Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

For some time I've held the opinion that the Afghanistan government of Hamid Karzai is hopelessly compromised and beyond salvation. The sad reality is that Karzai was plopped into place by Washington and then promptly abandoned. Without the clout that he needed in the first three years of the post-Taliban era his political power dwindled and, with it, the promise of a better future for Afghanistan.

Karzai was stared down by the Northern Alliance warlords, some of them thoroughly disreputable types. To hang onto power he had to make accommodations with them that corrupted the country's judicial system and law enforcement service and fatally wounded hopes of a stable, productive Afghanistan. There were many power vacuums in this fiasco and the predictable groups wasted no time moving in to fill them. The Taliban is just one of these opportunists.

What to do? The corruption within Karzai's government is lethal, terminal and a powerful recruiting tool for the Taliban. It's a disease that he is powerless to cure. Holding the Taliban at bay, even if we could do that, won't remedy the Kabul government's core deficiencies.

NATO can probably hold its positions for another two years, possibly three, if 'the mission' doesn't tear the alliance to shreds. Just what sort of government will there be in Kabul by the time we leave? Maybe the best thing we can do is to start over again. Scrap the Karzai government. Oust the thugs and criminals from their positions of power and try to find decent people from whom we can forge a new Afghan government.

The biggest pitfall to salvaging Afghanistan is the same one that's plagued the place and doomed Karzai from the start - we want to do it all on the cheap. Maintaining the status quo simply isn't an option because it's been proven not to work. Why squander more of our soldiers' lives unless we're prepared to do what is necessary and not just militarily?

At this point it's going to take a huge amount of money and vastly more troops to succeed. It's also going to take an approach to Afghanistan that reaches beyond political posturing for the voters back home. If we're not willing to make that investment and accept these ongoing sacrifices, let's do the responsible thing and get out. Afghanistan doesn't need our help to fail.

This very thing is being proposed for Iraq by the former UN envoy to that country, Lakhdar Brahimi, from The Independent:

"'There is a refusal to accept that the so-called process is not working. It collapsed a long time ago. They should sit down and put something else up. What we need is a serious attempt at national reconciliation that has never taken place,' said Lakhdar Brahimi, the Algerian diplomat who put together the first blueprint for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"He added that 'what is very, very disturbing is that the militias killing Iraqis are actually in the government. In other words part of the government is part of the problem.' He also warned that allowing Iraq to break up into three parts, as advocated by some politicians and commentators in the US and Britain, would produce 'chaos, first inside Iraq, and then all over the region'.

"Asked whether the "window of opportunity" had already closed for Iraq, Mr Brahimi replied: 'It's never totally closed. The thing is to know how to reopen it, but after how many thousands more are dead?'"