WASHINGTON - The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan
President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and
governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt
and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping
clinch his re-election, Inter Press Service (IPS) has learned.
Obama told reporters last week that he had emphasized to Karzai in a phone call
to congratulate him on his re-election that there would have to be "a much more
serious effort to eradicate corruption" and that "the proof is not going to be
in words, it's going to be in deeds".
The New York Times reported the day after the Obama-Karzai
conversation that the Obama administration wanted Karzai to prosecute certain
high-profile figures known to be involved in corruption. The story referred to
the president's brother, Kandahar warlord Ahmed Wali Karzai, former defense
minister Mohammed Fahim and General Abdul Rashid Dostum.
And last Wednesday, Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
said that Karzai must "take concrete steps to eliminate corruption", adding it
means "you have to rid yourself of those who are corrupt, you have to actually
arrest and prosecute them".
The new public rhetoric and press stories have given the impression that the
Obama administration is now pursuing far-reaching reform of Afghanistan's
system of governance. But the sudden intensification of administration pressure
on the issue of corruption is aimed less at far-reaching reform of the system
than at avoiding a significant worsening of the problem in the wake of Karzai's
re-election, which was dogged with allegations of fraud.
In return for their pledges to guarantee huge majorities for Karzai in the
August 20 election, the Afghan president had to make promises to a number of
power brokers or warlords in the provinces. Some of those were promised key
ministries in the next government, according to Gilles Dorronsoro, a specialist
on Afghanistan at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The main concern in Kabul and Washington in the wake of Karzai's re-election is
how many of the warlords to whom Karzai is indebted will be rewarded with
ministries when the new cabinet is announced.
"Everybody who supported Karzai now expects their payback," said Dorronsoro,
who spent the entire month of August in Afghanistan.
It is understood that the Obama administration's pressure on Karzai over the
corruption issue is aimed in large part at heading off the nomination of some
of the most incompetent and corrupt warlords to key ministries, and that Karzai
is aware of this US concern.
It now seems very likely, however, that some lucrative ministries will be given
to warlord allies of Karzai.
Dorronsoro believes the administration's influence on Karzai's new government
is going to be constrained by Karzai's dependence on provincial and
sub-provincial warlords who control the actual levers of power outside Kabul.
The US pressure on Karzai "can only work on a few ministries and a few issues",
he told IPS.
It is understood here that administration officials are well aware of the
political constraints on Karzai imposed by the power of warlords in the
provinces. They understand that reforming the governance system of Afghanistan
cannot be achieved simply by leaning on Karzai.
"There is no Afghan government in the way there is an American government,"
counter-insurgency guru David Kilcullen observed on a panel at the US Institute
of Peace last August. "There are only a series of fiefdoms."
Kilcullen cited those warlord fiefdoms, and the lack of law and order that
accompanies them, as the main driver of popular support for the Taliban
insurgency.
The power of the warlords, which US policy abetted by providing them with cash,
arms and legitimacy in the wake of the overthrow of the Taliban regime, poses
serious obstacles to any US initiative aimed at reducing corruption.
Although US commander General Stanley McChrystal warned that US ties with
regional power brokers have alienated much of the Afghan population from
foreign troops, US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military
contingents remain heavily dependent on them for the provision of perimeter
security for their fixed bases and to protect supply convoys, as IPS has
reported.
Even the idea of prosecuting the president's brother Ahmed Wali Karzai over his
role in the drug trade is likely to generate disagreement within the
administration, because the Central Intelligence Agency's operations
directorate continues to use his paramilitary organization for intelligence and
counterinsurgency operations.
There is no evidence that the administration is moving toward a more aggressive
posture toward the warlords in general. Instead, the problem is viewed as one
in which US interests in supporting the central government must be balanced
with its interests in cooperation with provincial and sub-provincial power
holders, IPS has learned.
National security officials tend to believe, for example, that the way to
handle the problem of abuses by the militia personnel and police affiliated
with individual warlords is not to take on the warlords but to do more to train
national police.
Despite the flurry of activity on the corruption issue, the administration
still hasn't decided what approach it should adopt to promote governance and
anti-corruption reforms. Several different options are said to be still under
discussion.
One of the approaches being proposed by some officials is to get Karzai to
agree to a detailed plan of action which would involve both the United States
and other states heavily involved in Afghanistan, as reported by McClatchy last
Monday.
The report referred to the plan as the "Afghanistan Compact" and said the
administration had been working with the Karzai government and other allied
governments "for months", according to McClatchy.
But an intelligence official told McClatchy he was doubtful about such a
compact, because it would require Karzai to renege on promises he had made to
his warlord allies.
A previous "Compact on Afghanistan", which was agreed to by the Karzai
government and 50 other states at a conference in London on February 1, 2006,
has been an embarrassing failure.
That document included benchmarks for progress in bringing about the rule of
law, human rights, public administration reform and "anti-corruption", among
other areas, by the end of 2010. In those politically sensitive areas, however,
the Karzai regime not only did not deliver on the 2006 pledges but has even
retrogressed on many of the targets.
Some officials are suggesting that the administration avoid using the term
"compact" altogether, because of the well-known fate of the previous effort.
One of the problems associated with trying to get Karzai to do anything about
governance and corruption, IPS has learned, is that it has taken months in the
past to work out any agreement with Karzai on any politically sensitive issue.
There is now a sense in the administration, however, that it may not have that
much time to have an impact on Karzai's behavior.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing
in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was
published in 2006.
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