{"id":515474,"date":"2010-04-05T08:36:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T12:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=81365"},"modified":"2010-04-05T08:36:44","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T12:36:44","slug":"karzai%e2%80%99s-tantrum-and-kandahar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/515474","title":{"rendered":"Karzai\u2019s Tantrum and Kandahar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing with the newest Afghanistan metric<\/a>, President Hamid Karzai’s whining has intensified, this time to the point where he follows up an attempt to walk back Thursday’s anti-western rant with a statement to a group of parliamentarians declaring that he’ll join the Taliban<\/a> if he’s forced to be a U.S. puppet. One can only imagine Amb. Karl Eikenberry chuckling to himself about killing two birds with one stone.<\/p>\n

More substantively, what Karzai wants is the ability to control an independent election-fraud monitor. It’s one thing to play up nationalist bona fides, particularly after stealing your own re-election. But look to see if Karzai develops this line of argument in order to win the U.S.’s acquiescence for his scheme:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Despite his displeasure with the U.S. government, Karzai made the trip to Kandahar to build public support for a top U.S. and NATO goal of combating the insurgency with a major military push this summer into the districts around Kandahar.<\/p>\n

He asked attendees whether they are happy about the upcoming operation. A loud murmur echoed across the vast meeting room.<\/p>\n

“Listen to me carefully: Until you’re happy and satisfied, we will not conduct this operation,” he said to loud applause.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has publicly stated that he wants buy-in from local Kandahar notables before he sends NATO forces into the city and its surrounding areas<\/a>. It’s a position firmly in line with the counterinsurgency principle of seeking local partnership, with the Afghanistan-centric tweak of seeking that partnership at very<\/em> local levels, something that has the effect of circumventing Karzai. For all Karzai’s reliance on U.S. money and security, Karzai could force a revision in U.S. planning if he decides to become an obstacle to the Kandahar offensive later this spring. How far is he willing to take this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing with the newest Afghanistan metric, President Hamid Karzai’s whining has intensified, this time to the point where he follows up an attempt to walk back Thursday’s anti-western rant with a statement to a group of parliamentarians declaring that he’ll join the Taliban if he’s forced to be a U.S. puppet. One can only imagine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-515474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}