti-American jihadist organization. If all the Afghan insurgents abandoned the local fight and joined al Qaeda in order to plot attacks on the American homeland, Afghanistan would be stabilized and America’s security jeopardized. Karzai’s strategic interests and ours are not aligned on that score.
Allowing local elites in the Muslim to trade on anti-Americanism domestically while maintaining American support internationally is, without hyperbole, the single most significant factor in explaining the rise of “far-enemy” jihadism. In our desire to prevent “another 9/11” we may, paradoxically, be contributing to the very movement we are hoping to suppress.
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It is one thing for the leader of Afghanistan, Karzai, to say derogatory things about the foreign power in the land, the USA. The people hear that, but what is it that they see? If they see with their eyes the American (and allied) soldiers and civilians protecting them, building infrastructure, providing medicines, that reality provides an effective counter to Karzai’s words. The words after all come from a politician seeking to maintain power. A politician whom the people know is corrupt and who left by himself, promises but does not deliver the standard services of government. The people want to be free from any foreign power, and then they want to be free of corrupt government, and they want jobs. Employing the people in vast infrastructure works, even just in minor unskilled tasks would provide an income of sorts and a justification in evaluating the American promises as being more reliable than those of Karzai or the Taliban. Control over the distribution of funds would be vital. In the end, ‘What’s in it for me?’ applies.
The people of Afghanistan are in a desperate situation, perhaps they nearly always have been. Armed Tribal rule means fragmentation and no agreed national government. The people would not really care what is said, they don’t want to be dead and they need a minimum of resources in their hands to survive independently of any ‘government’. Who places those resources in their hands will be recognized, even silently, as the entity that cares. The people will do what they always have, make the best of a bad situation. Perhaps Afghanistan can only politically operate on the plan of power in the hands of the states or local councils and only a minimalist Federal Government. That the councils command Karzai (or whoever) and by majority vote decide who gets what resources. Each nation’s constitution needs to reflect the culture of the land.