Patronage Supreme

"With his legitimacy in question and his hold on power more tenuous by the day, Karzai now spends much of his time juggling the competing interests of his family, regional commanders, wealthy powerbrokers and international stakeholders.
"This precarious balancing act in which corruption and patronage reign supreme has neutralized the president's potency and hindered government reform." International Crisis Group: "Afghanistan: Exit vs Engagement"

If there is anyone who is conflicted in every sense of the word; emotionally, morally, ideologically, ethically, it is Afghan president Hamid Karzai. He is an impotent nationalist in a country that is not a nation, a monumentally concerned leader incapable of taking the helm as a credible leader, a paranoid psyche who cannot identify which turn his agenda should be taking to benefit the country, instead conferring benefits to his family, supporters, companions, political peers.

There is nothing new in any of this. Years ago he petulantly informed NATO that he will be friendly with whom he chooses, and he chose to greet Iran as a good neighbour and future support when NATO departs. He cannot possibly be ignorant of the knowledge that official Iran tasks members of its elite Republican Guard to train the Taliban, to provide it with weapons, including IED materials.

Yet President Karzai embarks on state visits to NATO countries to implore them to remain in his country, to help him defeat the insurgent, resurgent Taliban, and in the process please render increased financial aid, preferably directly to his coffers. So that his vice-president can be tasked with carrying tens of millions into Dubai, so patronage and bribes can be doled out to his supporters and the parliamentary war lords already rich with the avails of the poppy fields.

While Iran plots to increase its influence in Afghanistan, and hands over cash-stuffed valises through diplomatic interaction, and President Karzai jovially entertains his honoured guest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on state visits where they mutually declare undying faith in one another's administrations, NATO soldiers and Afghan children die by IED roadside explosions.

The Taliban destroy schools and medical clinics that the international community funds and humanitarian groups build, and President Karzai toys with the notion of sharing governance with them.

The urban centres of Afghanistan enjoying a relaxed new standard of living, and President Karzai agrees to implement laws that fiercely Islamist Shia Afghan groups insist their women abide by, requiring the wearing of all-encompassing burqas, and that women submit to the reality of 'enjoying' conjugal rights with their husbands, no options other, under any circumstances.

Canada's ambassador in Kabul admits to fury at the level of unreconstructed corruption in the Karzai government, in the elections, in the nonsensical decision-making in the face of NATO sacrifices in human life and nations' treasuries invested in a dysfunctionally dismal administration, warning that Mr. Karzai "continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defence, governance or development."

Finally, with the illicit release of classified U.S. government diplomatic documents, the potential for an enraged Karzai to sunder his dependence on NATO - the funnelling of cash and incentives, the foreign-based humanitarian work, the addiction to luxurious villas and vehicles for his colleagues and family aside - concerns the U.S. as likely fallout. Where the U.S. had stifled its outrage and contempt for Karzai, it is now in the public realm.

The pretense of the NATO diplomats and governments that all is well, and that there is nothing concerning them other than the push into the near future to ensure Afghanistan is capable of standing on its own, is now in the tender balance of possible collapse. The question being, will Karzai swallow his rage and chagrin and focus instead on what he may still purloin to advantage his family, or decree that NATO decamp?