Hamid Karzai: Upbeat and Unwavering

July 8, 2005

Hamid Karzai: Upbeat and Unwavering

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is noticeably and understandably tired.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is noticeably and understandably tired.  Recently returned from a challenging but very successful trip to the United States which took him from Washington to Nebraska, Afghanistan's president was upbeat and, characteristically optimistic, despite coming home to an all but overwhelming array of challenges. 

President Karzai's opening comments in a recent exclusive interview reflected his positive nature.  Focusing on two small but, to him, significant aspects of his U.S. trip, he enthused, "The second day of my trip, The Washington Times ran a color photo of me with [American] troops on the front page with the caption ‘Enduring Ties'.  I liked that; it represents just what we have wanted to achieve in our relationship with the United States.  It really made me happy. 

"And I saw this wherever we traveled outside Washington.  I was in Nebraska and there were children waving Afghan flags: not one, two or three but hundreds of them.  This was not at the State Department, but in Nebraska ... something that could not have been organized.  It made me so happy."

Leading Afghanistan requires world class optimism.  The world's fourth poorest nation with the highest infant mortality rate, ranking first globally in opium and heroin production, Afghanistan presents a staggering series of challenges, more than enough for even the most positive personality.  A longtime friend and supporter of the President put it this way when I mentioned the above proverb: "The Afghan rose has countless thorns.  Karzai is the only man I know who could maintain his positive spirit and commitment in this complicated situation."

Complicated it is, but promising.  For example, a senior resident diplomat considered last October's presidential elections "one of the most magnificent political events of the year, and it happened in this star-crossed, troubled country.  We thought perhaps one million Afghans would register and half of them vote.  In fact, 8 ½ million people, 40 percent of them female, voted with no significant disturbing incidents."

History has not been kind to Afghanistan.  Longtime observers, in fact, marvel at the determination by virtually all segments of society to preserve the country, which is a mix of Sunni and Shi'a Muslims, four major ethnic groups -- Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, and numerous smaller communities.  Often attacked, regularly overrun and frequently occupied, the land has experienced streams of Greeks, Mongols, Persians, British, Russians and now, Americans. 

The American presence, unlike the others however, is supported by all but a relative few diehard extremists: "We welcome them!" President Karzai exclaims.  "The Americans freed our country from the terrible Taliban dictatorship, and now they are working with us to rebuild our society."  Indeed, the U.S. liberation freed Afghanistan from the terrible Taliban dictatorship, and, at the same time, eliminated Al Qaeda`s primary bases of operations.

[Outgoing CENTCOM chief of staff Colonel David Lamm, a veteran of highly challenging situations from Panama to Iraq, considers the Afghan National Army's development since liberation exemplary.  "They have had a rigorous training program, and are handling a wide variety of missions, including combat, very capably."  Coalition mentors sprinkled through ANA units mentor "but do not lead" the Afghans, according to Lamm..  He is enthusiastic about a similar program just being launched for the nation's police.  Involving two years' training plus ongoing mentorship, the program will include specialized instruction, ranging from traffic to narcotics and border patrol.]   

Although there have been several incidents in recent weeks, including a rare suicide bombing of an internet café, Karzai firmly rejects that there is a long term escalation of terrorism, calling the events "acts of desperation".  According to the President, remnant Taliban hardliners and a few as yet un-regenerated warlords are acting up because they continuously lose power.  "An increase in terrorist activities is to be expected the closer we get to the September parliamentary elections." he notes.  "The former foreign minister is one of several ex-Taliban officials running, among 6,000 candidates running for provincial and national assemblies.  I'm having a luncheon this week for 16 of them."

Moreover, supporters of the old regime "are against our strategic partnership with the United States" which Karzai sees as crucial to Afghanistan's progression on the road to stability and reconstruction.  "Afghanistan was ruined by foreign money, reaching all the way to the twin towers in New York.  The root cause of the troubles we have faced in Afghanistan has been the intervention of money from abroad, and the strategic relationship with the United States should disabuse foreign governments from intervening."

President Karzai was referring to broad concerns about foreign financial intervention in the all important parliamentary elections.  Political leaders, businessmen and shopkeepers all worry that neighboring countries, including, particularly, Iran, Pakistan and Russia, will support candidates sympathetic to their respective interests in dominating Afghanistan, as well as their regional objectives.  Such activity from abroad would be both illegal and, Karzai believes, counter-productive.  "There is nothing the Afghan people hate more than that kind of money coming into the country," he asserts.  "Any Afghan who takes that kind of money will lose support … equally so if narcotics money appears."

The unwelcome but deeply ingrained narcotics trade is unquestionably the country's most difficult challenge, the most painful thorn on the Afghan rose.  Charge d'Affaires Dick Christiansen, currently the senior U.S. diplomat in Kabul, considers narcotics "the dark cloud on the horizon, which we must get right." 

The broadly cultivated poppy represents an estimated 60 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product, employing countless thousands of small plot farmers, nationwide.  When reduced to opium and further refined to heroin, current poppy production accounts for 90 percent of world heroin production.  Eliminating this scourge is critical to national stability, in addition to being a major worldwide concern.  While eradication is critically important; care must be taken to replace this huge aspect of the country's economy, affecting as it does a large percentage of Afghanistan's population.

High value replacement crops, including almond and pomegranate trees destroyed during decades of struggle, take years to become productive; while fast growing crops such as wheat do not produce enough cash to satisfy basic needs.  Programs to provide alternative livelihoods for poppy growers are being developed to supplement sharply reduced income from wheat, 25 percent the yield of poppy resin [$1600 per acre for poppy vs. $400 for wheat]. 

In Nangarhar, one of the country's five leading poppy producing provinces, a program initiated by the Provincial Reconstruction Team, a unique U.S. multi-agency support concept, has created and filled some 12 thousand jobs in three months.  Work, including road construction, medical clinic and school building, agricultural canal cleaning and reconstruction, pays workers more than enough to provide for their families, particularly taken together with their wheat farming income.  The challenge for the four year program is to create as many as 100 thousand jobs in Nangarhar province alone, as soon as possible.

The Afghan President is pleased with progress to curtail poppy production and has great hope that alternative livelihoods programs will ultimately make the difference in the fight against the narcotics plague.  "We have had considerable reduction of poppies….  I understand total national production last year was down 30 percent [from 2003].  I would be very happy if we got word from the United Nations of another 30 percent reduction - even 20 percent.  If we can do that for five years, we will be rid of the poppy problem. 

"Alternative livelihoods are the biggest factor in the anti-narcotics fight", Karzai stressed.  We must give our farmers an alternative to the easiest, most profitable crop - poppies.  Now, our people have hope for the future, with schools, roads and water supplies functioning.  Alternative livelihoods will finish the process."     

Support for Afghanistan's battle to eliminate the drugs trade is worldwide.  President Karzai was clearly pleased that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, whose nation faces many of the same challenges as Afghanistan, had contacted him.  "The President called me recently and offered his full support in our fight against narcotics in Afghanistan.  It was very gratifying to hear from him."

Afghanistan's long term stability importantly depends on peaceful relations with its neighbors, as well as friends from afar.  Terrorists, nomads and returning refugees have free flow across poorly secured borders, particularly those with Pakistan and Iran.  Zabul province, on the border with Pakistan, harbors the largest group of Taliban loyalists in the country.  Frequent U.S.-Afghan military strikes routinely kill or capture 40 or more insurgent fighters, but their ranks are quickly replenished by troops on standby in sanctuaries in Pakistan's wild and wooly North-West Frontier province.

As it seems with every challenge, Hamid Karzai finds reason to be optimistic.  In addition to working with the United States to significantly improve border control, he is pleased with the prospect of bilateral progress with Pakistan's new Prime Minister: "Shauqat Aziz is a good, good man.  One can work with him.  He is a solid, pragmatic businessman who also has a sense of life."

After nearly three destructive decades involving foreign occupation from the former Soviet Union, followed by internal bloodbaths among feuding mujahideen fighters and contesting warlords and, finally, repressive reign by Taliban extremists, President Karzai considers the strategic partnership with the U.S. critical both for the country's reconstruction and to keep foreign intruders out.