PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan returns practically empty handed from his visit to Washington and one-to-one meeting with President George Bush. For once since his induction as head of state in an interim capacity under the Bonn agreement of December 2001 and as elected president after the October 2004 general elections, Mr Karzai does not seem in too happy an equilibrium with the United States, the mainstay of his presidency.

In a rare show of ire on the eve of his Washington visit, Mr Karzai roundly condemned US forces for the ‘abuse’ of Afghan detainees in their custody at the Bagram military base north of Kabul. Besides demanding ‘strong and clear cut action’ against the offenders, he went on to describe the excesses committed by the US soldiers as an act compromising the national sovereignty and pride of the Afghan people.

In a surge of emotion — befitting for a proud Afghan but politically theatrical if meant to salvage his image as an ‘American puppet’ — Mr Karzai many have overplayed his hand. He demanded that the US forces should be placed under the control of his government in their dealings with Afghan civilians.

“No operation inside Afghanistan should take place without consultation with the Afghan government,” he said. This is the last thing the US would expect from a US-backed leader. To Mr Karzai’s request for even nominal control over the US forces, President Bush’s prompt reply was: “Our troops will respond to US commanders (only).” “Consulting” the Afghan government on the operational part of the US forces is little more than a sop.

Mr Karzai’s domestic compulsions to assure the Afghans of his own status and authority as an elected president vis-a-vis the US, simultaneous with his reliance on a foreign military presence for his own and his country’s security, does not make much practical sense.

Barely a couple of weeks before his joining issue with the US on the conduct of its forces, Mr Karzai happened to be in Brussels, where he ‘urged’ Nato and the international community to let their military forces stay in Afghanistan in order to ‘reinforce’ democracy and security.

“My request to you is that you continue to stay with us... if you do not do that you would leave the work half way undone.” It would take Afghanistan “many years” before it could stand on its feet “in real terms.”

The task to immediately engage the foreign military forces in Afghanistan would be to ensure smooth passage of the parliamentary elections scheduled for October. They would, however, continue to stay on for an unspecified period of time.

Nato secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Schieffer, while speaking of the support Nato had already provided to Afghanistan, said that he aimed to “keep up” those forces “under its (Nato’s) command.”

Among Afghan leaders there appears to be considerable lack of consensus on the continued presence of American and foreign forces. On May 8, a Loi Jirga was summoned by Mr Karzai to discuss and achieve consensus on the issue. The jirga did not approve the recommended proposal to leave the issue for the yet to be elected parliament to consider. The security for the jirga, under the strict control of the US forces, led to a boycott by at least two top Afghan leaders, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani and foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

What soured Mr Karzai’s US visit further were some widely-circulated press reports blaming his government for failure in controlling the flourishing narcotics trade. The image of Mr Karzai’s Afghanistan as a narco-state is back in the US media with a good deal of force.

What is truly disturbing is that Pakistan is also being dragged into the mess. Quetta and Chaman are named as the principal entry points for the onward traffic of narcotics to Europe and America. This would call for a thorough analysis of the situation and corrective measures against continuance of the clandestine traffic across our borders.

Mr Karzai’s multiple dilemma is highlighted by his desperate attempts to muster support from his co-ethnic Pushtuns to contain the influence and the strength of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance. Ever since 2002, he has been making overtures to the maverick Gulbadin Hekmatyar to come and join hands with him. Early this month, Mulla Omar, Amirul Mominin of the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, was also invited to come as a part of a general amnesty. The ‘amnesty’ is supposed to cover all Afghan detainees in Afghanistan and elsewhere, including Gauntanamo Bay.

The offer was extended by Sibghatullah Mojeddedi, the first interim president after the fall of Dr Najibullah in April 1992. Mojeddedi heads the National Commission for Peace in Afghanistan.

It is to be noted that both Mulla Omar and Hekmatyar are wanted by the Americans for their anti-American activities. The former carries a bounty of $10 million on his head.

Mr Karzai’s loosening hold over the domestic situation came in full view in the outbreak of violence in Jalalabad and Khost earlier in the month, when law-enforcing agencies were conspicuous by their absence.

President Karzai’s multiple dilemma, in sum, emerges from the widening gap between his yearning for ‘national sovereignty without trappings’ and his lack of space to manoeuvre in the presence of foreign military forces and America’s declared intent to stay on for as long as it may to like.

— The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan army.