Bret Stephens: In Defense of Hamid Karzai
[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.]
In the matter of Hamid Karzai (this would be the feckless, warlord-backed, corruption-tainted and dubiously re-elected president of Afghanistan), it's wonderful to observe how he has single-handedly created a new designation in the American ideological lexicon: the neo-neocon.
Who are the neo-neocons? They're a bipartisan, single-issue group that has recently discovered the virtues—nay, the necessity—of clean, orderly, democratic governance.
On the left, they are the same folks who enthusiastically supported the Oslo Accords that brought about Yasser Arafat's violent and kleptocratic rule. They were no less enthusiastic about underwriting the enterprise with billions in foreign aid, even as evidence accumulated that the money was being put to every use except improving the life of Palestinians.
On the right, they are the people who used to extol the virtues of Marcos, Pinochet, Musharraf and every other Third World strongman who happened to be "our SOB." They're also fond of citing Edmund Burke, et al., about the hopelessness of planting democratic trees in sandy Muslim soils.
Now the two wings of this new movement are improbably joined in making the case that the realities of Mr. Karzai's compromised government hopelessly complicate our task in Afghanistan and fall far short of being something worth fighting for. What to do? On this key point, the neo-neocons aren't quite sure, except to strike a pose of serious reserve about the war, tending in the direction of exit.
But just how bad, really, is Hamid Karzai? Let's compare.
Is Mr. Karzai as bad as his immediate predecessor, Mullah Mohammed Omar, under whose medieval rule Afghanistan became not just a safe haven for al Qaeda, but a byword for Islamist barbarism? Is he as bad as what came before the Taliban: Four years of unrestrained civil war in which nearly all of Kabul was blasted to ruin?
Is Mr. Karzai as bad as the Soviet-backed governments of Mohammad Najibullah and Babrak Karmal, who applied the usual Communist methods of rounding up, torturing and killing tens of thousands of real, suspected or imaginary political opponents? Is he as bad as Mohammed Daoud Khan, who in 1973 overthrew the Afghan monarchy in favor of a repressive, but also incompetent, one-party system?
Or is Mr. Karzai a leader on a par with Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, who was politically weak and allegedly somewhat corrupt but essentially decent, civilized and well-meaning? Today, Zahir's rule is remembered as a golden age in Afghan history.
These historical precedents are worth recalling because they are the templates of the kind of governance Afghans can reasonably expect. Would they have done better under Mr. Karzai's main challenger in the last election, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah? Maybe, but Dr. Abdullah is half-Tajik. And the brute reality of Afghanistan is that it would be even more difficult to govern under a non-Pashtun president, since Pashtuns are half the Afghan population and most of the trouble...
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In the matter of Hamid Karzai (this would be the feckless, warlord-backed, corruption-tainted and dubiously re-elected president of Afghanistan), it's wonderful to observe how he has single-handedly created a new designation in the American ideological lexicon: the neo-neocon.
Who are the neo-neocons? They're a bipartisan, single-issue group that has recently discovered the virtues—nay, the necessity—of clean, orderly, democratic governance.
On the left, they are the same folks who enthusiastically supported the Oslo Accords that brought about Yasser Arafat's violent and kleptocratic rule. They were no less enthusiastic about underwriting the enterprise with billions in foreign aid, even as evidence accumulated that the money was being put to every use except improving the life of Palestinians.
On the right, they are the people who used to extol the virtues of Marcos, Pinochet, Musharraf and every other Third World strongman who happened to be "our SOB." They're also fond of citing Edmund Burke, et al., about the hopelessness of planting democratic trees in sandy Muslim soils.
Now the two wings of this new movement are improbably joined in making the case that the realities of Mr. Karzai's compromised government hopelessly complicate our task in Afghanistan and fall far short of being something worth fighting for. What to do? On this key point, the neo-neocons aren't quite sure, except to strike a pose of serious reserve about the war, tending in the direction of exit.
But just how bad, really, is Hamid Karzai? Let's compare.
Is Mr. Karzai as bad as his immediate predecessor, Mullah Mohammed Omar, under whose medieval rule Afghanistan became not just a safe haven for al Qaeda, but a byword for Islamist barbarism? Is he as bad as what came before the Taliban: Four years of unrestrained civil war in which nearly all of Kabul was blasted to ruin?
Is Mr. Karzai as bad as the Soviet-backed governments of Mohammad Najibullah and Babrak Karmal, who applied the usual Communist methods of rounding up, torturing and killing tens of thousands of real, suspected or imaginary political opponents? Is he as bad as Mohammed Daoud Khan, who in 1973 overthrew the Afghan monarchy in favor of a repressive, but also incompetent, one-party system?
Or is Mr. Karzai a leader on a par with Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, who was politically weak and allegedly somewhat corrupt but essentially decent, civilized and well-meaning? Today, Zahir's rule is remembered as a golden age in Afghan history.
These historical precedents are worth recalling because they are the templates of the kind of governance Afghans can reasonably expect. Would they have done better under Mr. Karzai's main challenger in the last election, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah? Maybe, but Dr. Abdullah is half-Tajik. And the brute reality of Afghanistan is that it would be even more difficult to govern under a non-Pashtun president, since Pashtuns are half the Afghan population and most of the trouble...