Listen to Karzai

The American press is so anxious to parse what Afghan President Karzai said Sunday, and to interpret it as anti-American, that it is hard to find an actual text.  This is the closest I’ve found, not surprisingly from the Australians.

What is Karzai saying, and why?  There are two basic assertions:

1. Taliban attacks keep the US in Afghanistan;
2. the US and the Taliban are concerting against the Afghan state.

The first is unquestionably true and often asserted by Americans.  If the Taliban had stopped attacking, the US would have drawn down its forces in Afghanistan long ago.   In the negotiations over the post-2014 security agreement, the Americans are arguing that a substantial residual presence is still needed after 2014.  The reason for this is the inability of the Afghan forces to deal with the Taliban. As Karzai put it:

It is their slogan for 2014, scaring us that if the US is not here our people will be eliminated

The more the Taliban attacks, the more apparent it is that Afghan security forces cannot control the situation and that NATO (including US) forces are still needed.

The second is the more dubious proposition, but it is important to look at the situation from Karzai’s perspective.  Karzai suspects the Americans are dealing with the Taliban outside Afghanistan, while the Taliban continue to refuse to deal with him.  If his premise is true, it is not such a big leap for him to conclude that the Americans and Taliban are colluding against him.

So are the Americans and Taliban talking outside Afghanistan?  Official Americans deny it.  I’d be surprised if the denials are completely true.  The CIA maintains a major role in the fighting in Afghanistan.  All that kerfuffle over Afghan forces not under Kabul’s control has been denied by the US military.  But I’d put good money on the existence of Afghan forces under CIA command.

Whatever its role inside Afghanistan, the CIA would be less than diligent if it were not also pursuing “reconciliation” with at least some Taliban.  Inside Afghanistan this has likely become difficult.  Karzai won’t allow it, because he is trying to get the Taliban to deal with him.  So is it so unlikely that the CIA has contacts with the Taliban outside Afghanistan and is trying hard to win over at least some of them to giving up the fight?  Of course this is not the same as colluding with the Taliban to undermine the Afghan state, but it might have that effect, or appear to have it from Karzai’s perspective.

In any event, listening to Karzai tells us something important about what is going on in Afghanistan:  he and everyone else is adjusting to an Afghanistan where the Americans will be less important and the Taliban more important than for the last 12 years.  He needs somehow either to weaken the Taliban (hence the accusation that they are conspiring with the Americans) or neutralize them (hence his own willingness to negotiate with them, even as he tries to block the Americans from doing so).

Of course we react badly to the assertion that we are conspiring with the Taliban against a government we have supported with more than 2000 lost lives (including at least a dozen CIA).  But we also need to recognize what Karzai knows:  we have fought this war in our own interest, mainly to counter al Qaeda rather than the Taliban.  As we draw down, the temptation to make a separate peace with as many Taliban as possible will be great, but Karzai cannot be expected to share our pleasure in it if he is cut out of the deal.