A key factor in the hoped-for success of the American effort in Afghanistan is the stability and reliability of the nation's government. In response to pressure, Hamid Karzai promised that his presidency would mark the beginning of clean government. We put Karzai in office and we have kept him there, even in the face of skewed elections.
Now Karzai's government is undermining investigations and efforts to remove corrupt officials from office.
Top officials in President Hamid Karzai's government have repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Afghanistan's authorities with wiretapping technology and other assistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft.
In recent months, the U.S. officials said, Afghan prosecutors and investigators have been ordered to cross names off case files, prevent senior officials from being placed under arrest and disregard evidence against executives of a major financial firm suspected of helping the nation's elite move millions of dollars overseas.
As a result, U.S. advisers sent to Kabul by the Justice Department, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration have come to see Afghanistan's corruption problem in increasingly stark terms."Above a certain level, people are being very well protected," said a senior U.S. official involved in the investigations. ...WaPo
Bottom line: there is no point our remaining in Afghanistan if our efforts achieve only temporary results and we continue to tolerate serious corruption throughout the country.
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Meanwhile, negotiations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have taken a bad turn.
...The very notion of Pakistani-sponsored talks has sparked consternation among Afghanistan's ethnically fractured opposition, who fear the rapprochement with Islamabad will see them excluded from any future political settlement.
"None of the players believe in the current strategy," opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah told the Guardian. "Karzai is going down the drain and taking the international community with him."
"If he thinks he can give [the Taliban] a few ministries and a few provinces, they will simply take those provinces and then force him out."
Abdullah said he was appalled that the Afghan president had recently referred to the Taliban with the affectionate "jan" suffix. "Talib-jan is how you would refer to your dearest young son – it would be considered too soft to use on a teenager."
Three weeks ago Karzai's intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, and his interior minister, Hanif Atmar, quit in protest at the new Pakistan policy. Both men are Tajiks; Saleh was previously a leading member of the Northern Alliance that helped topple the Taliban in 2001.
Michael Semple, a regional expert, said he was alarmed at the speed with which the political class was fissuring.
"Sane people, who've been part of this process all along, are now saying the country won't survive till the end of the year," he said. ...Guardian
