‘If you (US and NATO) are here to fight terrorism, then you should go to where their safe havens are (in Pakistan) and where terrorism is financed and manufactured (in Pakistan)’, Karzai said and added that the US was not ready to go and fight the terrorists in Pakistan. ‘If this war is against insurgency, then it is an Afghan and internal issue, then why are you here? Let us take care of it’, he told a news conference in Kabul on October 4
Afghan President is also frustrated that the US is refusing to provide his army with sophisticated weapons to take on his adversary in the Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan. ‘Are we going to wait and do nothing, or should we buy them from Russia, China, India or other countries?’
The Afghan President made more or less the same point in his interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes” on Sunday. As the NYT despatch noted, these remarks clearly show that he is angry over the policies of the US, which appear to be dictated by American domestic opinion rather than the complexities of Af-Pak scene. , and the rocky relationship has hit a new low in recent times.
His message to the President Obama is loud and clear. The fact that it was delivered through the media indicates the new low reached in the rocky relationship between the US and Afghanistan. It however helped him to score a few brownie points from his domestic audience who have come to see him as an American lackey. Besides lack of clarity in American policy, drone strikes on civilian targets and America’s not so hidden concern that the Afghans could release prisoners turned over to them particularly the hardcore one have added a sore note and fuelled mutual suspicion.
Karzai is unhappy with the Western news media reports that suggesting that a civil war and economic collapse might follow the departure of NATO troops at the end 2014. He thinks with some justification, that such reports undermine the confidence of the Afghan people. How factual and unbiased these reports are is unclear but it is difficult to disagree with his assertion that so called analysis and comment have a demoralising effect on the police and security forces who will have to meet the insurgent threat squarely.
In the sound bytes on America, an important domestic policy statement made at the presser received no significant attention. It related to elections. He declared that he would step down from the presidency and that there would be an election. ‘No foreign propaganda or intervention and no insecurity can prevent the election from happening’, he made it absolutely clear. This is welcome news. He was short on details on election management. How the government and the poll body will ensure free and fair ballot remains a critical issue since the government’s writ doesn’t run all over the country, and war lords have carved out small fiefdoms. More over the Taliban and the dread Haqqani network have spread deep into the country amidst reports that some troops at the local formation level are either infiltrated by Taliban or have sympathy to Taliban.
