Tag: Karzai
A systematic campaign has been afoot in the western media in the recent months focusing on the former Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s political activities as an elder statesman, while living his life in retirement in Kabul. What began as innuendoes […]
The outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai used his national address in office before leaving the presidential palace to warn the new government headed by Ashraf Ghani that the ongoing violence in Afghanistan provided a convenient excuse for the US to maintain its bases in the country. «My advice to the next government is to be very careful with America and the West», Karzai cautioned in his speech…
Afghanistan has witnessed two major events in the most recent weeks. One is the assumption of office by Ashraf Ghani as the next president of the country, succeeding Hamid Karzai. The second has been the signing of the two «back-to-back» security pacts between Afghanistan on the one hand and the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] on the other. Both developments are of historical importance in their own ways. Ghani’s presidency signifies a rare peaceful transition of power in the ebb and flow of Afghan history. As for the second, Afghanistan has been invaded and occupied before in its tumultuous history dating back to Alexander the Great – the last famous occupation followed the British invasion in the 19th century – but never before has that country had to agree to foreign military presence on its soil in such an open-ended fashion…
…Washington doesn’t want any substantive «Afghan-led», «Afghan-controlled» peace talks except under its auspices. Most important, it does not want any serious dealings with the Taliban to take place before Karzai retired and a proxy has been put in power in Kabul who would duly put his signature on the dotted line on the US-Afghan Bilateral Security Agreement, formalizing the establishment of the US-NATO military bases in Afghanistan…