One Year Later, Karzai ‘Wins’ by Default
02 November 2009 11:00 am by Taylor Marsh
“Needless to say, this is not where we wanted to be after nine months,” commented a senior aide to the president. – AfPak Channel (via New York Times)
One year since Barack Obama won the election, come November 4th, the above statement seems apt, though not just for Afghanistan or Karzai’s “win.”
Anthony Cordesman defines the latest development this way: President Obama must now make a decision that will define his presidency. Many agree, though any time someone, including experts, use terms like “win” and Afghanistan in the same argument it makes me shudder. That language sorely outdated and in need of 21st century re-imagining.
Video covers full story.
And as much as I don’t like Karzai, it’s clear Abdullah Abdullah wasn’t the man for Afghanistan. If he isn’t willing to fight for his country at a critical point, it’s hard to argue that he’d be a better choice.
That said, the general consensus from experts I’ve talked to was that the whole runoff was a “charade” anyway, with some suggesting no work had even begun for the elections.
The outcome or lack thereof in Afghanistan is all bad news. For the women in that country it is a disaster. For U.S. policy it’s almost as bad.
SecDef Gates (with whom I agreed) has also been proved right; that Obama’s strategy required implementation regardless of the election, with John Kerry and many others proved astoundingly wrong. Kerry looks ridiculous at this point, having gone so far out on a limb, though he’s by no means alone. Winter coming doesn’t change this fact.
Karzai wins, the Afghanistan people and the women in that country lose. Our mission more critical than ever.
Of course, few on the left agree. It’s not about al Qaeda, which Obama’s adviser Jones and others have said number less than 100. Once that rational disappears you often hear people like Chris Matthews and other ill informed (translation: ignorant) individuals talking about “defeating the Taliban,” which cannot be done. The Taliban is part of the Afghan consciousness, which cannot be eradicated from the fabric of the country any more than drugs can.
So, without al Qaeda and the Taliban, why are we in Afghanistan?
The country is a strategic linchpin to our central and south Asia national security strategy in an area of the world that is also nuclearized. (I’ll leave the possibility of an oil pipeline through Afghanistan sometime in the future, which could change the economic structure of that country forever, alone for now.) As we focus on supporting the Pakistanis who are just now getting a clue that the extremists in that country threaten the survival of everyday Pakistanis, Afghanistan is linked to Pakistan due to the make up of the region itself, with the trifecta actually also including India. A country whose involvement in Afghanistan makes Pakistan nervous and is one reason why they fund the Afghan Taliban. A Kabul government chummy with India is Pakistan’s worst nightmare, never mind that their preoccupation with India has allowed the Pakistani Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militants to thrive in their own country, which is now dawning.
There is also a human rights aspect to being involved in Afghanistan through the women of that country, which are its hopes. It goes beyond COIN and certainly counterterrorism to involve empowerment of a tortured and subjugated group of Afghans that the country cannot prosper without. Though with Karzai at the top, given his deplorable record against women’s human rights, as well as his corruption and collusion with the “warlords” the Bush-Cheney policy created, our job just got tougher, much, much tougher.
Pres. Obama started out by talking of Afghanistan in “necessary war” terms, with women’s rights part of the struggle for this country. We don’t hear much about that these days, not even from Sect. Clinton. It’s not where any of us thought we’d be nine months out.
