Dangerous Stubbornness

It is no secret that the United States and the Afghan presidents cannot stand each other. Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai have each expected more from one another. Now, they are playing a power game that one of them will lose, and it will be Karzai. If Karzai does not sign the bilateral agreement that his advisers just recommended, the U.S. threatens to remove not just their own, but all international troops from Afghanistan.

That would be a dream come true for the Taliban and the terrorists of al-Qaida. Afghanistan would suffer a worse fate than Iraq, which also refused Washington’s demands, leading to the withdrawal of U.S. troops and chaos, which has continued to the present day, even though Iraq has much larger financial resources and its security forces are well-trained and organized.

In Afghanistan, on the other hand, the condition of the police and army is pitiable. Without NATO’s support they will not have much to wield against the enemies of freedom. NATO, however, needs viable plans for the mission after 2015. It cannot wait for a new president to decide if he will sign the agreement. Despite all the mistakes the U.S. and other nations have made, the stubborn Karzai should not forget that, without them, he would have neither an office, nor, in all likelihood, his life.