President Karzai's Flip Flops Without Cost to Himself

Though he might well trot about in handmade footwear, President Karzai has been flip-flopping, first moving away from his backers and back into the fold when promises to coddle his administration recently fell to strong remonstrations and anger within the diplomatic circles in Kabul.

First, citing charges of election fraud, he promised that he won’t seat the newly elected Parliament for at least another month, delaying the inauguration of a parliament finally declared legitimately elected in November.  Interestingly Karzai has been governing by decree since that time; a toxic mess even for an upended democracy like Afghanistan.

Then, after intense jostling, he succumbed to international pressure and gave in; Parliament will convene on Wednesday, January 26.  Yet, the Obama administration has continued to support the Karzai cartel, seemingly allowing the Karzai brothers to operate their clientelistic programs without impunity.

President Karzai sought the so-called advice on the special court that he appointed on the matter of the contested elections and upon their curried consult delayed the convocation of the new Parliament.   You see this new parliament has even fewer Karzai cronies that the hobbled parliament that just passed. After much haranguing and no doubt shouting, he relented and agreed to inaugurate this less friendly parliament as soon as possible.  Now he did so only because the newly elected legislators promised to convene the new parliament without his say so.  Indeed, Mr. Karzai is well beyond his mandate for he has repeated refused to convene parliament and has therefore delayed the functioning of democratic politics in Afghanistan.  The legislators demanded that he move according to the Constitution of Afghanistan or risk triggering a constitutional crisis–only he is legally capable of convening a new parliament’s term–that could be solved only his defeat or through an overt autocratic action, a move that would be deemed impermissible by his U.S and NATO backers.

It seems that disgraced former CIA officer Duane Clarridge’s forceful argument that Karzai’s clientelistic politics should be disavowed and disrupted is right on the money, though the methods he has chosen to pursue that goal seems less than savory-indeed down right dangerous for U.S and NATO troops.

Mr. Obama might now have wished to have listened to other voices that cautioned against holding up Karzai’s administration. For as writing for the New York Times decry: “the biggest winners in the controversy might prove to be the Taliban.  For until now, the Taliban have had a winning argument against Karzai: the game he has been playing for sometime has not been the democracy.