Be careful what you ask for, Mr. Karzai

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Talk about disrespect:

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai lashed out at his Western backers for the second time in three days, accusing the U.S. of interfering in Afghan affairs and saying the Taliban insurgency would become a legitimate resistance movement if the meddling doesn't stop.

Mr. Karzai, whose government is propped up by billions of dollars in Western aid and nearly 100,000 American troops fighting a deadly war against the Taliban, made the comments during a private meeting with about 60 or 70 Afghan lawmakers Saturday.

At one point, Mr. Karzai suggested that he himself would be compelled to join the other side -- that is, the Taliban -- if the parliament didn't back his controversial attempt to take control of the country's electoral watchdog from the United Nations, according to three people who attended the meeting, including an ally of the president.

Mr. Karzai blamed the lawmakers' resistance to his move on a foreign conspiracy, they said. The Afghan president's latest remarks came less than 24 hours after he assured U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he was committed to working with the U.S. That phone call was precipitated by a similar -- but less vitriolic -- anti-Western diatribe Mr. Karzai delivered earlier last week.

So, basically, Karzai is talking out of both sides of his mouth while threatening his own country's parliament, trying to ensure that he can fix elections at will and ensure the preservation of his own rule, and attacking the hand that feeds him, the very hand that put him in power in the first place, behind that hand's back.

Of course, the hand, in this case the U.S., is bound to find out about the attacks. And I tend to think that the U.S., instead of continuing to prop him and his corrupt rule up, should tell him to fuck off. Diplomatically, of course. And that goes for every other country involved in the Afghan War, too, every other country fighting this seemingly pointless war in support of an ungrateful jackass, every other country losing lives to support a would-be tyrant, every other country pouring money into a barely legitimate kleptocracy that governs Kabul and little else.

Call Karzai's bluff. He needs the U.S., because he's nothing without its support, and he knows it. And he isn't about to switch sides and throw in his desperate lot with the Taliban, who would never accept him, never trust him, and certainly never allow him to rule.

There's no doubt that Afghanistan is better off without the Taliban in control, and without al Qaeda using the country as a launching pad for its activities. But I suspect that the country would be better off without Karzai, too.