Karzai's Brother: "I am the Nancy Pelosi of Kandahar"

By Steve Hynd

The UK's Financial Times continues to be one of the best newspapers for stories looking behind the official spin in Afghanistan. Today, Matthew Green reports on the thorny problem of what US and allied forces intend for the Afghan president's brother, alleged narcolord Ahmed Wali Karzai, who has been described as the "King of Kandahar":

Having emerged as the pre-eminent powerbroker in southern Afghanistan in the past five years, the younger half-brother of President Hamid Karzai now embodies one of the most urgent foreign policy dilemmas for the US.

To his critics, Mr Karzai, 49, the chairman of the provincial legislative council, is the don of a "shadow government" of narco-traffickers, gun-runners and militia bosses exploiting a murky nexus of crony capitalism, tribal intrigue and espionage to hijack the Afghan state.

They say the network's attempts to monopolise power in the province have fuelled sympathy for the insurgents. Yet the US is counting on Mr Karzai to back a push by Nato this summer to beat the Taliban on its home turf by persuading Kandaharis a new era of responsive government has dawned.

Anxious to overcome his shady reputation in the eyes of some US officials, Mr Karzai has cast himself in the role of a tribal chieftain poised to use the aristocratic aura of the Karzai dynasty to rally ethnic Pashtuns behind the plan. "My father was the head of this province, my grandfather was head of this province," he said.

"I learnt from my father how to deal with the tribes, how to earn their respect. I would like to use that power to support the international community's effort.

"Let's hope for a new beginning. Let's work together, I want to serve my people," he said.

Seeking to present himself as a link between government and the people, Mr Karzai compared his role as council chairman to that of speaker of the US House of Representatives. "I am the Nancy Pelosi of Kandahar," he said.

The west's exit strategy from Afghanistan hinges on building formal government institutions and professional security forces to undercut the Taliban and allow 140,000 foreign troops to leave. To some observers, Mr Karzai's fief in Kandahar embodies the emergence of a new, personality-driven political order in which the Karzai family occupies centre-stage. Disaffected Kandahari politicians and elders say resentment of Mr Karzai is the biggest factor driving the growth of the insurgency and that it will be difficult to nurture loyalty for the Afghan state while he remains in the city.

Mr Karzai's opponents, senior US officials and independent analysts believe he has exploited his chairmanship of the provincial council to favour his family's Popalzai clan, alienating other Pashtun groups. They say a clique of oligarchs and local warlords profiting from US contracts to protect Nato supply convoys has tightened his grip on the city and its hinterland.

"If the offensive goes on while Ahmed Wali Karzai is still there, it will fail," said Malalai Ishaq Zai, an MP from Kandahar. "There is a very big risk that he will take advantage of it to widen his influence."

...one coalition official said: "There's no clear policy on what to do about Ahmed Wali Karzai apart from leaving him in place. I assume that we hope that he'll play ball."

But even if Karzai does play ball, leaving him in place - a man who compares himself and his brother to Britain's royal family - will only keep in place the favoritism and corruption that is driving Afghans to the insurgency already. That's not just true in Kandahar. We've seen the same thing already in Helmand where a paranoic nutter is provincial Governor and one of his key district chiefs is a murderous thug who used to run a German laundromat.

It's almost as if all the talk of "population-centric COIN" is just crap to provide domestic political cover for a strategy of "paper over the cracks and head for the exits". I don't have any problem with heading for the exits and leaving Afghans to run their country the way Afghans decide they want to - but I do have a problem with the unnecessary bloodshed that is providing a domestic political figleaf for the West's political leaders, only so that they can say they didn't "cut and run".