Does Karzai Understand Partnership?

In today’s Washington Post article, “Karzai calls on U.S. to lighten troop presence,” Karzai laments the “visibility and intensity” of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, arguing that their increased presence would only worsen the war and encourage Afghans to join the Taliban: “The time has come to reduce military operations,”he said. “The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan . . . to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life.”

Karzai is particularly critical of night raids, which, he said, terrorize the people: “The Afghan people don’t like these raids, if there is any raid it has to be done by the Afghan government within the Afghan laws. This is a continuing disagreement between us” (that is, between Karzai and the U.S. military).

But not seeing the end-goal of U.S. military operations, Karzai seems to misunderstand the terms of this partnership. He is misconstruing his role as a worthy partner. He said, “If a partner means a silent spectator of events conducted by Washington, if that kind of partner you seek, well, I’m not that partner . . . Nor the Afghan people.” But a partnership entails thinking as one, aligning the mission objectives of both parties into one, pooling their resources together, and reinforcing each other so that instead of separate units of forces pursuing the same end, a unified force will emerge to accomplish with effectiveness the same goal.

It seems this is an aspect of the U.S.-Afghanistan partnership that is not clear to Karzai. Instead of being on the same page with the U.S. military and NATO forces in their fight against the Taliban, he seems to be pursuing a different agenda. What he should be doing is supporting their goals instead of pitting them against the Afghan people. He should be waging a PR campaign among his people, explaining to them why these forces need to engage in certain operations and why they should be considered allies and the Taliban the enemies. With Karzai’s encouragement, popular support should be directed to the former and antipathy to the latter.

Posing a negative, defensive, and contrarian stance against foreign forces is perhaps Karzai’s way of projecting strength and commanding respect on the world stage. But the exact opposite is happening instead. Pride, strength, respect, and wisdom of a leader come with recognizing what is right and just for his people, even if that would mean partnering with those foreigners on boots.