US lawmakers and officials are signalling a new pragmatic approach to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, seeing no choice but to cooperate quietly with him despite misgivings about his rule. US senators back from a trip to Afghanistan said that Karzai indicated he supported US involvement despite a string of biting criticisms of foreign powers that raised consternation in Washington.
Senator Jack Reed said Wednesday that like many in Afghanistan, Karzai's first sense of loyalty was "to his family, the tribe and then to the nation." "That is not an uncommon approach, but it sets up a tension because our orientation is primarily to the nation of Afghanistan," said Reed, a member of President Barack Obama's Democratic Party from Rhode Island.
"We were fortunate in the United States - we had George Washington. There are very few countries in the world that at a critical moment like this have a George Washington," Reed said. Reed said that while Karzai should watch his words, the United States needed to build government capacity across Afghanistan, including at the local level.
"We have to recognise that he's the president of Afghanistan. He has to work with us and we have to work with him and sometimes it's trying on both sides." Obama in December ordered thousands more troops into Afghanistan as part of a new drive to fight the Taliban, hoping the country will never again become a haven for al Qaeda extremists.
Karzai recently charged that Western powers tried to rig last year's election, in which foreign observers reported widespread ballot stuffing on behalf of the Afghan leader. Amid the furor over the election remarks, Karzai was quoted as saying he was ready to join the Taliban if parliament did not support his efforts to take control of the country's election commission.
Senators said Karzai denied the remarks in an hour-long meeting. "He said the Taliban killed his father. He hates the Taliban. There's no way he would join the Taliban," said Senator John Ensign, a member of the minority Republican Party. Karzai also said "that he considers America a great partner," the Nevada lawmaker said. Senators suggested that domestic politics may have triggered Karzai's remarks.
"A lot of the world regards his election as president as something less than legitimate, and understandably so," said Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware. "I know people in his own country regard him as an American puppet." "Those factors are weighing on him and he feels a need to assert his independence, to show that he is not a puppet."
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