by Jacob Havel
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Afghanistan |
Sitting
Afghani President Hamid Karzai remains defiant towards U.S. demands that he
sign the Bilateral Security Agreement. If signed, the agreement would allow for
continued military cooperation between Afghanistan and the U.S.+NATO including
troop presence, monetary aid, and continued training of Afghani security
forces.
While many see Western aid as vital, Karzai’s dissonance is
a result of unmet requests that the U.S. would actively pursue peace talks with
Taliban leaders. While the U.S. outwardly seeks to continue counterterrorism
operations in Afghanistan, neither they nor the Taliban have shown interest in
pursuing such negotiations. On the contrary, the Taliban have vowed to increase
violence in the weeks leading up to the April presidential elections. Indeed,
recent attacks on a police station in Jalalabad and a hotel in Kabul have shown
that the Taliban will seek to perpetuate a state of disorder and terror even
with the election of new leadership.
Moreover, there is the looming “zero-option” threat, whereby
a complete withdrawal of U.S. military personnel would take place. The
possibility of this scenario has led to speculations that desertion and
unsustainable military infrastructure could lead to increased Taliban
aggression and large scale civil war.
In light of this outlook, the imperative nature of Western
military support has been acknowledged by all three of the major presidential
candidates and hope remains that the BSA would be signed once Karzai is
replaced. Furthermore, the high utility of Afghanistan as a base for regional
counter-terrorism operations (i.e. Bin Laden raid) suggests that the “zero
option” is more of a political statement than an impending reality. The
question remains: why all of the political posturing from Karzai?
The simple answer is that Karzai is using the lame-duck
phase of his presidency to distance himself from a legacy as a Western puppet.
However, a more meaningful statement could lie behind Karzai’s actions. It is
evident that in the twelve years since the U.S. invasion, the Taliban is still
very much alive in Afghanistan. Moreover, the U.S. has been increasingly
associated with special operations events and drone strikes that have resulted
in the seemingly unjustified deaths of Afghani civilians. It is therefore
possible that Karzai sees past and current U.S. “counter-terrorism” efforts as
a colossal failure. Worse yet, it is possible that U.S. “aid” is little more
than a disingenuous guise used to justify a military presence within
Afghanistan’s strategic geographic position.
Indeed, the reluctance to even consider diplomatic avenues
in the wake of impotent military efforts is indicative that the U.S. sees the
current level of Taliban activity as status quo that can be used as
justification for continued military presence. It is not such an impossible
idea when considering the U.S. habit of creating new “terror” groups by simply
labeling them as such. It is in this sense that they continually create new
villains and validate a particular brand of justice that perpetuates a
domineering presence across the Islamic world. In any case, the eventuality of
an agreement outside Karzai’s leadership is suggestive that his refusal could
in fact be a genuine attempt to make an ethical stand against unsavory Western
motivations.
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