The fight against corruption in Afghanistan

What happened

A frustrated President Obama summoned Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top advisors this week to formulate a new way of dealing with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has stymied U.S.-led efforts to clean up the rampant corruption in his regime. In recent weeks, Karzai blocked several international investigations of graft in his government, amid continuing allegations that members of Karzai’s inner circle, including two of his half-brothers, are involved in drug-trafficking, bribery, and smuggling cash to foreign havens like Dubai. The rift between the Obama administration and the Karzai regime widened when Karzai recently freed a senior aide who had been arrested on corruption charges by Afghan prosecutors. “The current approach is not tenable,” said an Obama administration official.

The administration’s reconsideration of its Afghan policy comes amid growing doubts about the war’s effectiveness. The Afghanistan Study Group, an unofficial group of 46 American foreign-policy experts, last week issued a report arguing that the U.S. doesn’t need to defeat the Taliban to protect national security and that building a stable central government in Kabul is beyond U.S. capabilities. “The current strategy isn’t working, and it’s costing roughly $100 billion a year,” said former Bush administration advisor Richard Haass, one of the report’s co-authors. Ahead of parliamentary voting this weekend, more than 10,000 Afghans demonstrated in Kabul against Karzai and the U.S.

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What the editorials said

Karzai’s intransigence is hampering U.S. efforts “to lure fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, security, and a better life,” said The New York Times. Not all fighters are “true believers” in the Taliban; many are simply so disgusted by Karzai’s misrule that they see little choice but to join the insurgents. Karzai’s contempt for the U.S.—and the law—is palpable, said The Seattle Times, yet Obama’s advisors “still grope for reasons to justify an extended stay in Afghanistan.” If Karzai thinks so little of “American sacrifices of blood and treasure” on his nation’s behalf, “maybe it would be best if the U.S. government took its credit card and went home.”

Before we cut and run, let’s remember why we’re there in the first place, said the Boston Herald. Nine years ago, we were attacked by radicals inspired by “stubborn imams” who “think they have a monopoly on truth and righteousness.” They have not wavered in their resolve to destroy us, and so leave us little choice but to engage in a “seemingly endless battle to keep the Taliban and al Qaida at bay.”

What the columnists said

How long can Obama prop up Karzai? asked David Ignatius in The Washington Post. In the crucial southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, much of the populace fears the government more than the Taliban. In a recent survey of those provinces, 70 percent said they believed that local government officials engaged in drug-trafficking. Karzai seems to assume that the war effort is “so precarious” that the U.S. will indulge his corruption. “Such is the power of weakness.”

But the U.S. has other options, said Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times. Last week’s report by 46 “foreign-policy mandarins” offered proposals for scaling back our commitment in Afghanistan. Suggestions included “ending U.S. military operations in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is strongest, and seeking a power-sharing deal.” The American people will not give Obama “an infinite number of do-overs” in this already lengthy war, said Stephen Walt in ForeignPolicy.com. At best, Obama and his commander in Afghanistan have “a few more months” to show that a new strategy and 30,000 additional troops can strengthen the Kabul government and weaken the Taliban. But the decade-long fight for Afghanistan may already have “deteriorated so badly that not even a major effort will succeed.”

Leaving millions of Afghans—and Americans—to the tender mercies of the Taliban and al Qaida is “unacceptable,” said NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in The Washington Post. Afghan security forces are growing in size and capability, and “the Taliban is under pressure almost everywhere.” The fight will be long, but we must never again allow the Taliban to rule “by force” or “allow al Qaida to have a haven in Afghanistan.”