A three-way game with no winner

April.10 : The sharp confrontation that has developed between Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and the Obama administration is a danger signal that could mark the beginning of the end of American — and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) — commitment to the war-ravaged country. To one who has covered America’s Vietnam War for five years in the 1960s, it is an eerie reminder of the fragility of relations between a power fighting someone’s war and the leader of the client state.

In hindsight, it is clear that the nature of America’s problems in Vietnam changed radically once Washington achieved its goal of deposing President Diem and his immediate family, including the formidable Madame Nhu. Diem, who had a presence but was autocratic and headstrong. This gave way to a succession of leaders who acted as bit players in the downward spiral of the American involvement. In the end, Americans came to recognise their folly even as the last Vietnam general holding fort began to display a backbone, once it was clear that Americans had decided to cut and run.
Mr Karzai’s otherwise inexplicable outburst against the United States, his benefactor and protector, blaming the West and the United Nations for the electoral fraud that brought him his re-election, has a logic of its own. The Afghan leader has read the tea leaves and come to the conclusion that his future lies in separating himself from Washington and being his own man.
In essence, the apparently tense meeting that US President Barack Obama had with the Afghan President during his recent flying visit to Kabul seems to have convinced Mr Karzai that he is seeing the endgame of the present phase of American involvement. In any event, the announcement of the troop surge while setting a target date for the beginning of withdrawal of US troops was a red light for Afghans.
The Obama administration is seeking to find a way out of the maze while suppressing its anger. It faces two kinds of problems: what to do with Mr Karzai, and if there is no option to his continuing presidency, how to evolve a new modus vivendi in dealing with him as the US and Nato troops fight the war and seek a compromise with sections of the Taliban?
It is widely acknowledged in US administration circles that there is, for the present, no appealing option to the continuance of Mr Karzai. The question then boils down to how to work with or around him. One body of opinion building up among American experts is to keep Mr Karzai out of the loop in framing strategies for, and giving funds to, the regions. But such a policy runs the risk of forming two parallel administrations. As it is, the US military’s increasing tendency not to reveal the nature of military operations to the Karzai administration to guard against leaks is creating bad blood.
Another danger in the fraught relations between Karzai and the Obama administration is that there might emerge a competitive bid for seeking reconciliation with the Taliban. The last UN representative in Kabul has publicly declared his belief that his reconciliation efforts with the Taliban leadership were hampered by Pakistan, which is seeking a lead role in any reconciliation between the US and the Taliban. Mr Karzai, on his part, has been seeking a discourse with sections of the Taliban.
Officially, the US maintains that it is in Afghanistan for the long haul, but the acute tensions with Mr Karzai make that task more difficult because it sways domestic public opinion against remaining in Afghanistan and adds to the problems of the European Nato troop providers in convincing their sceptical public about the benefits of spending wealth and lives on the remote Afghan battlefield.
It is therefore important for the US to act before the situation gets out of hand. Suggestions for cancelling the invitation extended to Mr Karzai to visit Washington next month are indications of the kind of dangerous thoughts in the air. As Diem proved in Vietnam and Mr Karzai is seeking to prove in Afghanistan, an inherently unequal relationship becomes more equal because of the nature of the interdependence between the two sides at a certain stage in a war situation.
The main thrust of the Nato operation is in southern Afghanistan and, despite the successes of the operations in certain areas, the picture seems far from rosy. And American reliance on Pakistan has grown even as Islamabad is seeking to extract the maximum advantage out of its physical and other assets. The leaked secret memo of Mr Obama in getting India to befriend Pakistan to enable Islamabad to fight single-mindedly in combating the Taliban and Al Qaeda is no surprise.
It is for the Obama administration to call a truce to the sniping that continues between his administration and Mr Karzai. For the better or worse, Washington is stuck with him for the present. At the same time, Washington must let him know that there are red lines he must not cross in asserting in public his independence from the US with an eye on his own political future.
Merely to pose the question is to underline its complexity. It has now become a US-Afghanistan-Pakistan triangle in which the odds are increasing for each party. The US is hoping to leave after establishing a modicum of stability and with a measure of self-respect. Mr Karzai must fashion his own future in a post-American phase. Islamabad wants to be a prominent participant in the three-way game to take the winning hand.
India is largely a spectator in the game.
 
S. Nihal Singh