Ahmed Wali Karzai: Embodiment of a Flawed System Posted by Jacob Stokes

There’s a lot of good commentary out today on Ahmed Wali Karzai, most of which seeks to answer the question: Is this good or bad for the U.S. mission to stabilize the country?

Brian Katulis takes a crack:

Although it is too early to assess what impact his assassination will have on the rough-and-tumble politics of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai’s killing and the role he played in recent years serves as a reminder of how one wields power in Afghanistan and what it means when people talk about sharing power and using terms like reconciliation. In today’s Afghanistan, these words mean who will control the guns and money. And for all of the talk about “smart power” and civilian surges, the big money in Afghanistan today is still wrapped up in running criminal networks, drug trafficking, and controlling the shipping networks.

And Josh Foust has searing indictment of AWK:

Whatever his influence as a political stabilizer, though, Ahmed Wali was also an economic and political nightmare. He would, in essence, hold court at his many offices and mansions around Kandahar city, circumventing the "legitimate" government and doling out to his supplicants handfuls of cash everyone whispered were gained through smuggling opium. From a business perspective, AWK was a mafia don, controlling his own business interests with an iron fist and, the rumors go, violently attacking anyone who posed too much competition… When your entire modus operandi is based on friendly local strongmen, you rise and fall on their backs.

Ahmed Rashid explains how the U.S. relied on AWK:

However much Ahmed Wali Karzai was loved or loathed, his death leaves a huge political vacuum for the Americans and President Karzai at a critical moment for three efforts — the war against the Taliban, the start of the drawing down of American forces, and American efforts to talk to the Taliban and forge a peace agreement.

Ahmed Wali Karzai was involved in all three. He had forged tribal alliances to defend his half brother’s presidency and extend the central government’s rule outside Kabul. He openly helped American and British forces with strategic advice and knowledge of the tribes, and ran a clandestine Afghan special operations team for the C.I.A. And, as early as 2007, he was the first prominent Afghan leader to start talks with the Taliban in a bid to end the war.

Reading these, the obvious lesson for ISAF seems to be the hardest to learn: When you build political strategy around a single man or family – AWK, Hamid Karzai, whoever – you’re not only giving them great power which will likely result in abuse. (The money line in Rashid’s piece: “His tribal politics often led his rivals to join the Taliban.”) But you’re also ensuring that the system is tied to their heartbeat. Once it stops, so does the system.

So let’s not let the death of AWK go to waste. It’s time to focus on building a political system that can outlast our temporary partners. If we can't find a way to do that given the huge amounts of resources dedicated to the war, then we should remove those resources.

Photo Credit: The Guardian

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