By Dave Anderson:
Joel Hafvenstein at Registan has an interesting piece on the incompatibility of the Karzai governing and patronage style that has so far cemented his personal and broader coalition's hold onto power, and legitimacy. As long as Western money, Western troops and Western air power is flowing into Afghanistan, this means Karzai and his coterie of supporters will maintain formal power but it will also guarantee a long term insurgency as the Taliban has sufficient legitimacy claims in its heartland because the patronage system is so corrupting they just have to out-govern the government:
Karzai�s not going to allow a genuinely rule-of-law based system,
because it would alienate the former commanders and nouveaux riches
businessmen whom he sees as key to controlling Afghanistan....Haseeb Humayoon�s coolly descriptive
analysis of the 2009 election correctly highlights the breadth of
Karzai�s support base � including not just the warlords, ethnocrats, and
crooks of lore, but much of the technocratic, educated class beloved of
foreign donors...Karzai has been unwilling to get tough with even the most brazenly
predatory and self-enriching figures in his coalition. He doesn�t hold
his governors and cabinet members accountable for bad governance (unless
he also suspects them of disloyalty)....he�s in a legitimacy contest with the insurgency � and the Taliban
understand the nature of the fight they�re in. They don�t need to win a
single pitched battle with the ANA (let alone NATO). They just need to
keep out-governing the government, especially on the issues that are
most important to ordinary Afghans. They have a vastly better track
record at crime prevention and creating security than the ANP. The
insurgent shadow courts are more credible than the corrupt government
ones....
As long as the Karzai government can count on Western money, Western troops and Western blood fighting to keep them in power, there is minimal incentive for them to piss off members of their governing coalition by actually rewarding good governance practices and cracking down on blatant corruption. This is a structural issue. And it will not be changing as long as the only option is to go various versions of big. And that will be the only political option for the United States to continue to go big even as more and more of ISAF and NATO are either going small or going home in the next eighteen to twenty four months.
We are engaging in a strategy in search of a decent interval and that is it.
There is something bizarre about discussions of legitimacy and rule of law in a country dependent on a revenue stream furnishing ninety percent of the world's opium supply.
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