Increasingly unwanted foreign interference in Afghan domestic affairs, in particular from Britain, has drawn the ire of many informed analysts, including President Hamid Karzai.
In a rare criticism Karzai attacked the British military forces in the southwestern province of Helmand for their less than stellar performance in helping maintain peace and security, and evicting the Taliban forces.
The Afghan leader blamed the Brits for the recent problems and continuation of instability in his war-ravaged Muslim country. He said it was under the influence of the former colonial power that had made mistakes that resulted in the deterioration of security in Helmand province and other regions.
“The mistake was that we removed a local arrangement without having a replacement. We removed the police force. That was not good. The security forces were not in sufficient numbers or informed about the province. That is why the Taliban came back in,“ Karzai complained in a talk with reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Strong public criticism from the high Afghan authority of the poor performance of British forces is yet another indication that the six-year plus Anglo-American military presence leaves much to be desired. Among other things, it also exposes the huge differences between the government in Kabul and Downing Street over how best to take on the medieval Taliban and its Al-Qaeda patrons.
It needs recalling that regional watchers do not discount the fact that such open criticism is indeed a response by the embattled Afghan government to creeping discord between the United States and Britain over Afghan issues. For sometime now it is being regularly reported that London is trying to open talks with the banned Taliban militia to help prevent the killing of its forces by Al-Qaeda and its supporters.
Last year British forces handed over the city of Musa Qala to the Taliban. The undisputed reality is that after six years of almost complete military-intelligence access to Afghanistan, the US and Britain have not only failed miserably to defeat terror but have also shown shocking lack of leadership in such a grave venture.
Growing criticism by US’ NATO allies of the superpower’s military failures and follies in Afghanistan shows that Washington too has fared equally bad in its deafening “war on terror“ propaganda that few powers if any now take seriously, including George Bush’s closest Arab friends. So, it should not be surprising that the Atlantic alliance recently rejected US calls for increasing troops in Afghanistan.
However, Karzai’s bitter attack should send the right messages to London and Washington whose power and influence in this part of the world is already fading faster than many would like to believe.
It was just last year that Kabul expelled some British diplomats for their covert links to Al-Qaeda.
There is no doubt that the US and the UK are more worried about their own economic and political interests in Afghanistan. What happens to that pauperized country, its oppressed people and their future is hardly of importance!
The two western states are pushing ahead by exerting systemic pressure on Karzai who has come to realize that the controversial Anglo-American policies have mostly failed and added to the instability and uncertainty in his country.