Afghan President Hamid Karzai is corrupt. What do we do about it?
Charlie Rose had a fascinating interview with Michele Flournoy - the whole thing is worth watching in full but the talk about Pakistan was interesting. Rose noted the recent successes against the Taliban and the apparent turn in Pakistan towards cooperating more fully with the U.S. Flournoy chalked to it up to the U.S. successfully persuading Pakistan that the U.S. was in Af-Pak for the long haul.
This a theme her boss, Secretary Gates, has harped on frequently, citing his experience with Afghanistan in the 1980s. The thinking is simple enough: Pakistan will hedge its bets (i.e. support the Taliban) if it thinks the U.S. is going to bail on the region like it supposedly did after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.
Flournoy noted that the administration had convinced Pakistan that even as the U.S. military role shifts and is ultimately reduced inside Afghanistan, it remains committed to the country for the long-term.
Which brings us to Mr. Hamid Karzai. On Thursday, Karzai unleashed a blistering tirade against the United States (he's later sought to clarify his remarks to his U.S. paymasters) but his little exegesis on U.S. imperialism is a good reminder that American commitments to stay "engaged" for the long haul are going to run up against Karzai and the local Afghan talent we're banking on to run the place.
None of this would be a problem if we were taking a very limited, cost-effective approach to keeping al Qaeda from reorganizing large-scale training camps in the country. But with tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops in the country committed to waging a "population-centric" counter-insurgency, we've set our sights a lot higher. That means Karzai and the quality of his governance is going to matter a lot more. And so far, it seems like that's going to be an increasingly serious problem for the administration's strategy.
(AP Photo)