KABUL // President Hamid Karzai’s shifting stance during security talks with the US has infuriated Washington and mystified many Afghans, but analysts say his tactics are driven by a belief that he is in a position of strength.
Negotiations on a security pact allowing some US troops to stay in Afghanistan after 2014 have seen the Afghan president at his most unpredictable – adding new demands, reneging on promises and taunting his supposed allies.
Mr Karzai’s leadership of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 has been marked by attempts to demonstrate his credentials as an independent nationalist despite his reliance on US aid and military power.
Now, in the final months of his presidency, he appears to have gambled that the US will never enact its threatened “zero option” of a complete troop pull-out – presenting him with a unique chance to burnish his patriotic image.
“The negotiations provide Karzai with the opportunity to play hard, given the timing and the desperation of the Americans to get this agreement signed as soon as possible,” Daud Muradian, an analyst and former Afghan foreign official, said.
“The bilateral security agreement (BSA) will be the first major agreement to allow a superpower to have military bases here – one of the red lines of Afghan nationalism. Mr Karzai doesn’t want to be judged before history as someone who just put his signature on an agreement that sold Afghan soil to foreigners. This is a big deal for Afghanistan.”
The high-stakes game over the future US presence in Afghanistan, where Taliban Islamists remain determined to regain power, intensified a notch on Monday when Washington repeated that a full military pull-out was on the table.
In a late-night meeting requested by Mr Karzai, US national security advisor Susan Rice accused Karzai of introducing new conditions for the BSA, which he said last week he wanted to be signed only after April’s presidential election.
“Deferring the signature of the agreement until after next year’s elections is not viable,” a White House statement said after Monday’s talks, adding that international aid vital to Afghanistan was at risk due to the delays.
A similar deal with Iraq collapsed in 2011 leading to a complete US troop pull-out and the country is now in the grip of worsening sectarian violence.
But Mr Karzai’s officials have repeatedly said they do not believe Washington will walk away again.
“President Karzai believes that in recent months he has gained a rare advantage – a powerful tool with which to bargain with the Americans,” said Waheed Wafa, the director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University.
“He saw he could try to impose his demands. His conditions are for Afghanistan but also include concerns about his own future and security and that of his family. Mr Karzai wants to make great use of this opportunity.”
The Afghan president, facing the threat of lame-duck status after serving the maximum two terms in power, last week refused to sign the BSA promptly despite the “loya jirga” assembly that he convened voting for him to do so.
But Ahmad Idrees Rahmani, director of Kabul research company Air Consulting, predicted that the loya jirga’s overwhelming vote for the BSA meant that Mr Karzai would eventually put his signature to a deal.
“He hoped the jirga to come up with more demands for him to negotiate further with the Americans. That did not happen,” Mr Rahmani said.
“He has been trying to be tough to gain concessions, but now I think he will sign it in the end.”
* Agence France-Presse
