KABUL, Afghanistan ? As President Hamid Karzai made more antagonistic statements recently toward the NATO countries fighting on behalf of his government, the West was taking stock of how little maneuvering room it has.
There are no good options on the horizon, many analysts say, for reining in Mr. Karzai or for penalizing him, without potentially damaging Western interests. Diplomats and Afghan analysts say they are stuck with him for now. “The political situation is continuing to deteriorate; Karzai is flailing around,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul with long experience in the region.
The tensions between the West and Mr. Karzai flared up publicly on April 1, when Mr. Karzai accused the West and the United Nations of perpetrating fraud in the August presidential election and described the Western military coalition as coming close to being seen as invaders who would give the insurgency legitimacy as “a national resistance.”
Despite a conciliatory phone call to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton the next day, his comments since have only deepened the discord.
On April 3, Mr. Karzai met with about 60 members of Parliament, mostly supporters, and berated them for having rejected his proposed new election law. Among other things, the proposal would have given him the power to appoint all the members of the Electoral Complaints Commission, who are currently appointed by the United Nations, the Afghan Supreme Court and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The Electoral Complaints Commission documented the fraud that deprived Mr. Karzai of an outright victory in the presidential election.
At the meeting, Mr. Karzai stepped up his anti-Western statements, according to a Parliament member who was in attendance but spoke on condition of anonymity. “If you and the international community pressure me more, I swear that I am going to join the Taliban,” Mr. Karzai said, according to the Parliament member.
A spokesman for Mr. Karzai, Waheed Omar, could not be reached for comment the next day.
In a speech in Kandahar on April 4, Mr. Karzai promised local tribal elders that coalition military operations planned for the coming months would not proceed without their approval. “I know you are worried about this operation,” he said, adding: “There will be no operation until you are happy.”
Interviews with diplomats, Afghan analysts and ordinary Afghans suggest that the United States and other Western countries have three options: threaten to withdraw troops or actually withdraw them; use diplomacy, which so far has had little result; and find ways to expand citizen participation in the government.
Threatening to withdraw, which Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, called the “nuclear deterrent” option, would put the United States and other Western countries in the position of potentially having to make good on the promise, risking their strategic interest in a stable Afghanistan.
Greater power sharing faces structural obstacles.
“There are no better angels about to descend on Afghanistan,” said Alex Thier, a senior Afghan analyst at the United States Institute of Peace. “Unless some drastic action is taken, Mr. Karzai is the president of Afghanistan, and he was just elected for another five years.”
Mehram Ali, a man from Wardak Province who was shopping in Kabul recently, voiced a concern. “In this recent situation, we do need foreign soldiers to help us in bringing peace and stability for our country,” he said. “And if the foreigners leave us, then the people of Afghanistan will face adversity from every direction, and Afghanistan will return to what it was like 10 years ago when we had the Taliban government.”
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Reporting was contributed by Richard A. Oppel Jr., Abdul Waheed Wafa and Sharifullah Sahak from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar.
POOL PHOTO BY GOLNAR MOTEVALLI
In Kandahar, Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, addressed tribal elders’ concerns about a planned coalition offensive. His statements have created tensions with the West.
