The war in Afghanistan is making its insidious way into the consciousness of Americans, and the news is not reassuring. Barack Obama’s “right war” is proving to be a far riskier enterprise than even Iraq was, and the president may soon be forced to overcompensate so that his political career is not ruined by the outcome.
Mr Obama is poorly served by his allies. His Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, may already be lost to the cause. To shore up his anaemic power, Mr Karzai has allowed trafficking and patronage networks to flourish, undermining efforts to rebuild an Afghan state. However, when The New York Times led with a story last week that Mr Karzai did not expect the United States and Nato to win in Afghanistan, you had to wonder if he didn’t have a point. Mr Obama has put the his money – and soldiers – where his mouth is, but Washington is so plainly eager to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible that Mr Karzai might be forgiven for hedging his bets.
Or, Mr Karzai just realises the situation is more corrosive than American officials let on. The problem is Pakistan. As Washington pursues an intricate counter-insurgency strategy and the Sisyphean task of curbing Afghan corruption, its so-called friends in Islamabad are making things difficult at every turn. Mr Karzai has weighed the options and apparently feels the Pakistanis will prevail. That is why he recently pushed several Afghan officials to resign, evidently at Islamabad’s request, including the intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh.
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