» Could Afghanistan collapse after next year? - Christian Science Monitor
29/11/13 20:59 from Karzai - Google News
Could Afghanistan collapse after next year? Christian Science Monitor President Hamid Karzai 's stubborn refusal to sign a pact that would keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is a high-risk gamble that Washington ...
KABULPresident Hamid Karzai's stubborn refusal to sign a pact that would keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is a high-risk gamble that Washington will give in to his demands, one that has left him isolated as the clock runs down on his presidency.Diplomats said he may have overplayed his hand, raising the risk of a complete U.S. withdrawal from a country where Western troops have fought Taliban militants for the past 12 years. It also risks a backlash at home by critics who believe Karzai is playing a dangerous game with Afghanistan's future security.If the bilateral pact is not signed, Western aid running to billions of dollars will be in serious jeopardy, and confidence in the fragile economy could collapse amid fears the country will slip back into ethnic fighting or civil war.
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» US-Afghan security pact in jeopardy as Karzai makes new demands - Fox News
26/11/13 12:35 from Top Stories - Google News
San Francisco Chronicle US-Afghan security pact in jeopardy as Karzai makes new demands Fox News A long-term Afghanistan security pact was in jeopardy Tuesday after Afghan President Hamid Karzai made new demands, prompting the United Sta...
"I am not a puppet, I am a tough bargainer!" Bring the boys back home and let him bargain with the noose in Kabul central square, just like his predecessors!
» Karzai Makes Stand on Shakier Ground
26/11/13 17:48 from WSJ.com: World News
In his 12 years in power, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's strategy of posturing against the U.S. seemed to pay off at every turn, but in the latest confrontation over the security pact, he has found himself increasingly isolated.
» Karzai Will Not Sign US Security Pact Until Next Year
26/11/13 16:48 from Voice of America
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he will wait until his country's presidential elections in April before a security agreement with the United States is signed.In an interview with U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, Mr. Karzai...
» Afghan president handed ultimatum after demands on US security agreement - The Globe and Mail
26/11/13 12:11 from Top Stories - Google News
NDTV Afghan president handed ultimatum after demands on US security agreement The Globe and Mail President Barack Obama's national security adviser, Susan E. Rice, imposed an ultimatum on President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Mond...
Updates:
» Karzai Will Not Sign US Security Pact Until Next Year
27/11/13 01:10 from Voice of America
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that he will wait until his country's presidential elections in April before signing a security pact with the United States. In an interview with U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty, Karzai ...
Interview: Karzai Says He'll Agree To Deal Once The U.S. Meets His Demands
Excerpts:
RFE/RL: Mr. President, after meeting you on November 25, Susan Rice said in an interview the United States is worried that after failing to convince you to sign the agreement, Washington may be prompted to plan the withdrawal of all of its forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. You also know that America is committed to spending billions of dollars on strengthening Afghan security forces and on security in Afghanistan. Are you ready to endanger this $8 billion or $9 billion in American aid?
Karzai: It is up to the Americans whether they want to stay or go. Even if we sign a thousand agreements with them, if it doesn't suit their interests they will leave -- just as they left Afghanistan alone in 1990s during the years after jihad. I was a deputy foreign minister then and I saw how the West abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. I used to go to them and ask them to leave one junior official behind in their embassy. But they closed their embassy and left. So if it is not in their interest, they will never come here. If America wants to be in Afghanistan today, it is because of their own interests --- whether it is security interests or their major economic interests. As an independent nation, we have the right to protect and promote our interests.
RFE/RL: In your last speech to the Loya Jirga, you elaborated on one issue very clearly. You said that peace in Afghanistan is in the hands of the United States and Pakistan. Can you elaborate on that?
Karzai: Based on many reasons and I can prove this, the ongoing war in Afghanistan is being imposed on us and Afghans are being sacrificed in it for someone else's interests. We are not blocking the interests of the United States or other major powers. But we are demanding that if you consider Afghanistan the place from which to advance your interests, then you should also pay attention to Afghanistan’s interests. We are not demanding anything else.
M.N.: Is this an example of limited and narrow Kabul marketplace mentality or something deeper and more ambivalent than it? "It is in your interests to be here; I know this, therefore I can bargain for my part..."
RFE/RL: Do you think that the Afghan security forces are able to deal with the Taliban on their own?
Karzai: This is our responsibility. We are all Afghans and we know each other well. Whether we would fight the Taliban or make peace with them -- that is our problem. Last year, during my visit to Washington, in a very important briefing a day before I met U.S. President [Barack Obama], his national security adviser Tom Donilon, and senior White House officials, generals, and intelligence officials, the national security adviser met with me. He told me: "The Taliban are not our enemies and we don't want to fight them." I told him "This is a very good thing and this is what we want. We have been urging you for years to stop bombing people and fighting people inside of Afghanistan. So if you don't consider the Taliban your enemies and don't want to fight them, then why are you raiding Afghan homes every night? If you don’t consider the Taliban your enemies, which are something I want you to do and am happy you have recognized, then why are you going into Afghan homes in the name of looking for the Taliban every night?" My question is whether this will go on after the security agreement. This is why I can never allow it to happen. The security agreement should end American operations.
M.N.: Answer: The terrorist part of "Taliban" (apparently very mixed and complex in its composition movement, just like "Al Qaeda" and other fundamentalist Islamic movements) are just plain terrorists, regardless of their self-assigned labels; and no one declared any peace with them, so far.
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Karzai | Hamid Karzai | hamid karzai corruption | hamid karzai personality
28/11/13 09:30 from WSJ.com: World News
The Afghan president's push to delay a security pact with the U.S. has undermined confidence in Afghanistan's future, testing international support at a crucial moment, the U.S.-led coalition's top commander said.
U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, seen here in Kabul on June 18, 2013. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford warned that President Hamid Karzai's failure to quickly sign the agreement could weaken the Afghan economy, embolden the country's powerful neighbors and ultimately lead to the collapse of the country's security forces.
"I don't know if he fully realizes the risks," Gen. Dunford said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "He certainly understands it from an Afghan perspective. I don't know if he fully appreciates what the implications are for the United States."
The lack of clarity about the security agreement, which is needed for a U.S.-led force to remain in Afghanistan after the coalition's current mandate expires in December 2014, is already exacting a toll, Gen. Dunford said.
"The uncertainty and the lack of confidence about the post-2014 environment has had an adverse effect on the people in some very real ways, whether it be the flight of young people who try to leave the country, whether it be plunging real-estate prices, the rate of the afghani" currency, Gen. Dunford said.
Over the past week, Mr. Karzai has stepped up his confrontation with Washington over the bilateral security agreement, which was approved by Afghanistan's Loya Jirga assembly on Sunday, after more than a year of difficult negotiations. In addition to providing a framework for long-term U.S. military presence here, the deal is a prerequisite for billions of dollars in critical military and civilian aid to Afghanistan.
Despite a request for prompt ratification by the Loya Jirga, Mr. Karzai in recent days raised several new preconditions before signing the agreement, asking for more time and saying the U.S. must first jump-start the peace process with the Taliban insurgents.
In response, the White House warned that a failure to sign the deal by year-end would trigger planning for the so-called "zero option"—the complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan at the end of next year. The breakdown of similar talks in Iraq led to such a full U.S. pullout from that country in 2011, with sectarian violence increasing afterward. Gen. Dunford said he remains confident Mr. Karzai will ultimately sign the deal.
While Iraq could rely on its oil wealth to fund its security forces, Afghanistan depends on international commitments made at the Chicago North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit last year. The summit pledged $4.1 billion a year to bankroll Afghanistan's 352,000-strong military and police, with only about $500 million of that coming from the Afghan government.
"Right now, I don't see Afghanistan being able to sustain the Afghan security forces without the Chicago commitments," Gen. Dunford said.
The Chicago commitments are in addition to a similar amount of civilian aid that was pledged last year at a donor conference in Tokyo. Mr. Karzai's failure to promptly sign the security agreement would "jeopardize" both pledges, the White House said this week.
Mr. Karzai's delays are causing growing impatience in Western capitals, said Gen. Dunford, who commands some 48,000 U.S. and 25,000 allied troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. and its NATO allies, he said, would be hard pressed to muster the political will to meet these promises if the security deal gets bogged down.
"All of us have to go to our parliaments, and in the case of the United States, to the Congress, and we have to go and we have to request resources for the campaign," he said. "And that takes time, you have to articulate exactly what you need those resources for. And so it's important that we have certainty about post-2014 to generate the resources for post-2014."
Western ambassadors to Kabul met this week with senior Afghan cabinet members to deliver a similar message. The money pledged by donors, they said, wouldn't be forthcoming without a security deal.
Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal acknowledged the discussions, but told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the back-and-forth over the bilateral security agreement, or BSA, was "not a crisis."
"It is about how we manage to create the environment for signing the BSA, and that environment will be created. The position of the president is not that he rejects the BSA," Mr. Zakhilwal said. "I am optimistic about the signing of the BSA in time because the trust-building measures asked by the president are logical and good for both sides, and not as difficult as portrayed."
With the Taliban insurgents enjoying support from Pakistan and Iran, the delays in signing the BSA can also have direct consequences on the battlefield, Western officials say.
"The uncertainty about 2014 has also affected each of the regional actors around Afghanistan," said Gen. Dunford. "And if their calculus was to prepare to protect their interests in the context of a chaotic Afghanistan in 2014, I think the calculus is different if what they're seeing is a reasonable prospect for a stable, secure Afghanistan."
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com and Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
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» Afghanistan's Karzai stands alone in high-stakes game with U.S.
28/11/13 04:13 from Reuters: International
KABUL (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai's stubborn refusal to sign a pact that would keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is a high-risk gamble that Washington will give in to his demands, one that has left him isolat...
» Karzai says U.S. drone strike killed child, won’t sign security deal if similar attacks continue
30/11/13 01:26 from World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post
KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of launching a drone strike that killed a 2-year-old child Thursday and vowed to not sign a long-term security agreement if similar attacks continue. Read full article >...
» The Public Life of Hamid Karzai - New York Times (blog)
29/11/13 13:07 from Karzai - Google News
New York Times (blog) The Public Life of Hamid Karzai New York Times (blog) “Be fair,” urged Hamid Karzai at the conclusion of his long talks with William Dalrymple, which stretched over three evenings in July, during the fasting month o...
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Last Update on 11.28.13
Published on 11/26/13 3:30 PM Atlantic Standard Time
Karzai: It is up to the Americans whether they want to stay or go. Even if we sign a thousand agreements with them, if it doesn't suit their interests they will leave -- just as they left Afghanistan alone in 1990s during the years after jihad. I was a deputy foreign minister then and I saw how the West abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. I used to go to them and ask them to leave one junior official behind in their embassy. But they closed their embassy and left. So if it is not in their interest, they will never come here. If America wants to be in Afghanistan today, it is because of their own interests --- whether it is security interests or their major economic interests. As an independent nation, we have the right to protect and promote our interests.
RFE/RL: In your last speech to the Loya Jirga, you elaborated on one issue very clearly. You said that peace in Afghanistan is in the hands of the United States and Pakistan. Can you elaborate on that?
Karzai: Based on many reasons and I can prove this, the ongoing war in Afghanistan is being imposed on us and Afghans are being sacrificed in it for someone else's interests. We are not blocking the interests of the United States or other major powers. But we are demanding that if you consider Afghanistan the place from which to advance your interests, then you should also pay attention to Afghanistan’s interests. We are not demanding anything else.
M.N.: Is this an example of limited and narrow Kabul marketplace mentality or something deeper and more ambivalent than it? "It is in your interests to be here; I know this, therefore I can bargain for my part..."
RFE/RL: Do you think that the Afghan security forces are able to deal with the Taliban on their own?
Karzai: This is our responsibility. We are all Afghans and we know each other well. Whether we would fight the Taliban or make peace with them -- that is our problem. Last year, during my visit to Washington, in a very important briefing a day before I met U.S. President [Barack Obama], his national security adviser Tom Donilon, and senior White House officials, generals, and intelligence officials, the national security adviser met with me. He told me: "The Taliban are not our enemies and we don't want to fight them." I told him "This is a very good thing and this is what we want. We have been urging you for years to stop bombing people and fighting people inside of Afghanistan. So if you don't consider the Taliban your enemies and don't want to fight them, then why are you raiding Afghan homes every night? If you don’t consider the Taliban your enemies, which are something I want you to do and am happy you have recognized, then why are you going into Afghan homes in the name of looking for the Taliban every night?" My question is whether this will go on after the security agreement. This is why I can never allow it to happen. The security agreement should end American operations.
M.N.: Answer: The terrorist part of "Taliban" (apparently very mixed and complex in its composition movement, just like "Al Qaeda" and other fundamentalist Islamic movements) are just plain terrorists, regardless of their self-assigned labels; and no one declared any peace with them, so far.
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Karzai | Hamid Karzai | hamid karzai corruption | hamid karzai personality
Hamid Karzai - News Review
Hamid Karzai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamid_Karzai
Hamid Karzai GCMG (Pashto: حامد کرزی, Persian: حامد کرزی Hāmid Karzay; born 24 December 1957) is the 12th and current President of Afghanistan, taking ...
28/11/13 09:30 from WSJ.com: World News
The Afghan president's push to delay a security pact with the U.S. has undermined confidence in Afghanistan's future, testing international support at a crucial moment, the U.S.-led coalition's top commander said.
U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, seen here in Kabul on June 18, 2013. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford warned that President Hamid Karzai's failure to quickly sign the agreement could weaken the Afghan economy, embolden the country's powerful neighbors and ultimately lead to the collapse of the country's security forces.
"I don't know if he fully realizes the risks," Gen. Dunford said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "He certainly understands it from an Afghan perspective. I don't know if he fully appreciates what the implications are for the United States."
The lack of clarity about the security agreement, which is needed for a U.S.-led force to remain in Afghanistan after the coalition's current mandate expires in December 2014, is already exacting a toll, Gen. Dunford said.
"The uncertainty and the lack of confidence about the post-2014 environment has had an adverse effect on the people in some very real ways, whether it be the flight of young people who try to leave the country, whether it be plunging real-estate prices, the rate of the afghani" currency, Gen. Dunford said.
Over the past week, Mr. Karzai has stepped up his confrontation with Washington over the bilateral security agreement, which was approved by Afghanistan's Loya Jirga assembly on Sunday, after more than a year of difficult negotiations. In addition to providing a framework for long-term U.S. military presence here, the deal is a prerequisite for billions of dollars in critical military and civilian aid to Afghanistan.
Despite a request for prompt ratification by the Loya Jirga, Mr. Karzai in recent days raised several new preconditions before signing the agreement, asking for more time and saying the U.S. must first jump-start the peace process with the Taliban insurgents.
In response, the White House warned that a failure to sign the deal by year-end would trigger planning for the so-called "zero option"—the complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan at the end of next year. The breakdown of similar talks in Iraq led to such a full U.S. pullout from that country in 2011, with sectarian violence increasing afterward. Gen. Dunford said he remains confident Mr. Karzai will ultimately sign the deal.
While Iraq could rely on its oil wealth to fund its security forces, Afghanistan depends on international commitments made at the Chicago North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit last year. The summit pledged $4.1 billion a year to bankroll Afghanistan's 352,000-strong military and police, with only about $500 million of that coming from the Afghan government.
"Right now, I don't see Afghanistan being able to sustain the Afghan security forces without the Chicago commitments," Gen. Dunford said.
The Chicago commitments are in addition to a similar amount of civilian aid that was pledged last year at a donor conference in Tokyo. Mr. Karzai's failure to promptly sign the security agreement would "jeopardize" both pledges, the White House said this week.
Mr. Karzai's delays are causing growing impatience in Western capitals, said Gen. Dunford, who commands some 48,000 U.S. and 25,000 allied troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. and its NATO allies, he said, would be hard pressed to muster the political will to meet these promises if the security deal gets bogged down.
"All of us have to go to our parliaments, and in the case of the United States, to the Congress, and we have to go and we have to request resources for the campaign," he said. "And that takes time, you have to articulate exactly what you need those resources for. And so it's important that we have certainty about post-2014 to generate the resources for post-2014."
Western ambassadors to Kabul met this week with senior Afghan cabinet members to deliver a similar message. The money pledged by donors, they said, wouldn't be forthcoming without a security deal.
Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal acknowledged the discussions, but told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that the back-and-forth over the bilateral security agreement, or BSA, was "not a crisis."
"It is about how we manage to create the environment for signing the BSA, and that environment will be created. The position of the president is not that he rejects the BSA," Mr. Zakhilwal said. "I am optimistic about the signing of the BSA in time because the trust-building measures asked by the president are logical and good for both sides, and not as difficult as portrayed."
With the Taliban insurgents enjoying support from Pakistan and Iran, the delays in signing the BSA can also have direct consequences on the battlefield, Western officials say.
"The uncertainty about 2014 has also affected each of the regional actors around Afghanistan," said Gen. Dunford. "And if their calculus was to prepare to protect their interests in the context of a chaotic Afghanistan in 2014, I think the calculus is different if what they're seeing is a reasonable prospect for a stable, secure Afghanistan."
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com and Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
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» Afghanistan's Karzai stands alone in high-stakes game with U.S.
28/11/13 04:13 from Reuters: International
KABUL (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai's stubborn refusal to sign a pact that would keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014 is a high-risk gamble that Washington will give in to his demands, one that has left him isolat...
» Karzai says U.S. drone strike killed child, won’t sign security deal if similar attacks continue
30/11/13 01:26 from World: World News, International News, Foreign Reporting - The Washington Post
KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the United States of launching a drone strike that killed a 2-year-old child Thursday and vowed to not sign a long-term security agreement if similar attacks continue. Read full article >...
» The Public Life of Hamid Karzai - New York Times (blog)
29/11/13 13:07 from Karzai - Google News
New York Times (blog) The Public Life of Hamid Karzai New York Times (blog) “Be fair,” urged Hamid Karzai at the conclusion of his long talks with William Dalrymple, which stretched over three evenings in July, during the fasting month o...
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Last Update on 11.28.13
Published on 11/26/13 3:30 PM Atlantic Standard Time