Tag Archives: Karazai

President Karzai of Afghanistan, responding to an Obama interview which called for new initiatives in Afghanistan, indicated he would welcome an outreach to the Taliban. The assumption of President Obama is the analogy of what happened in Iraq could be duplicated in Afghanistan. The model of General Petraeus has been constantly cited even though the comparison simply doesn’t match between Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has three main factions–Sunni, Shiite and Kurd. Afghanistan has dozens of tribal chieftains as well as several factions within the Taliban and attempting to win them over to one view would be extremely difficult.
There is no doubt Karzai would like a change in tactics given that he is losing control of the entire nation. Reality is that Afghanistan will not lend itself to the “surge strategy” that was
employed in Iraq. At best, it might be more logical to focus on controlling a certain section of the country, but even this will not work unless the Karzai goes and an independent, honest government is installed to run the country. Bush blundered by not grabbing the chance of 2001 to install a government of technocrats and those tribal chieftains who wanted the beginning of a modern society. Is it too late?