The Karzai Itch

Hamid Karzai after taking over the helm of Afghanistan has probably not slept a day. He figures in the news lately as he has become quite a nuisance to the man in the White House. He should be a nuisance, considered that he’s trying to bring in peace into a war torn country.

Afghanistan is a country filled with nomadic tribes, each of these tribes act autonomously over their areas of dominance headed by leaders named elders (probably in Pashto). The country has always been in conflict. In the past 30 years the Soviets tried to capture it, then it had its own brand of civil war which the Taliban won, then the US came in to take them out and hasn’t left it yet. The Taliban still reiterate with small skirmishes.

Karzai, trying to bring peace to the country decided to call a ‘Loya Jirga’, a meeting of the ‘elders’ and has also invited the Taliban. He wants to devise a peace plan wherein all the tribes are pacified.

Now, this puts the US, UK and Pakistan in a pickle. If peace does come out of it, Uncle Sam and the Old Blighty has to bring back its troops putting a halt to their long term plan of attacking Iran (which has one of the largest oil reserves in the world!) and also the huge reconstruction plans of the country by which America’s corporate world can sell off their mediocre goods and use their scrapped off assembly lines to create ‘value’.

Pakistan, of course, has other plans. If Taliban directly talks to the Taliban, they would loose their stronghold over them. So, they demand that Afghanistan talk to the Taliban through the ISI (Pakistan’s intelligence agency) as they finance them and in turn provide Mujahideen to do their dirty work.

The Taliban can either risk it and go to the Jirga hoping they’ll have some say in running the government or continue to be loyal to Pakistan.I hope they do come together for an amicable solution and let peace prevail.