Afghan President Hamid Karzai and many of his top cabinet ministers are visiting the United States, a trip that both sides hope will ease the strain in bilateral relations.
While Karzai enjoyed a cozy relationship with former president George W. Bush, his ties to Washington have frayed somewhat during the first 500 days of Barack Obama’s administration. On occasion, the administration even has publicly chided Karzai, as when National Security Adviser James L. Jones said in March that Obama wanted to “make him [Karzai] understand that in his second term there are certain things [that] have not been paid attention to almost since day one.” Karzai has not always responded maturely to such pointed barbs. In one instance, the Afghan president poured gasoline on the fire by openly threatening to join the Taliban.
But the White House now appears intent on improving relations with Karzai, who secured reelection last year amid a cloud of controversy involving widespread ballot-rigging.[For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
During their May 10-13 stay in Washington, Karzai and many of his top aides will hold talks with Obama, State Department and Pentagon representatives, members of Congress and officials from various other government agencies.
“The nature of strategic partnerships like the one between the United States and Afghanistan, they feature ups and downs,” said Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, special assistant to the president for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “But the difference between a mere relationship and a partnership like the one we’re talking about here is that partnerships endure the ups and downs and continue to press forward towards the common goals on which the partnership is founded.”
Obama administration officials now realize that Karzai does not respond well to criticism, even private criticism. “Karzai takes everything so personally, he doesn't trust anybody,” said Marvin Weinbaum, an Afghanistan expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “So they're going to handle him with kid gloves here.”
Likely at the top of the agenda for the Afghan delegation will be Kabul's “reconciliation and reintegration” plan, which aims to bring in members of the Taliban and other opposition forces into the government. The Afghans are aiming to secure US support for the plan by assuring the Americans that they can implement it without endangering progress made on human rights, in particular on women's rights, said Waheed Omer, a spokesman for Karzai, who spoke to reporters in Washington on May 10. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
“We will be reassuring our partners here about the impact of this program on the achievements we've made over the past several years,” Omer said. “We're not going to compromise on our freedoms, whether it is the freedom of the press, freedom for women, or any other freedom.”
US officials generally approve of the reconciliation plan, said Ben Rhodes, a White House spokesman. “The US position on this has been that we support an Afghan-led process in these areas. We’ve also made clear that we support a process that allows for the reintegration of those Afghans who break from violence, renounce their ties to al Qaeda, and abide by Afghanistan’s laws and constitution,” Rhodes said.
The most controversial part of the plan is Kabul's attempt to negotiate with Hizb-i-Islami and its leader, Gulbudeen Hekmatyar. So far, the United States has not objected to that move. This is a mistake, given Hekmatyar's unscrupulous nature and his opposition to US goals in Afghanistan, contended Edmund McWilliams, a former special envoy to the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s. “The notion that Karzai is entering into discussions with Hizb-i-Islami should raise a lot of red flags with the United States, and I don't see much indication that the United States sees that as particularly troublesome,” McWilliams said.
During the Washington talks, American leaders seem likely to accede to Kabul's plan to bring in Hekmatyar, but only because US officials believe that the plan will ultimately fail on its own, and they don't want to be seen as spoilers, Weinbaum said. Hekmatyar “has broken every agreement he's ever made. He's just vicious, vicious,” he said. “When and if they [the negotiations] come to nothing, as I think they will, we don't want anyone, including Karzai, to be in a position to say 'Well, the United States undercut us by its attitude.'”
The focal point of the visit for both the Americans and Afghans is less on concrete agreements than on improving the bilateral atmosphere, Weinbaum said: “Both sides want to solidify that they're back on the same page.”
An additional goal, from the American side, will be to continue to build relationships with more partners in Afghanistan than just Karzai, McWilliams said. “I think the intent on the part of Washington is to establish one-to-one relationships with other ministers and other major figures in the administration, and, quite frankly, I think that may mean a sidelining of Karzai himself,” he said. “They'll give him all the respect that is necessary publicly, but I think Washington is going to try establish ministry-to-ministry relationships that will essentially sideline Karzai.”
Additional areas of emphasis for the Afghanistan delegation will be on getting the United States to reduce the number of civilian casualties that result from American-led military operations, and on transferring control of detention facilities, in particular the notorious prison at Bagram Air Base, from US to Afghan control, Omer said.
The American side is expected to press the Afghans on curbing government corruption. “More needs to be done [on corruption] in certain areas, and that’s a view that we think is shared by the Afghans,” Rhodes said. “And so a visit like this is an opportunity to discuss the steps that need to be taken to continue forward momentum in improving governance.”
The Afghan government recognizes that it needs to combat corruption, Omer conceded, but added that the Afghans would push back against American criticism. He explained that of all the money that the international community has spent in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, only about 20 percent has gone through the government, the rest having been spent by non-governmental organizations, contractors and other entities. And of the money allocated to the Afghan government, the majority was earmarked for specific programs, giving officials in Kabul discretion over only about 8 percent of the total spending. Omar also said that the Afghans would highlight some recent anti-corruption efforts, including reforms on how local governmental bodies can spend money and appoint officials.
Joshua Kucera is a Washington, DC,-based freelance writer who specializes in security issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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